Electric vehicles from China’s Lotus brand are expected to land in Canada next month, according to China’s ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, who spoke exclusively with Reuters on Friday.
The Lotus vehicles, manufactured and owned by Geely Holding Group, will be the first Chinese-made cars to enter Canada for sale under a newly established agreement between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping. That deal permits as many as 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles to enter Canada each year at a lower tariff rate, as Carney works to shift Canada’s trade focus away from its reliance on the United States.
“Geely EVs will be arriving in Canada next month and they will be holding a ceremony when the cars are delivered in Montreal,” Ambassador Wang said.
Lotus Cars did not respond to a request for comment, and Canada’s Global Affairs department was also unable to immediately provide details about the anticipated arrival.
Wang noted that other Chinese automakers, including Chery and BYD, are currently working through the required steps with Canadian government agencies before they can begin shipping vehicles to Canada. Canadian officials have previously indicated that some vehicles arrived earlier so manufacturers could test them under Canadian driving conditions.
“I hope in autumn this year, the truly, genuinely other Chinese brand EVs will complete the procedures and get into the Canadian market,” Wang said through an interpreter.
BYD Executive Vice President Stella Li recently told Reuters that her company would likely begin sales in Canada next year. U.S.-based Tesla has already been importing Chinese-manufactured vehicles into Canada.
Beyond vehicle sales, Canada is also looking to draw joint ventures and investment into its domestic electric vehicle supply chain. Wang said Chinese EV manufacturers are open to forming joint ventures, but plan to first establish sales and assess market demand before making such commitments.
Carney’s move to open the door to Chinese EV imports has drawn criticism from some U.S. officials and members of Congress.
TRADE GROWTH EXPECTED TO SURGE
During a visit to China in January, Carney announced that Canada would aim to grow its exports to China by 50% by the year 2030. However, China’s Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi suggested last month that exports could actually double — a 100% increase.
To achieve that doubling, Canadian exports would need to grow at roughly 15% per year over the next five years, Ambassador Wang explained. He added that Canadian exports have already climbed 27.5% in the five months since Carney’s January visit.
“As we continue to move forward, our economic and trade cooperation continues to unleash the potential in our economies and continues to leverage the complementarities that we have, I think maybe we can go beyond the 100%, maybe, we can reach 200%,” Wang said.
On energy, Wang said Canada could potentially supply China with nearly 22 million metric tons of crude oil annually, up from 15.5 million tons last year. He also expressed strong interest in Canada’s liquefied natural gas, though he did not elaborate further.
Wang also highlighted that despite Canada being a major exporter of canola, peas, and beef, it currently accounts for just 2% of China’s agricultural imports — pointing to significant untapped market potential.
“As long as we keep to the right track, at the right pace, towards the right direction, there will be a lot of potential for us to increase our trade,” he said.
China reduced tariffs on certain Canadian products back in March, but maintained a 100% duty on canola oil and a 25% tariff on pork. Tariff relief covering products such as canola meal, peas, and lobster is set to expire at the end of this year, leaving exporters facing uncertainty.
When asked whether China would extend the tariff suspension or lower duties on pork and canola oil, Wang declined to give a direct answer.
“As long as the two countries uphold the principle of mutual respect, equality, reciprocity … there will be nothing that we cannot resolve,” he said.
At the same time, Wang cautioned that the Canadian government must adhere to principles of mutual respect, find common ground, and pursue outcomes that benefit both nations.
“Whenever these principles are not followed, of course, there will be a negative impact,” he warned.
The Buffalo Sabres made a significant move on draft day Friday, trading for defenseman Olen Zellweger from the Anaheim Ducks.
To complete the deal, the Ducks will receive a second-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, the 45th overall pick in that same draft, and 20-year-old forward prospect Anton Wahlberg.
Zellweger, who is 22 years old, is set to become a restricted free agent on July 1. While the Sabres confirmed the trade, no details about a potential contract extension were released.
The young defenseman wrapped up his third professional season this year, appearing in 76 regular-season games for Anaheim and putting up 22 points — seven goals and 15 assists. He also saw action in three playoff games, contributing one goal and one assist for two points.
Over his career with the Ducks, Zellweger has totaled 51 points — 16 goals and 35 assists — across 164 regular-season games. Anaheim originally selected him with the 34th overall pick in the 2021 NHL Draft.
Wahlberg, meanwhile, was chosen by Buffalo with the 39th pick in the 2023 draft. During the 2024-25 season, he skated for Rochester in the American Hockey League, recording 37 points on nine goals and 28 assists.
The 2026 NHL Draft kicked off Friday evening and is scheduled to continue Saturday at KeyBank Center in Buffalo.
Travelers making their way southbound along Coastal Highway are running into significant traffic congestion, with delays of approximately 10 to 15 minutes being reported between Lewes and Dewey Beach.
The slowdown appears to be the result of heavy congestion along that corridor. No specific incident or crash has been cited as the cause — the backup is attributed to traffic volume alone.
Drivers in the area are encouraged to allow extra travel time or consider alternate routes to avoid the delay.
Scottie Scheffler came tantalizingly close to shooting a 59 Friday at the Travelers Championship, ultimately settling for a brilliant 60 that vaulted him to the top of the leaderboard at 16-under par through two rounds at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut.
On the par-4 18th hole, Scheffler’s birdie attempt slipped just inches past the cup to the right, leaving him to tap in for par and a round of 60 — still an exceptional score that left him one shot ahead of Viktor Hovland and two clear of Akshay Bhatia, who carded a second-round 62.
“The conditions were really good this morning,” Scheffler said. “Softer golf course, not too much wind. … I’m sure if you looked at today’s round compared to yesterday’s round, I’m sure the ball-striking was pretty similar.”
Scheffler opened his Friday round with a birdie before making a bogey at the second hole, missing a six-foot putt on the par-4. That would prove to be his last significant misstep of the day. Over his final 16 holes, he reeled off 10 birdies, posting matching scores of 30 on both the front and back nines. Combined with his opening 64 on Thursday, Scheffler is now chasing his second Travelers Championship title in three years.
Heavy rainfall softened the greens at TPC River Highlands, contributing to low scoring throughout Friday’s second round — a familiar pattern at this event.
With his 60, Scheffler joins Patrick Cantlay (2011) and Tommy Bolt (1954) in the record books for the best second-round score in tournament history. Jim Furyk holds the all-time single-round record at the event with a 58 in 2016, while Cam Young posted a 59 in the third round two years ago.
Hovland sits at 14-under for the tournament after going 9-under on Friday, highlighted by an eagle on the par-5 13th hole and a 30 on his front nine.
Bhatia had briefly held the lead after finishing his round earlier in the day, but both Hovland and Scheffler surged past him as they completed their rounds. Bhatia and first-round leader Eric Cole are tied at 12-under, four strokes behind Scheffler. Cole, who opened with a 63 on Thursday, posted a second-round 65 after managing just one birdie against eight pars on the back nine.
France’s Ugo Humbert had plenty to celebrate on his 28th birthday Friday, turning in a dominant semifinal performance to advance to the final of the Lexus Eastbourne Open in England. The sixth-seeded Humbert dispatched British player Jack Draper 7-5, 6-3, firing five aces and successfully defending all four break points he faced during the match.
After the victory, the crowd treated Humbert to a chorus of “Happy Birthday” to mark the occasion. He will now pursue his eighth career singles title when he squares off against Belgium’s Zizou Bergs in Sunday’s championship match.
Bergs earned his spot in the final by outlasting Great Britain’s Toby Samuel in a three-set battle, winning 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2. The Belgian had a commanding 11-4 advantage in aces and managed to save 6 of 10 break points throughout the contest. A victory in the final would give Bergs his first career ATP singles title.
Draper, who had strung together three consecutive wins earlier in the week to the delight of the home crowd, was playing in his first tournament since April following a right knee injury. Despite the semifinal exit, his run at Eastbourne marked a positive return to competition.
At the Vanda Pharmaceuticals Mallorca Championships in Mallorca, Spain, second-seeded Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain rallied from a first-set loss to defeat Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan 5-7, 6-2, 6-4, propelled by seven aces. After dropping the opener, Davidovich Fokina surged to a 5-1 lead in the second set to even things up, then overcame a 4-3 deficit in the third set by taking the final three games of the match.
Davidovich Fokina will also be chasing his first career singles title when he meets American Ethan Quinn in the final. Quinn, 22, cruised into the championship match with a commanding 6-1, 6-2 victory over Portugal’s Nuno Borges. Quinn won 81.5 percent of his first-serve points — 22 of 27 — and converted 4 of 6 break point opportunities. Borges struggled on his second serve, winning just 22.2 percent of those points, going 4 for 18.
La Ceiba Foods Latin Market Inc. has announced a voluntary recall of two cottage cheese products over concerns of possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination.
The products being pulled from shelves are Requesón Salvadoreño, also known as Salvadoran Cottage Cheese, and Requesón Mexicano, also known as Mexican Cottage Cheese. Both items were sold under the La Colonia and Selectos Latinos brand names.
The recall was announced on June 26, 2026. Listeria monocytogenes is a potentially dangerous bacterium that can cause serious illness, particularly in pregnant women, elderly individuals, and those with weakened immune systems.
Anyone who has purchased these products is encouraged to stop consuming them immediately and to check with the place of purchase for return or refund options. Additional details about the recall are available through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Andre Burakovsky is heading to Ottawa — a city with a special connection to his family. His father once suited up for the Senators organization, and now the 31-year-old winger is joining them after Chicago dealt him away Friday in exchange for a 2027 sixth-round draft pick.
The trade allows the Blackhawks to shed Burakovsky’s $5.5 million salary cap hit heading into next season. For Ottawa, the deal brings in a two-time Stanley Cup champion who previously hoisted the trophy with Washington and Colorado, and also spent time in Seattle before landing in Chicago.
Senators general manager Steve Staios expressed enthusiasm about the acquisition, saying Burakovsky “adds skill and playmaking ability to our forward group.” The family tie runs deep — Burakovsky’s father Robert suited up for Ottawa in 23 games during the franchise’s second NHL season back in 1993-94. Andre is now joining his fifth NHL organization.
Staios had a busy Friday before finalizing the Burakovsky deal. He also acquired goaltender Samuel Ersson’s rights from Toronto, sending a 2027 fifth-round pick to the Maple Leafs. Toronto had received Ersson, along with Emil Andrae, from Philadelphia in a separate cap-clearing deal that sent Joseph Woll and Simon Benoit to the Flyers.
Ottawa also locked up defenseman Jordan Spence on a four-year, $20 million contract. The 25-year-old had a standout season, setting a career high with seven goals and totaling 31 points while averaging nearly 19 minutes of ice time per game across 73 contests. He was a key figure as the Senators dealt with defensive injuries yet still managed to reach the playoffs.
Staios praised Spence’s contributions, saying, “Jordan was an excellent addition to our hockey club and proved to be a valuable asset on our blue line and stepped up when it counted last season. We’re excited to have him as part of our core group.”
In New York, the Rangers made their first offseason move Friday, shipping forward Brett Berard to the Montreal Canadiens in return for defenseman William Trudeau. Berard, who will turn 24 in September, was once viewed as part of New York’s long-term core. Trudeau is about a month younger but has yet to make his NHL debut, having spent his time in the minors, while Berard has appeared in 48 NHL games and recorded 10 points.
Rangers general manager Chris Drury is widely expected to pursue more significant transactions. Center Vincent Trocheck has reportedly been discussed in trade conversations dating back to before the March trade deadline.
The Buffalo Sabres acquired defenseman Olen Zellweger from Anaheim in exchange for the 45th overall pick and forward prospect Anton Wahlberg. Zellweger, who turns 23 in September, helps replenish Buffalo’s defensive depth after the Sabres earlier traded Bowen Byram to Chicago.
The New York Islanders re-signed defenseman Tony DeAngelo to a two-year deal worth $9 million, carrying a $4.5 million annual cap hit through the 2027-28 season. DeAngelo, 30, is back for his second full season with the Islanders after rejoining the NHL in January 2025 following a stint in the Russia-based KHL.
Out in Colorado, the Avalanche re-signed veteran defensemen Brent Burns and Brett Kulak following a season that saw them win the Presidents’ Trophy before falling to Vegas in the conference final.
Burns, 41, inked a deal for next season — his 23rd in the league — at the veteran minimum of $850,000, with the potential to earn up to $3 million through incentives, according to a source familiar with the agreement who spoke on condition of anonymity since financial terms were not officially announced. Burns has played in 1,007 straight regular-season games and needs just 58 more to surpass Phil Kessel for the longest ironman streak in NHL history.
Kulak received a five-year contract reportedly worth $22.5 million. Colorado’s president of hockey operations Joe Sakic is reshaping the roster after reassuming general manager duties when the previous GM departed for Nashville.
NEW YORK (AP) — Jose Alvarado is sticking with the New York Knicks, agreeing to a multiyear contract with the NBA champions, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on Friday.
Alvarado chose to opt out of his existing player option and is working toward a three-year agreement with the team, according to the source, who spoke anonymously because the deal had not yet been officially finalized. ESPN was first to report the news, noting that the new contract would be worth more than $14 million — a significant jump from the $4.5 million player option he walked away from.
The guard had originally been traded to New York from New Orleans during the regular season, bringing him back to his hometown. Alvarado, a Brooklyn native who went to Christ the King High School, joined the Knicks on February 5.
He wasted no time expressing his feelings about the new deal. “I’m home,” Alvarado posted on X, adding a string of orange and blue hearts to drive the point home.
While Alvarado served mostly as a backup to All-Star Jalen Brunson throughout the season, he made his presence felt on the biggest stage. In Game 4 of the NBA Finals — a 107-106 Knicks victory over San Antonio — Alvarado shared the floor with Brunson for much of the fourth quarter as New York mounted a historic comeback from 29 points down. Alvarado contributed eight points and three assists in that final period alone.
Quarterback Brendan Sorsby, who was permanently banned from NCAA competition due to sports betting violations, will not be finding a professional football home in Canada either.
The Canadian Football League announced Friday that the 22-year-old will be barred from signing with any CFL team or being added to any team’s negotiation list.
Sorsby admitted to placing thousands of wagers over the course of his college career, with the total reaching nearly $90,000. That included at least 40 bets placed on Indiana football games during his freshman year there in 2022, though none of those bets involved games in which he personally played for the Hoosiers.
Following his permanent NCAA ban, Sorsby sought entry into the NFL through the league’s supplemental draft process, but the NFL informed him on Tuesday that it would not be holding a supplemental draft this year.
According to a letter obtained by The Associated Press, the NFL instead advised Sorsby to focus his efforts on potentially entering the league through the standard draft process in 2027. The NFL has not conducted a supplemental draft since 2023.
In a formal statement, the CFL made clear where it stands: “Upholding the integrity of the league and ensuring fair competition are paramount to the CFL. The allegations involving Brendan Sorsby are serious and concerning.”
The league added, “At this time, the CFL will not register a contract for him, and no team will be permitted to add him to its negotiation list.”
Sorsby had been scheduled to hold a workout for NFL teams on July 10. His NCAA ban came after he transferred earlier this year from Cincinnati to Texas Tech, where the gambling activity came to light.
After completing a month-long residential treatment program for a diagnosed gambling addiction — which contributed to the thousands of bets he placed — Sorsby took legal action against the NCAA and secured a court-ordered reinstatement to college play. That decision sparked significant backlash directed at Texas Tech, ultimately leading Sorsby to pursue a professional football career instead.
This year’s observance of Ashoura — one of the most significant holy days in Shiite Islam — was profoundly shaped by ongoing conflict and grief in both Lebanon and Iran. The day commemorates the death of Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was killed in a battle in 680 A.D.
In Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut, tens of thousands of people came together in coordinated processions, striking their chests in mourning — not only for Hussein, but also for family members and friends lost during the recent fighting between the Hezbollah militant group and Israel.
In the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, smaller ceremonies took place amid visible destruction left behind by Israeli airstrikes. The fragility of the current ceasefire was made clear when smoke rose from a fresh airstrike on the city’s outskirts. Some participants observed a traditional ritual that involves making ceremonial cuts to their heads as an act of mourning.
Meanwhile, in Tehran, the capital of Iran, large crowds gathered for processions and religious ceremonies. Many participants beat their heads and chests in mourning, while others carrying torches set fire to tents in a dramatic reenactment of the ancient battle in which Hussein was slain.
The images presented here were curated by Associated Press photo editors.
LOS ANGELES — A California appeals court on Friday let stand Harvey Weinstein’s 2022 rape and sexual assault conviction, though it directed the trial judge to issue a new sentence in the case.
The ruling was handed down unanimously by a three-judge panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal.
A spokesperson for Weinstein, Juda Engelmayer, responded to the ruling via email, stating: “We are disappointed by today’s decision and respectfully disagree with the Court of Appeal’s conclusions regarding the fairness of Mr. Weinstein’s trial. At the same time, the court correctly recognized that his sentence cannot stand.”
The California decision arrived just one day after New York prosecutors announced they would not pursue a fourth trial against Weinstein in that state. The #MeToo-era New York case was dropped Thursday after the accuser stated she could not endure testifying once more.
Weinstein, the former Hollywood film producer, still has a separate sexual felony conviction in New York and continues to be held behind bars. However, the New York rape charge had remained unresolved following an overturned conviction and two trials that ended with hung juries.
In California, the 74-year-old was found guilty in December 2022 on one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault against an Italian model and actor who was referred to during trial proceedings as Jane Doe 1. He received a 16-year prison sentence following that conviction.
Weinstein’s legal team had argued on appeal that Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench unfairly restricted testimony from the head of a film festival during the Los Angeles County trial, and they had sought a completely new trial rather than just resentencing.
Meanwhile, in New York, Weinstein is awaiting a September sentencing on his standing assault conviction, which involves a different woman. Prosecutors there are seeking a 20-year prison term. His California sentence would only begin after his New York sentence is served.
Following the Los Angeles trial, Jane Doe 1 publicly revealed her identity as Evgeniya Chernyshova when she filed a civil lawsuit against Weinstein.
Chernyshova testified that Weinstein showed up uninvited at her hotel room during the 2013 LA Italia Film Festival and assaulted her.
The defense had argued that the trial judge wrongly blocked Weinstein’s attorneys from questioning Chernyshova about Facebook messages between her and festival director Pascal Vicedomini, which they claimed would have demonstrated the two had a romantic relationship.
The Associated Press has a standard practice of not identifying individuals who allege sexual abuse unless they choose to go public, as Chernyshova did. Her attorney also confirmed she gave her consent to be named.
A poll worker in New York says two federal officers came to her voting location during the state’s primary election to confront her about something she posted on social media — a message criticizing an ICE officer who fatally shot a woman named Renee Good in Minneapolis.
Paigelynne Gonyea said the encounter took place on Tuesday while she was on duty at a polling location in Syracuse. She said the two officers handed her a written notice indicating she could be in violation of federal laws that prohibit publicly sharing personal information about federal law enforcement officers.
According to Gonyea, the warning was connected to a post she had made back in January. In that post, she shared a photo of Jonathan Ross — an ICE officer who shot and killed Good in Minneapolis during anti-ICE demonstrations — and wrote: “I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted.”
Gonyea noted that Ross had already been publicly identified by news outlets before she made the post. The post remains online, and she said she has no plans to remove it.
“I plan on using this experience to defend and support our First Amendment right,” Gonyea said. “Our First Amendment rights definitely need to be protected now more than ever.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Lauren Bis, issued a statement saying Gonyea “committed a federal crime by posting the address of an ICE law enforcement officer online” and warned that “if you doxx our officers, we will investigate you, and you will be brought to justice.”
Bis also shared a separate post from one of Gonyea’s social media accounts, which the spokesperson said included Ross’s home address. Part of that post was blacked out in the version shared publicly.
“Doxxing federal law enforcement officers is a federal crime that puts their lives and their families in serious danger,” the DHS statement read. “This danger is not hypothetical. Our law enforcement officers are on the frontlines arresting terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and rapists.”
A fellow poll worker captured the confrontation on video. The footage shows two people in uniform entering the polling location and briefly speaking with Gonyea, who declined to sign the warning document they presented to her.
Gonyea later shared the unsigned letter on social media. The document indicates it originated from ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility, a division whose main function is looking into misconduct allegations against ICE employees and contractors.
The poll worker who filmed the interaction, Sheilia Milledge, said the episode left workers rattled. Gonyea confirmed that no voters were present at the polling location when the officers arrived.
“I felt like it was a scare tactic that they were using,” Milledge said.
A representative from the New York Attorney General’s Office confirmed the office is aware of what happened and is currently reviewing it. A spokesperson for the governor’s office said officials there had not received reports of similar incidents elsewhere in the state.
Kathleen McGrath, a spokesperson for the New York State Board of Elections, said the incident “did not disrupt voting and was not related to the election process.” Onondaga County Democratic Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny said he went to the polling place shortly after it happened, checked in with poll workers, ensured voting continued without interruption, and “connected Paige to resources.”
Gonyea said she had initially missed a phone call from U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials who wanted to speak with her. A DHS agent left her a voicemail saying they were reaching out “in reference to a post that we believe you made on Instagram where you doxxed an ICE officer back in January,” according to a recording she shared online.
“We just wanted to talk to you about it. You’re not in any type of trouble,” the agent said in the voicemail, according to the recording Gonyea provided.
She said she called back and asked the officers to come inside the polling place because she felt it would be a safer environment for the conversation.
Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights and elections program at Brennan Center for Justice — described as a left-leaning public policy institute — said it appears the officers’ timing at the polling place was coincidental, but noted their presence could still be unsettling to voters and election workers.
Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said that if officers are delivering residents “a formal complaint about their protected speech, we’re in trouble.”
Rep. John Mannion, a Democrat representing the area in Congress, sent a letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin urging the department to examine the incident and “put a stop to any ICE activities that target protected speech.”
“ICE should not be broadly targeting online speech or actively monitoring social media accounts without cause and without proper judicial protections,” Mannion’s letter stated.
New Mexico’s attorney general launched a criminal investigation Friday to find out whether agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration violated state law by letting hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills make their way onto the streets of Albuquerque.
The unusual probe comes just days after the Associated Press published a report revealing that DEA agents repeatedly watched fentanyl shipments move through the area without intervening — a deliberate tactic used from 2023 to 2025 in hopes of building larger criminal cases against drug trafficking networks.
Both current and former DEA agents, including whistleblower David Howell, told the AP that the approach was a dangerous gamble with public safety and may have run afoul of U.S. Justice Department guidelines designed to protect the public.
All of this unfolded during what has become the deadliest drug epidemic in American history — and while the DEA was simultaneously running a public awareness campaign called “One Pill Can Kill,” which warned that even tiny amounts of fentanyl can be fatal.
The criminal investigation transforms what had been a debate over law enforcement strategy into a direct legal question: did federal agents break the law while pursuing bigger targets?
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat, made clear that federal agents “are not above the law,” while acknowledging they do have significant legal protections when performing official duties.
Despite those protections, Torrez announced he would begin “demanding documents and information about the DEA’s conduct, in New Mexico and nationally, to determine whether what occurred here reflects a broader pattern of reckless or unlawful behavior.”
In a letter to Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham — who had called for the investigation earlier in the week — Torrez wrote: “If those allegations are accurate, the consequences for New Mexicans were not abstract. They were fatal.”
He went on to say that “New Mexico already ranks among the states hardest hit by fentanyl overdose deaths, and the families who have lost children, siblings and parents to this crisis deserve a full accounting of what the federal government knew, what it did and what it failed to do.”
The DEA initially pushed back against Howell’s allegations in a statement to the AP, but later asked the Justice Department’s independent watchdog to conduct its own review of the matter.
“Should that review identify areas of improvement, the DEA will of course implement changes to better their practices,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “We welcome a partnership with Governor Lujan Grisham, as well as New Mexico state and local leaders, to fight the scourge of fentanyl and keep her constituents safe.”
While many local and state leaders in New Mexico have voiced outrage over the allegations, that anger is not universally shared — particularly among families who have lost loved ones to overdoses. Paul E. Martin, founder of United Against Fentanyl, a nonprofit representing 5,000 victims’ family members, offered a more measured take.
“Law enforcement makes mistakes,” Martin said. “But the DEA are the men and women putting their lives on the line. Their entire business is the removal of illegal and toxic drugs from our streets.”
GameStop announced Friday that it remains committed to moving forward with its proposed acquisition of eBay.
The videogame retailer said it currently expects to generate adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of more than $600 million in fiscal 2026. That figure would represent a significant jump compared to the $345.4 million the company reported in fiscal 2025.
The Texas Board of Education voted Friday to approve mandatory reading lists for public school students that include passages from the Bible, continuing a push by state leaders to bring conservative and religious values into the public education system.
The Republican-controlled board passed the measure 9-5, with one member absent and not casting a vote. The required reading lists will apply to more than 5 million public school students and are set to go into effect in 2030.
This is not the first time Texas has moved to incorporate religious content into its schools. The state previously required the Ten Commandments to be posted in all public school classrooms — a mandate that was upheld by a federal appeals court earlier this year. Texas joins a number of other Republican-led states that have taken similar steps to bring Christian teachings into public education.
The move has sparked debate on both sides. Opponents argue that such decisions conflict with the Constitution’s “establishment clause,” which courts have long interpreted as maintaining a separation between government and religion. Supporters, however, contend that the measures bring back foundational Judeo-Christian teachings that they consider historically important.
The reading lists themselves cover a broad range of material, with much of it being non-religious or classical in nature. Included texts range from Aesop’s fables and Native American stories to a children’s version of Don Quixote. However, critics have pointed out that a large portion of the list consists of works written by white male authors — a concern in a state where Latino and Black students make up the majority of the student population.
Rachel Laser, who leads the advocacy organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State, released a written statement condemning the board’s action. She said the decision sought to “misuse public schools to impose one narrow set of religious beliefs and indoctrinate a new generation of Americans in the lie that America is a Christian country.”
Insurance brokerage firm Hub International revealed on Friday that it has submitted a confidential filing for an initial public offering on the US stock market.
The company, headquartered in Chicago, was most recently valued at $29 billion during a funding round backed by T Rowe Price, Alpha Wave Global, and Temasek, the state-owned investment fund of Singapore.
Hub International’s history with private ownership stretches back to 2013, when private equity firm Hellman & Friedman purchased the company in a deal worth $4.4 billion.
Luxury retailer Saks Global officially exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday, nearly five months after seeking court shelter from its creditors. The company came out of the process with a new corporate identity, a restructured ownership arrangement, and a reduced number of store locations.
Going forward, the retailer will be known as Exemplar Luxury Group, or ELG, and will concentrate exclusively on the luxury retail market. As part of its restructuring over recent months, Saks closed the majority of its off-price store locations.
The newly formed board of directors at ELG will include two representatives each from investment firms Pentwater Capital Management and Bracebridge Capital — both of which partnered with Saks throughout the restructuring process, according to the company.
The road to bankruptcy began more than a year ago, when the company started experiencing weak sales, accumulating debt, and falling behind on payments to vendors. Saks formally filed for bankruptcy protection in January.
On Friday, ELG announced that its total debt load had been cut by nearly 75% as a result of the restructuring efforts.
A significant factor in the company’s financial troubles was its December 2024 merger with Neiman Marcus, which was orchestrated by real estate tycoon Richard Baker. That deal led to cash shortfalls and inventory problems at stores and damaged relationships with major vendors including Chanel, LVMH, and Kering.
At the time of its bankruptcy filing, Saks Global was carrying approximately $3.4 billion in debt — roughly one year after completing the Neiman Marcus merger.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has asked top company executives to investigate potential partnerships with two prominent prediction market platforms — Polymarket and Kalshi — as Meta works to build its own similar application, the New York Times reported Friday. The newspaper cited three employees who were familiar with the situation.
Neither Meta nor Kalshi responded to requests for comment from Reuters, and Polymarket declined to offer any statement. Reuters was unable to independently confirm the details of the report.
Meta executives have indicated that Arena, the company’s prediction market app currently in development, will set itself apart from Polymarket and Kalshi by avoiding real-money wagering. Instead, Arena will use a virtual currency similar to points found in video games, according to the report.
Prediction markets gained enormous attention during the 2024 U.S. presidential election and have since grown into a recognized investment category, allowing people to place bets on everything from government interest rate decisions to the outcomes of sports tournaments.
However, the platforms have also come under growing scrutiny. Suspiciously well-timed trades made before major policy announcements by U.S. President Donald Trump may have generated millions of dollars in gains for anonymous traders, raising serious questions about the integrity of these markets.
According to the report, Zuckerberg has set his sights on adults between 18 and 34 years old as Arena’s primary audience, with an ambitious goal of attracting at least 100 million monthly active users — referred to as “predictors” — to the platform.
Arena is still in internal testing phases and may never be publicly launched, the Times noted. The report also indicated that Meta eventually plans to fold elements of Arena into both Facebook and Messenger.
The Times had first reported earlier in the week that Zuckerberg recently assembled a small team within the company to develop a smartphone app modeled after Polymarket and Kalshi.
Listen to the Evening Delmarva Farm Report Update — June 26, 2026
DELMARVA — President Trump signed an executive order Friday elevating regenerative agriculture as a national priority, directing his administration to fast-track programs targeting soil health, farm resilience, and food security. The signing took place at a White House event attended by farmers and agricultural leaders.
Policy
Maryland farmers are pushing back against a newly enacted heat illness prevention rule that requires employers to provide water, rest breaks, and shade any time the heat index reaches 80°F or higher — indoors or out. Karl Shlagel, who operates Shlagel Farms in Waldorf, says the mandatory break schedule actually extends the workday into the hottest afternoon hours, producing the opposite effect of what workers want. Shlagel described the rule as the toughest of its kind in the nation, stricter than California’s. Tyler Hough of Maryland Farm Bureau noted the rule followed the 2024 heat stroke death of a Baltimore sanitation worker.
Markets
Grain futures closed mixed Friday. July corn settled at $4.12¾, down 2 cents. July soybeans closed at $11.26¼, off 1¼ cents. July Chicago wheat fell 12¾ cents to $5.78¼. At Laurel Grain Company in Laurel, Delaware, December corn is bringing $4.57/bu, with November soybeans at $11.07.
Forecast
Temperatures are expected to reach 90°F Friday afternoon with a chance of rain showers. Saturday calls for showers and thunderstorms with a high of 82°F. Producers are advised to plan field work accordingly.
This article is based on the Delmarva Farm Report Update Evening Edition, June 26, 2026. Hosted by Tom Bradley.
The Delaware State Police Sex Offender Apprehension and Registration Unit, known as SOAR, has issued public notifications alerting residents to both wanted and homeless sex offenders in the state.
Wanted Sex Offenders
SOAR is actively searching for four sex offenders who have failed to register or re-register their current addresses as required by law. The individuals identified as wanted are Gene Dukes, Charles Fulton, Troy Sanders, and Spencer Wright.
Anyone who knows the whereabouts of these individuals is asked to call (302) 739-5882. Tips can also be submitted through Delaware Crime Stoppers at (800) 847-3333. The four individuals listed here represent only a portion of those currently wanted. A full list is available on the Delaware Sex Offender Registry website.
Homeless Sex Offenders
SOAR has also issued notifications for two sex offenders who have recently been reported as homeless. These individuals — Tykeme Robinson and John Wittmer — are not currently wanted for failing to register, but authorities want to know if either person is found to be residing at a fixed address.
If you have information indicating that either of these individuals is living at a residence, please contact SOAR at (302) 739-5882 or reach out to Delaware Crime Stoppers at (800) 847-3333. As with the wanted list, these two individuals represent only a portion of those currently reported as homeless sex offenders. The complete list can be found on the Delaware Sex Offender Registry website.
A New York nutritional supplement company is voluntarily pulling two of its organic moringa products from the market after concerns about possible Salmonella exposure surfaced through its ingredient supplier.
Total Nutrition Inc., based in Deer Park, NY, announced the recall of its TNVitamins 100% Organic Moringa 1,200 mg Capsules and 100% Organic Moringa Powder. The action was triggered by a supplier-initiated recall of the raw organic moringa ingredient used in both products.
Health officials note that no illnesses connected to the recalled products have been reported at this time. Consumers who have purchased either of these moringa products are urged to take note of the recall and follow guidance from the company and health authorities.
A rare moment of open tension between two Supreme Court justices played out on Thursday, only to be quietly walked back the very next day.
Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the majority opinion in an asylum case, appeared to directly challenge Justice Sonia Sotomayor while opinions were being delivered from the bench. Sotomayor had written the dissenting opinion in the case. The public back-and-forth was considered highly unusual by court observers, as justices rarely address each other’s written opinions in such a direct manner during proceedings.
The moment did not go unnoticed. By Friday, the Supreme Court moved to address the situation, describing what had occurred as a misunderstanding between the two justices.
Such exchanges on the bench are uncommon in the nation’s highest court, where justices typically allow their written opinions and dissents to speak for themselves without additional verbal commentary directed at colleagues.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Federal Communications Commission announced Friday that it will prohibit the importation of equipment made by a group of Chinese manufacturers, marking another step in the federal government’s ongoing effort to limit Chinese-made electronic devices from entering the country.
The FCC had previously acted in 2022 to block approvals of new models of telecommunications and video surveillance equipment produced by Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision, and Dahua. Those companies were added to a list of firms considered to pose risks to U.S. national security.
The newly announced import ban is scheduled to go into effect in July.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military launched strikes against Iran on Friday, according to a statement released by Central Command.
American aircraft targeted Iranian missile and drone storage facilities, as well as coastal radar installations, following an Iranian attack on a commercial ship traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court has unanimously turned down the Environmental Protection Agency’s effort to discard a 2024 rule that established tougher limits on fine particle pollution, also known as soot.
The three-judge panel’s decision is a blow to the Trump administration’s push to roll back regulations and its ongoing support for coal as an energy source. The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit keeps the stricter pollution standard in place, at least for the time being.
The Trump EPA had asked the court last year to strike down the Biden-era rule, claiming the agency’s previous leadership had overstepped its legal authority and failed to adequately weigh the financial burden the rule would place on affected businesses.
The court refused, with Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg writing in the decision that the agency’s arguments “lack merit.”
The ruling preserves an annual cap of 9 micrograms of fine particle pollution per cubic meter of air — a significant reduction from the previous standard of 12 micrograms, which had been in place for more than a decade. The rule requires states and counties to meet that cleaner air threshold over the coming years, targeting pollution from power plants, vehicles, factories, and wildfires.
The EPA’s push to abandon the rule came after 25 Republican-led states and numerous business organizations filed a lawsuit seeking to block it. A suit spearheaded by attorneys general from Kentucky and West Virginia argued the regulation would drive up costs for manufacturers, utility companies, and families, and could prevent new manufacturing facilities from being built.
When the Biden administration finalized the rule in 2024, officials said the tighter limits would prevent more than 800,000 cases of asthma symptoms, reduce hospital visits by 2,000, and avert 4,500 premature deaths each year.
An EPA spokeswoman said in November that the 2024 rule would cost “hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars to American citizens” and was not grounded in a thorough review of the available science. The agency said Friday it was taking time to review the court’s decision.
Environmental organizations praised the ruling as both a public health victory and a rebuke of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
“Clean air is not a luxury. The 2024 soot standard is a critical advancement for public health, projected to save thousands of lives every year,” said Patrice Simms, vice president of healthy communities at Earthjustice, an environmental law organization. “Lee Zeldin’s EPA must stop catering to polluters and must instead fulfill its mission to protect public health,” Simms added.
The Natural Resources Defense Council said the delay in putting the 2024 rule into effect has left millions of Americans breathing unhealthy concentrations of soot pollution.
“The science has long been clear, and now the law is too. The EPA must stop stalling and deliver the clean air the Clean Air Act requires,” said Vijay Limaye, a climate and health scientist with the NRDC.
WASHINGTON — The outgoing top economist at the International Monetary Fund is warning that the world economy faces serious downside risks, particularly if a fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran collapses.
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, who is departing the IMF to return to the University of California, Berkeley next week, spoke with Reuters on Friday ahead of his exit. He noted that coordinated releases from strategic petroleum reserves helped prevent an even sharper spike in oil prices following the outbreak of war in the Middle East. However, he cautioned that those reserves are now largely depleted, leaving countries with far less flexibility should the conflict escalate again.
The concern grew more immediate on Friday when President Donald Trump blamed Iran for an attack on a ship near Oman, calling it a violation of their ceasefire agreement — underscoring just how tenuous the preliminary peace deal remains.
Gourinchas said that thanks to rapid reserve releases and production adjustments by refiners, only about 3% of global oil was removed from the market, far less than the 10% to 15% that had initially been feared. But he made clear that a breakdown in the ceasefire would leave countries with fewer tools to soften the blow of further supply cuts.
On the question of upcoming IMF economic forecasts, Gourinchas hinted that the global lender may return to offering a single baseline forecast when it releases updated projections on July 8 — after he has already returned to academia. In April, the IMF opted to publish three separate growth scenarios rather than one baseline figure, partly because of the sweeping tariffs introduced by President Trump against imports from most countries. It was the second time during Gourinchas’ tenure that the Fund bypassed a traditional baseline forecast.
IMF spokeswoman Julie Kozack had left open on Thursday whether the organization would stick with the three-scenario approach or revert to a more conventional single forecast. Last month, with the Strait of Hormuz still closed and oil prices topping $100 per barrel, she had indicated the global economy was drifting from a more optimistic “reference forecast” — which assumed a quick end to the conflict and 3.1% growth in 2026 — toward an “adverse scenario” projecting only 2.5% growth.
Gourinchas explained that both 2025 and 2026 lacked enough historical precedent to support a reliable single forecast, which is why economists needed to “be humble” and instead map out a range of possible outcomes. That said, he acknowledged such an approach should remain the exception.
“We don’t want to do it too often,” he said, while admitting that uncertainty and risks remain elevated.
Beyond the energy sector, Gourinchas pointed to significant shifts happening in global trade. He highlighted the European Union’s recent completion of trade agreements with both Latin America and India — deals that had been in the works for decades but were suddenly finalized within the past year.
“All of a sudden, in less than one year, they’re both signed. This is not a coincidence. You can’t afford not to deepen trade relations with other countries out there,” he said, noting that many of these emerging agreements notably exclude the United States.
He also offered a broader observation about the long-term effectiveness of tariffs and economic sanctions as policy tools, suggesting their power tends to fade over time.
“There is a view that having these kinds of choke points or this critical leverage is really important, but I think what we are seeing is how quickly the global economy tries to find ways around them,” he said.
“You do have leverage in the short term, and then actors on the other side respond. They are not passive, they find ways to either circumvent, accelerate their own innovation, develop new trade ties with other partners, and basically those tools become blocked,” he added. “In the medium- to long-term, they almost never work.”
S&P Global announced Friday that it is maintaining its “AA+” credit rating for the United States, citing the country’s economic resilience as a key factor in supporting strong government revenue collection.
In a statement, the agency said, “Broad revenue buoyancy, including solid tariff income, should help mitigate the risk of fiscal slippage.”
S&P Global holds a notable place in financial history as the first ratings agency to strip the U.S. government of its top-tier credit rating back in 2011. Despite that downgrade years ago, the agency said Friday that the current outlook for the U.S. rating is stable.
The agency added that its stable outlook reflects confidence in the diversity and strength of the U.S. economy, even as both domestic and international policy landscapes continue to shift.
Chevron is setting its sights on more data center energy partnerships across the United States after announcing a landmark deal to supply power to a Microsoft facility in West Texas, a company executive revealed to Reuters.
Oil and gas giants like Chevron and Exxon Mobil are positioning themselves to cash in on the surging electricity demand driven by Big Tech’s rapid expansion of AI-powered data centers — leveraging their natural gas supplies and expertise in large-scale energy development.
Earlier this week, Chevron announced it had signed an agreement to build a natural gas power facility known as Project Kilby. The plant would have a capacity of 2.67 gigawatts and deliver dedicated electricity to Microsoft’s data center campus in Pecos, Texas. The project — a first for Chevron — would generate enough electricity to power a city comparable in size to San Francisco.
Jeff Gustavson, Chevron’s president of new energies, told Reuters in a Wednesday interview that the company sees strong potential for additional projects in West Texas, which sits within the Permian Basin — the nation’s leading oilfield and a region rich in natural gas.
Beyond Texas, Gustavson said Chevron is also interested in the Midwest, the Gulf Coast, and areas near Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The company is additionally weighing data center deals in Utah, where it already operates a hydrogen facility.
“We’ll look at other parts of the country. We’ll look at it with Microsoft. We’ll look at it with other potential customers,” Gustavson said. “If we can put the right pieces together to meet our return thresholds, you can see more announcements over time.”
Project Kilby gives Chevron a separate revenue stream that isn’t tied to the ups and downs of commodity prices that affect its main business. Gustavson noted that Chevron and its partners are still working through the project’s design details and declined to reveal the estimated cost.
Industry analysts said this week it remains too early to determine whether powering data centers will become a significant revenue source for Chevron.
The company expects to make a final investment decision on the project before the end of this year. The first electricity generated by Kilby is anticipated in 2028, with the facility expected to take several more years to reach its full capacity. The project will require seven GE Vernova turbines along with multiple smaller turbines from Caterpillar, and has the potential to grow beyond its initial 2.67 gigawatt capacity.
The United States military carried out strikes in the area surrounding the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, according to a report from Axios citing a U.S. official.
An Axios reporter shared the information on the social media platform X, relaying details provided by the unnamed official. No further specifics about the nature or scope of the strikes were immediately available.
Two people lost their lives Friday when a Russian drone struck a minibus in Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, according to the area’s regional governor, Oleksandr Hanzha.
Hanzha shared the news via the Telegram messaging platform, noting that 12 people were hurt in the attack on the town of Nikopol — among them, two children.
Nikopol sits on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and the town has repeatedly been the target of Russian military strikes.
Meanwhile, Mikhail Fedorov, the governor of the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, reported that Russian forces carried out a series of strikes throughout Friday on various districts within the region’s main city, also known as Zaporizhzhia. No casualties were reported in connection with those attacks.
Reuters, which reported the story, was unable to independently confirm accounts provided by either side of the conflict.
A woman who shared a post about immigration activity on social media in January found herself facing federal agents five months later — agents who demanded she delete what she had written.
Paigelynne Gonyea originally posted about an immigration surge in Minneapolis at the start of the year. This week, officials from ICE came to her and alleged that one of her social media posts had doxxed — meaning it revealed the personal information of — a federal agent.
The encounter took place at a polling location in Syracuse, New York on June 23, 2026, and was recorded on video by another poll worker who was present at the scene.
A crash on northbound Interstate 95 has resulted in the closure of two left lanes at the Christina River Bridge, according to Delaware transportation officials.
The lane closures are causing disruptions for drivers traveling through the area. Motorists approaching the bridge should anticipate slowdowns and consider using alternate routes to avoid the backup.
No additional details regarding injuries or the cause of the crash were immediately available. Drivers are encouraged to stay alert and allow extra travel time until the lanes are reopened.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Friday that a newly reached framework agreement between Israel and Lebanon establishes a defined path toward restoring Lebanon’s sovereignty, dismantling Hezbollah’s infrastructure, and fully disarming the militant group.
In an official statement, Rubio said the agreement also paves the way for Israel to withdraw to its own borders once the threat posed to its citizens has been eliminated. As part of the deal, a trilateral Military Coordination Group for Lebanon will be created, with the United States serving as a facilitator.
The UFC has updated its viewership figures for this month’s Freedom 250 event, now estimating that approximately 34 million people around the world watched the fight card held at the White House.
That revised total is nearly twice the number that was initially announced on June 19 — five days after the event took place on the South Lawn on President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.
The new figures account for international audiences from countries including Australia, China, India, South Korea, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. With those numbers included, the UFC says the event ranks among the most-watched in the organization’s history.
The UFC also noted that not all countries have submitted their viewership data yet. Spain and France — both of which had fighters competing on the card — are not expected to report their numbers until mid-July, meaning the final total could climb even higher.
The event itself made history inside the Octagon. For the first time ever in UFC competition, every single fight on the card ended by knockout or technical knockout.
In the main event, Justin Gaethje defeated Ilia Topuria by corner stoppage after the fourth round, claiming the undisputed UFC lightweight championship.
Within the United States, 17 million viewers watched the event, setting a new record for a live event on Paramount+. Those domestic numbers were tracked by Nielsen for U.S. markets and Adobe Analytics for Latin America.
Back in January, a Minneapolis woman named Paigelynne Gonyea took to social media to share posts about a surge in immigration enforcement activity happening in her city.
Five months later, that decision caught up with her in a way she likely did not expect. ICE officials showed up at her door this week, telling her that one of her posts had revealed the personal identity of one of their agents — a practice commonly known as doxxing.
The agents reportedly pressured her to remove the posts in question from her social media accounts.
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — The Tanzanian government moved Friday to ban all political rallies as the country braces for planned demonstrations against last year’s contested election and the imprisonment of a prominent opposition figure.
Internal Affairs Minister Patrobas Katambi issued a directive to Police Inspector General Camillus Wambura, ordering him to halt the issuance of permits for political gatherings throughout the East African nation.
The move comes after Tanzania experienced its first postelection protests in 2025. The ruling party claimed an overwhelming victory in last year’s general election after the country’s largest opposition party chose to boycott the vote and the presidential candidate from the second-largest opposition party was blocked from participating.
Young Tanzanians have announced plans to take to the streets on July 7, protesting the reelection of President Samia Suluhu Hassan and demanding that a new constitution be drafted. Authorities have already arrested individuals connected to the protest organizers, who have been coordinating the demonstrations through social media platforms.
Demonstrators are also demanding freedom for opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who faces treason charges stemming from his calls for political reforms before last year’s elections. Protesters are additionally seeking accountability for the widespread violence that followed the election, during which more than 500 people lost their lives.
Tanzania Law Society President Boniface Mwabukusi pushed back strongly against the ban, saying the government had “no authority whatsoever to prohibit or permit meetings that are legally allowed.”
“We will convene to determine the legal measures we will take, both domestically and internationally, against anyone who attempts to enforce this unlawful and invalid directive in violation of the Constitution and the laws of the country,” Mwabukusi added.
The ban is particularly notable given that President Hassan herself lifted a six-year prohibition on opposition rallies back in 2023 — a restriction that had been put in place by her predecessor, John Magufuli.
Opposition parties have labeled the new ban politically driven and a breach of constitutional rights, arguing that political parties are guaranteed the legal right to hold public gatherings.
Rugemeleza Nshala, chief legal counsel for opposition party Chadema, said the ban was designed to “muzzle political freedom” and that the party was “contemplating other legal actions locally and internationally to challenge the decision.”
Rashid Ali, the shadow minister for Defense, Internal Affairs and Security for the main opposition party ACT Wazalendo, characterized the directive as yet another attempt to undermine the country’s constitution.
After nearly two weeks on the loose in the Texas Hill Country, a giraffe named Gracie has been found alive and well — and by all accounts, she enjoyed her time in the wild.
Gracie was located on Friday, approximately 4 miles south of her enclosure, during a helicopter search of the area. Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson confirmed the discovery, noting that Gracie’s owner, Vick Jones, immediately reached out to a veterinarian and began assembling a team to safely return her to the ranch.
“She’s in good shape,” Jones said. “She’s standing there, swishing her tail.”
The roughly 3-year-old giraffe, who tips the scales at no less than 1,200 pounds, was found within half a mile of both a pond and a creek, with plenty of surrounding plant life to graze on. Jones estimated she had likely been in that particular spot for about a week.
Returning the 10-foot-tall animal to Cedar Hollow Ranch — located roughly 100 miles west of San Antonio — required careful planning. Veterinarians needed to sedate Gracie and place a hood over her eyes before she could be moved. The transport plan called for first loading her onto an open-pasture trailer, then transferring her to a taller, enclosed trailer specifically built to accommodate giraffes.
Much of the remote terrain where Gracie was found is inaccessible by vehicle, which is why a helicopter was used in the search. While the roughly 2,700 residents of Real County had been asked to watch for her, Gracie was ultimately discovered on uninhabited private property.
“We didn’t bother her,” Jones said of the moment she was spotted. “She’s got water. She looked in really good shape.”
The Texas Hill Country is home to one of the highest concentrations of exotic captive animals anywhere in the United States. Sheriff Johnson noted that reports of missing animals in the area are not uncommon — he said he’s received calls about missing wildebeests, water buffalo, zebras, and monkeys — though a missing giraffe was a first for him.
The region’s mild climate, rugged landscape, and abundant vegetation made it a manageable environment for Gracie. In her native Africa, giraffes typically do best in dry and semi-dry savannahs and open grasslands.
Jones believes Gracie never intended to leave the ranch. She had arrived at Cedar Hollow Ranch back in May and had developed a habit of wandering up to a rocky area to feed on trees growing from the rock face, always returning to her enclosure afterward.
On the day she went missing, Jones said, Gracie wandered into that rocky area to feed and came back down on the wrong side of a gate. At that point, continuing forward was simply easier than turning back.
The rocky terrain had not been fenced because giraffes had never ventured there before Gracie did — and installing fence posts in solid rock requires jackhammering. Jones said he now plans to have that fence built, and Gracie will remain in her enclosure at the ranch until the work is complete.
Despite her impressive size, Jones said Gracie posed no danger to anyone who might have crossed her path during her time on the loose.
“If you move toward her, she’s taking off,” he said.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg found himself at the center of a disturbing incident when an anonymous report — later determined to be false — prompted Michigan State Police and child protective services to respond to his home, temporarily separating him from his four-year-old twins.
Buttigieg detailed the experience in a post on Substack, writing that a Michigan State Police officer informed him they found no evidence to support the anonymous allegation and believed it was driven by political motives. He described the roughly 24-hour ordeal as being “among the darkest hours of my life.”
Michigan State Police confirmed in a statement that they received an “anonymous report” and that both their agency and child protective services “responded and determined the report was false.”
According to Buttigieg, an officer and a child protective services worker arrived at his home after someone anonymously claimed he was a danger to his children. Authorities arranged forensic interviews for the twins and told Buttigieg he was not permitted to be alone with them until those interviews were finished.
The next day, Buttigieg said investigators revealed that the anonymous caller had claimed he confessed to violent crimes years ago during an unplanned encounter in Alabama. Buttigieg stated he had never visited the town where that supposed meeting took place. Police told him the allegation would not be forwarded to prosecutors, and child protective services found nothing to back up the report.
“I cannot describe the mix of rage and sadness that I feel at the idea that someone brought our children into this,” Buttigieg wrote. “They are four years old. Four. They do not know or care what a Democrat or a Republican is.”
Buttigieg, who is widely considered a potential Democratic presidential contender in 2028, has long been a target of anti-LGBTQ attacks. He noted that the incident happened shortly after he posted photos of his family online in recognition of Father’s Day.
He previously faced criticism from some Republicans when he took paternity leave after he and his husband, Chasten, adopted their twins while he was serving in the Biden administration. Buttigieg also noted in his post that he has received death threats throughout his career.
“But this is the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began,” he wrote.
The incident appears to be an example of what law enforcement calls “swatting” — the act of making a false report to emergency services in order to trigger a police response at someone’s home or location. Officials have warned that such incidents waste critical resources and create dangerous situations for both responding officers and the people targeted.
Buttigieg said the episode is part of a larger pattern of escalating political attacks in the current environment.
“Everyone knows politics is ugly these days,” he wrote. “It’s always been ugly, but now it feels more and more like bloodsport. Even so, this is different.”
The Colorado Avalanche made back-to-back roster moves on Friday, announcing that the organization has re-signed defensemen Brett Kulak and Brent Burns to new contracts.
Kulak, who turns 32, inked a five-year extension that will carry him through the 2030-31 season. The deal is reported to be worth $22.5 million, averaging $4.5 million per season.
The veteran blueliner appeared in 83 games last season, splitting time across three different teams — the Edmonton Oilers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Avalanche — tallying one goal and 11 assists along the way.
Since being selected by the Calgary Flames in the fourth round of the 2012 draft, Kulak has skated in 663 career games with five franchises, accumulating 137 points on 29 goals and 108 assists.
Burns, 41, agreed to a one-year contract covering the 2026-27 season, reportedly worth $850,000 with performance bonuses that could push the total to $3 million.
The deal brings Burns back after a strong debut with Colorado in 2025-26, during which he posted 35 points — 12 goals and 23 assists — across 82 games.
Burns is no stranger to hardware, having earned six All-Star selections and the Norris Trophy in 2016-17, awarded annually to the NHL’s top defenseman. When the upcoming season begins, he will be entering his 23rd year in the league and currently holds the distinction of being the active leader in games played with 1,579.
Over his career with the Minnesota Wild, San Jose Sharks, Carolina Hurricanes, and the Avalanche, Burns has compiled 945 points — 273 goals and 672 assists — along with 887 penalty minutes.
Quarterback Brendan Sorsby’s search for a professional football home has hit another wall. The Canadian Football League confirmed late Thursday that all nine of its teams are barred from signing the 22-year-old signal-caller, who was suspended by the NCAA following a gambling investigation and was turned away from the NFL’s supplemental draft earlier this week.
The league made its position clear in an official statement released Friday. “Upholding the integrity of the league and ensuring fair competition are paramount to the CFL. The allegations involving Brendan Sorsby are serious and concerning,” the statement read. “At this time, the CFL will not register a contract for him, and no team will be permitted to add him to its negotiation list.”
The NCAA declared Sorsby ineligible after investigators found he had allegedly placed thousands of bets — many using accounts registered under other people’s names — totaling more than $90,000 over the course of his college career. Among those bets were wagers placed on Indiana football games while he was playing for the Hoosiers. He later transferred to Cincinnati, where last season he threw for 2,800 yards, 27 touchdowns, and five interceptions, while also rushing for nine scores. Sorsby subsequently spent several weeks in a treatment facility, citing a gambling addiction.
After his time with Cincinnati, Sorsby moved on to Texas Tech, but his off-field troubles caught up with him before he could take the field there.
When the NFL rejected his supplemental draft application this week — the league hasn’t held one since 2023 — it also sent Sorsby a letter criticizing him for not taking “responsibility for your actions” and for attempting to sidestep consequences through lawsuits and the draft application. The NFL’s recommendation was for Sorsby to focus on preparing for the 2027 NFL Draft.
Despite the setbacks, Sorsby still has legal options available. He is represented by former NFLPA attorney Jeffrey Kessler, who has a long track record of success in high-profile cases against the NFL. Kessler has won favorable outcomes for players including Tom Brady in the Deflategate case, Jonathan Vilma and other New Orleans Saints players in the Bountygate matter involving then-defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, as well as arbitration cases on behalf of Michael Vick and Plaxico Burress.
The Toronto Maple Leafs shipped goaltender Samuel Ersson to the Ottawa Senators on Friday, receiving a 2027 fifth-round draft selection in return.
The transaction represents a rapid turnaround for Toronto. The Leafs had only brought Ersson into the fold on June 16, when they obtained him from the Philadelphia Flyers alongside defenseman Emil Andrae and a 2026 third-round pick. In that earlier deal, Philadelphia received goaltender Joseph Woll and defenseman Simon Benoit.
Ersson, 26, wrapped up the 2025-26 season with a 14-11-5 record, a 3.12 goals-against average, and an .870 save percentage. Over four years in Philadelphia, he compiled a 65-50-17 record with seven shutouts, a 3.01 GAA, and an .884 save percentage. His standout early career earned him recognition in the 2023-24 season, when he finished 10th in voting for the Calder Trophy, the NHL’s award for Rookie of the Year.
Swedish pharmaceutical company Sobi announced Friday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has declined to give the green light to its new treatment for uncontrolled gout, a severe form of inflammatory arthritis.
The FDA issued what is known as a complete response letter, asking Sobi to submit additional data — primarily focused on manufacturing controls and problems identified at the contract facilities that produce the drug.
Importantly, the agency did not raise any concerns about whether the treatment is safe or effective.
Sobi, which is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, said it plans to request a meeting with the FDA to talk through what would be needed for resubmission. The company also said it will work alongside its contract manufacturers to correct the identified deficiencies.
Gout is a well-known form of arthritis that causes sudden, intense pain, swelling, and tenderness in the joints. The condition develops when uric acid builds up at high levels around joints and other body tissues. In cases of uncontrolled gout, those uric acid levels stay elevated and symptoms persist even with treatment.
Sobi’s drug — chemically referred to as nanoencapsulated sirolimus plus pegadricase, or NASP — works as a four-week infusion therapy aimed at lowering uric acid levels in the bloodstream.
Data from late-stage clinical trials showed the treatment was able to keep uric acid below 6 milligrams per deciliter — considered a safe threshold for preventing gout flare-ups — for at least 80% of the sixth month of treatment.
The company estimates roughly 200,000 people across the United States live with uncontrolled gout.
Currently, the only FDA-approved medication specifically for uncontrolled gout is Amgen’s Krystexxa, an infusion administered every two weeks. Other general gout treatments include nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, colchicine, and corticosteroids.
The lithium industry is feeling considerably more upbeat about its future, with growing demand for battery storage systems helping to make up for a slowdown in electric vehicle sales in certain markets, according to top producers who spoke at a major industry conference in Las Vegas this week.
For years, electric vehicles were the primary force driving demand for lithium. But regulatory shifts in the United States and other countries have dampened EV sales in some important markets. That cooling came at the same time the industry was producing too much lithium, sending prices tumbling.
Now, a rising need for stationary battery storage systems — fueled by the rapid growth of artificial intelligence and efforts to modernize power grids — is changing the industry’s outlook for the better.
“The period of market overcorrection is over,” said Raju Daswani, CEO of consultancy Fastmarkets. “Energy storage has become a primary driver of growth in this market.”
Daswani said Fastmarkets estimates that lithium demand for battery storage systems is expanding at a rate of 40% per year. “This is a fundamental change and it adds a robust foundation if you compare it to a far-more volatile consumer-driven electric vehicle demand picture,” he said at the Fastmarkets Global Lithium, Battery and Critical Materials Conference in Las Vegas.
Attendance at the conference — considered the world’s largest annual gathering of lithium investors, executives, and consumers — climbed 10% this year to approximately 1,100 people, according to organizers.
The overall atmosphere at this year’s event was noticeably more positive compared to last year’s gathering. Lithium prices have more than tripled in the time since.
“Lithium demand in the next two years is going to be much more balanced between EVs and energy storage,” said Jérôme Pécresse, who leads Rio Tinto’s aluminum and lithium business unit. The company has plans to increase its lithium production capacity by 2028.
Albemarle, identified as the world’s largest lithium producer, reported that it is seeing consistent growth in the battery storage sector, which it contrasted with the more unpredictable nature of EV demand. “Grid storage is much more evenly distributed around the world,” said Eric Norris, the company’s chief commercial officer, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the conference. “It’s an interesting demand driver.”
In another sign of market confidence, ioneer announced Monday that it had signed a letter of intent with Hyundai Engineering and an arm of the South Korean government to provide support for its lithium project in Nevada.
Despite the improving conditions, industry executives called on governments to do more to financially support lithium processing — a segment currently dominated by low-cost Chinese companies. G7 leaders last week agreed to better coordinate efforts aimed at strengthening Western lithium and nickel markets.
“What are governments willing to pay for security of supply? There’s a tax to be paid for that, and it hasn’t been paid yet,” said Dale Henderson, CEO of PLS, described as Australia’s largest independent lithium producer.
The U.S. assistant energy secretary, Audrey Robertson, encouraged industry players to pursue technological innovations that could transform how lithium and other critical minerals are processed and traded. “The way that we’re processing lithium today is not the way we’re going to process it in five years,” Robertson told reporters at the conference.
A new state fair set up on the National Mall is billing itself as a celebration for every American — but not everyone is buying that message.
The Great American State Fair opened its gates and ran for 16 days, featuring a Ferris wheel and pavilions representing individual states. However, the event got off to a controversial start when it kicked off with a Trump rally, raising questions about its stated nonpartisan nature.
Adding to the debate, not all 50 states agreed to take part in the fair, leaving some notable gaps in the state-themed displays.
Despite the criticism, organizers are pushing back on the idea that the event carries a political slant. They argue that marking America’s 250th birthday is something all citizens can get behind, regardless of political affiliation.
The fair is open on the National Mall through July 10.
BRUSSELS — The European Commission fired back Friday against threats from U.S. President Donald Trump regarding digital taxes, asserting that the European Union and its member countries have every right to regulate economic activity within their borders.
A spokesperson for the Commission made clear that the EU’s tax policies are fair across the board. “Any taxes are non-discriminatory by design and apply equally to all large companies, regardless of their origin,” the spokesperson said.
The Commission added that while the bloc stands ready to respond quickly to any unjustified unilateral actions taken by the United States, it remains open to reaching a broader global agreement in keeping with commitments made under G7 accords.
DELMARVA — A dangerous heat wave is expected to build across the region next week as a strong upper-level ridge, or heat dome, expands across the central and eastern United States.
Forecast guidance shows this ridge strengthening over the Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, allowing heat and humidity to surge into Delmarva. The hottest stretch looks likely from the middle of next week into the July 4th holiday weekend.
Afternoon temperatures could climb well into the 90s, with some inland areas approaching the upper 90s. When combined with high humidity, heat index values may reach 100 to 110 degrees at times, especially away from the immediate beaches.
This heat wave may last several days, making it more impactful than a short burst of summer heat. Overnight lows may only fall into the 70s, providing limited relief and increasing the risk for heat-related illness.
The Weather Prediction Center highlights a broad area of Major to Extreme HeatRisk across much of the eastern U.S. next week, while longer range outlooks continue to show an elevated risk for extreme heat through the July 4th holiday period.
Residents should begin preparing now by staying hydrated, limiting strenuous outdoor activity during the hottest part of the day, checking on vulnerable family members and neighbors, and making sure cooling options are available.
With outdoor plans, beach trips and July 4th events expected across Delmarva, heat safety will be especially important. Forecast details will continue to be refined, but confidence is increasing that a prolonged and dangerous stretch of heat is on the way.
Farmers saw a bump in what they were paid for peanuts during the most recent reporting period, according to newly released federal data.
The average price received by farmers for all farmer stock peanuts came in at 24.4 cents per pound for the week ending June 20. That figure represents an increase of 1.9 cents compared to the previous reporting period.
The data was published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service as part of its regular peanut price tracking series.
The Federal Communications Commission announced Friday that Verizon Communications placed the winning bid of nearly $3.2 billion for wireless licenses in its latest mid-band spectrum auction.
Three other major companies also secured licenses in the same auction. AT&T successfully bid $278 million, T-Mobile came in at $121 million, and SpaceX rounded out the group with a bid of $8.5 million. Combined, the auction brought in approximately $3.5 billion in total bids, according to the FCC.
A massive space rock is set to cruise past Earth this weekend, though scientists say there is nothing to worry about.
The asteroid, known as 1997 NC1, will make its nearest pass to our planet Saturday morning, approaching within 1.6 million miles — or about 2.6 million kilometers — according to the European Space Agency.
First spotted nearly 30 years ago by an asteroid-detection program based in Hawaii, the rock measures somewhere between 2,461 feet and 5,413 feet across — roughly equivalent to the height of two to four Empire State Buildings stacked side by side.
Amateur astronomers armed with binoculars or a small telescope may be able to see it as a faint dot of light drifting across the sky. According to NASA, Earth won’t see this asteroid pass from such a close range again until the year 2133.
The last comparable flyby occurred in 2022, when a similarly sized asteroid called 1994 PC1 made a safe pass near Earth at an even closer distance.
Space agencies including NASA and the European Space Agency continuously monitor the orbits of asteroids and other debris in space to guard against any potential impact with Earth. Last year, scientists tracked a smaller, hockey puck-shaped asteroid and confirmed it had no chance of striking Earth or the moon.
CARACAS, Venezuela — The Quintero family found themselves gathered around an unlikely new home this week after two deadly earthquakes forced them out of their apartment building in Caracas.
Francisco Quintero gave up the seats of his small, worn-down car to his children. The trunk became the new living space for Paquito, the family’s green-and-red parakeet, along with a few pet turtles.
Quintero, who works as a musician, said he and the other adults in his family spend each night searching for somewhere to sleep near the vehicle “until we get an answer about what they might do with us.”
Two earthquakes — measuring 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude — struck Venezuela on Wednesday evening just 39 seconds apart, toppling buildings in Caracas and surrounding areas and damaging hundreds of homes. The confirmed death toll, already in the hundreds, is expected to climb as search-and-rescue teams continue their desperate work.
Thousands of people left without a place to live have flooded into parks, public plazas, and even the sides of blocked highways in search of somewhere to sleep. The disaster is the latest hardship for a country of roughly 30 million people that has endured decades of economic hardship. More than half the population lives in extreme poverty, and nearly 8 million people were already in need of humanitarian assistance before the quakes hit.
In Guaira — the hardest-hit state, located just north of Caracas — families spread sheets across a dusty baseball field to stake out their spots, their belongings crammed into plastic bags. Others took shelter beneath palm trees. Among them was 35-year-old Alexandra Martínez, who was there with her two children.
“The apartment is completely wrecked,” she said, wiping tears from her face. “The walls, the kitchen, everything, are destroyed. It split right down the middle.”
The same heartbreaking scenes unfolded throughout Caracas.
“We have nowhere to live,” said Desiré Gil. “This is the only option we have for the moment.”
The 37-year-old mother of four, including one daughter who is six months pregnant, is now living with her family on a small grassy plaza. Nearby, people used backpacks as makeshift pillows and propped up colorful beach umbrellas for shade as helicopters circled overhead.
Gil’s home did not collapse, but parts of it are crumbling, and she refuses to return. “Our fear is that the building might collapse on top of us,” she said.
Like many displaced residents, she is waiting for Venezuela’s civil protection agency to assess cracked and deteriorating buildings and determine whether they are safe to inhabit.
But it remains unclear when those inspections will begin. The government is still focused on saving lives, with thousands of people believed missing across Venezuela’s northern region. The quakes killed at least 920 people and left more than 3,300 others injured.
Gil, who earns a living selling mangos and other goods, said her pregnant daughter experienced contractions and went to the hospital Thursday, only to be turned away. Part of the maternity ward had collapsed, and the facility was already overwhelmed with patients transferred from other institutions.
The Ministry of Education announced that some school buildings would be opened as shelters, though the exact number was not specified. In the meantime, Gil said her family plans to remain on the grassy plaza “until the government gives us an answer.”
Experts say the widespread building damage comes as no surprise.
José Rangel, a civil engineer and university professor, pointed out that more than 50% of Caracas was constructed before 1982 — the year the government adopted an updated construction code for earthquake-prone areas.
“Everything that we’ve built before that year is seismically vulnerable,” he told the state television station Venezolana de Televisión.
Rangel said he and fellow engineers had already been working on seismic retrofitting plans and prioritizing evaluations of schools, hospitals, bridges, and other critical infrastructure before the earthquakes occurred.
He urged the government to rebuild using stronger standards and to implement existing safety recommendations, cautioning that assessing the buildings could take weeks.
“It’s a process that lies ahead,” Rangel said. “Right now, the most important issue is rescuing people.”
He also called on engineers, architects, and other professionals to take part in upcoming inspection efforts. “The causes of the collapse must be determined,” he said. “It’s how we learn lessons after an earthquake.”
Magaly Noguera and her family are among those waiting for an inspection. They live in a high-rise that sustained damage. Noguera recalled how she, her son, his wife, and their 3-year-old child huddled together under a kitchen door frame before making their way downstairs to safety.
“That day, the descent seemed endless to me,” she said. “I don’t want to be in my house.”
Her family now sleeps outside near a government building, surrounded by others facing the same uncertain situation.
Across the street, a man carried a mattress over his left shoulder while his partner tucked several pillows under her right arm. A small child walked between them as the family made their way to an unknown destination.
A Trump administration advisory panel is recommending that the United States move away from the concept of separating church and state — and toward building what the commission calls “bridges” between them.
The proposal, which challenges a deeply rooted principle in American law, is among dozens of recommendations contained in a 224-page draft report released Friday by the Religious Liberty Commission.
President Donald Trump established the commission last year, and its membership consists almost entirely of conservative Christians. The document functions both as a policy proposal and a philosophical argument, reflecting members’ belief that religion and religious expression should play a stronger role in government, schools, and public life.
The report praises recent Supreme Court rulings that have expanded religious expression in public settings — including decisions that allow parents to opt their children out of school lessons based on religious objections.
Among its specific recommendations, the report calls for eliminating the “Johnson Amendment,” which currently prohibits tax-exempt religious organizations from engaging in political activities. Removing that restriction has been a long-held goal of Trump. The report also recommends that military service members who were discharged for refusing COVID-19 vaccines receive financial compensation.
More broadly, the commission is calling for greater religious expression in public spaces, expanded access to public funding for faith-based organizations, and wider exemptions for people who cite conscientious objections to policies — including vaccine requirements, pronoun usage, and certain classroom content.
The report also recommends that federal agencies post “Know Your Rights” materials in various settings and set up hotlines where people can report violations of religious liberty.
Additional proposals include creating new honors — a Presidential Medal of Religious Liberty and First Freedom Hero Awards — as well as exhibits and historical markers at significant sites highlighting religion’s role in American history.
The draft is now open for public comment over the next 15 days and is widely expected to draw strong opposition.
A coalition of organizations — including one that has filed a lawsuit over the commission’s alleged lack of ideological diversity, as required of federal advisory panels — released a preemptive report earlier in June defending church-state separation.
“Religious liberty belongs to all people, not to any single tradition, political party, or administration,” stated that report, published by the Center for American Progress and other groups.
Critics argue the commission’s viewpoint is skewed toward perspectives favored by Trump and his supporters, and that it heard almost exclusively from scholars and activists who share those views. They also say the commission gave inadequate attention to issues such as anti-Muslim efforts in Texas and other states, as well as the rise of antisemitism on the political right, not just the left.
The report arrives as several conservative-led states, including Texas, have moved to bring more religion into public institutions like classrooms — through measures such as Bible lessons and displays of the Ten Commandments.
Speaking Friday to supporters at a Faith & Freedom Coalition event in Washington, Trump promoted the newly released document.
“We saved religion, it was going down,” he told the crowd.
Trump also claimed that his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, had carried out a “reign of persecution” against religious Americans.
While the commission’s report steps back from the idea of church-state separation, it stopped short of calling that concept a “lie” — a characterization the commission’s chairman, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, made in April. Instead, the report largely argues that the idea has been misapplied over time.
“To be clear, this does not involve or require advocating ‘theocracy’ or even the total elimination of any separation between church and state,” the report states. It instead calls for respecting a “tension between the relevant clauses of the First Amendment” — clauses that both protect religious freedom and prohibit the government from establishing an official church.
The phrase “a wall of separation between church and state” does not appear in the U.S. Constitution, though it has been embedded in Supreme Court precedent. Thomas Jefferson coined the expression in a letter to a Baptist congregation, expressing support for their opposition to government-sponsored churches — a practice that soon disappeared from American life.
During the 20th century, the Supreme Court used the “separation” concept to apply the First Amendment’s restrictions on establishing a national church to state and local governments as well, drawing on the 14th Amendment’s protections of citizens’ rights. That legal framework led to rulings banning official prayers and Ten Commandments displays in public schools. In recent years, however, the Court has shifted direction — allowing things like a public school coach praying on the field after games and permitting parents to remove their children from a lesson on transgender issues for religious reasons.
The draft report argues that even Jefferson did not intend to completely remove religion from public life, but rather sought a kind of balance between church and state.
“In reality, the church and state strengthen and support one another,” the report asserts.
The document highlights religion’s contributions to society, including humanitarian work, family stability, and serving as a moral check on government.
“In many cases the law protects the religious expression of Americans, but government officials and employers often use fear tactics to silence individuals into believing that they don’t have the right to publicly express their faith,” the report argues.
The report also draws on the views of one of its own members — a Catholic media figure and bishop — to argue that the idea of strict church-state separation can be traced to a European “God is dead” ideology that viewed traditional religion as a threat to individual freedom. “This way of thinking made its way … into the American culture and courtroom,” the report states.
Notably, the report gives little attention to the significant portion of Americans who have no religious affiliation. Many atheists and secular humanists argue that people can live ethically without religious belief, and that religion does not hold exclusive claim to virtue.
A lawsuit filed against the commission by the Interfaith Alliance and other religious organizations contends that the panel lacks ideological balance, pointing to the fact that commissioners have described the United States as specifically a Judeo-Christian or Christian nation, and that most of the commission’s meetings were held at the Museum of the Bible in Washington — an institution with Christian leadership.
The Trump administration is seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing on legal grounds that the law does not specify how a commission must be balanced or which viewpoints must be represented.
This latest draft report follows another document released two months ago by the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias — a separate body also created by Trump. That report claimed Christians faced discrimination under the Biden administration in areas including education, tax law, and the prosecution of anti-abortion demonstrators. Progressive critics argued that report failed to substantiate its claims and read more like advocacy than a genuine investigation.
According to the most recent poultry slaughter report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, the ready-to-cook weight of slaughtered poultry has increased by one percent compared to the same time last year.
The report, which tracks poultry processing data across the country, offered limited additional detail beyond the year-over-year weight comparison.
Karim Khan, the British barrister who serves as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, broke his public silence on Friday, telling Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya TV that the move to remove him from his position was improper and without legal basis.
“Unfortunately, the court’s bureau violated procedures, and what happened was astonishing, unjustified and unlawful,” Khan said through an interpreter. The remarks marked his first public statements since diplomats overseeing the ICC’s governing body voted to suspend him.
According to documents reviewed by Reuters, the executive bureau of the ICC’s oversight body concluded that Khan had engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a junior member of his staff.
Khan also repeated arguments previously made by his legal team, stating that an independent review conducted by outside judges found the evidence against him fell short of proving the allegations “beyond a reasonable doubt.” He noted that the bureau chose to disregard those findings.
The executive bureau’s decision will now be used to guide a formal vote on Khan’s future, set to take place on July 24 in New York before the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties, which is made up of 125 member nations.
The nation’s peanut supply chain is showing signs of increased demand, according to the latest government figures on peanut stocks and processing activity.
Commercial storage facilities across the country are currently holding 4.07 billion pounds of peanuts, the report indicates.
On the demand side, shelled edible grade peanuts — the type destined for consumer food products — have seen season-to-date utilization climb 6 percent compared to the same period a year ago, signaling stronger-than-usual movement through the supply chain.
On a frigid morning in Arctic Norway, British and Norwegian soldiers moved quietly through a snow-covered birch forest, taking part in a simulated NATO reconnaissance mission. They were among roughly 30,000 troops rehearsing a counter-attack against a fictional “enemy to the east” — widely understood to mean Russia — during large-scale military exercises held in March.
Over the past decade, Russia has surged ahead in Arctic military capability, modernizing the world’s largest icebreaking fleet as melting ice opens new shipping routes, and reopening dozens of Soviet-era military bases in a region that offers the shortest path for its nuclear missiles to reach the United States.
Those March exercises were part of a broader initiative called Arctic Sentry, designed to demonstrate to Washington that Europe and Canada are capable of protecting NATO’s northern flank. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte launched Arctic Sentry in February as part of his effort to convince U.S. President Donald Trump to abandon his push to acquire Greenland.
Rutte succeeded on that front, but meaningfully strengthening NATO’s Arctic position is a far more difficult task, according to interviews with dozens of current and former NATO officials and Arctic security experts.
Doing so requires sustained, large-scale investment across many areas — including icebreakers, submarines, drones, and satellites — placing heavy demands on allies’ budgets and militaries at a time when Trump has threatened to pull the United States out of NATO entirely, while Washington simultaneously pulls back troops, aircraft, ships, and weapons from Europe.
For most of NATO’s eight decades, the harsh and remote High North was treated as a low priority. But melting sea ice, Russia’s expanding footprint in a mineral-rich region larger than the entire United States, and growing Chinese interest in the area have forced a strategic rethink.
“No major power in the 21st century will be able to maintain its position on the global scene without, in one way or another, having a strong presence in the Arctic,” said Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, a former Icelandic president who now chairs the Arctic Circle forum, sometimes called the ‘Davos of the Arctic.’
Reuters was unable to determine whether the United States is contributing more or less to collective Arctic defense under the Arctic Sentry program, which is led by Joint Force Command Norfolk, Virginia — a command established in 2019 specifically to address Russia’s growing capabilities in the north. A NATO official responded to questions by stating that the U.S. remains a key contributor to Arctic defense and that this commitment was reaffirmed in a joint statement among Arctic allies in June.
The Pentagon and White House did not respond to questions about whether U.S. forces involved in Arctic defense could be affected by an ongoing American review of troop deployments in Europe. That review, along with continuing concerns about Trump’s ambitions regarding Greenland, is expected to loom over an upcoming NATO summit in Ankara in July.
The White House has previously stated that Trump has pushed allies “to recognize the need to meaningfully contribute to their own defense,” and has described the Arctic as critical to U.S. national security and economic interests.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence did not respond to a request for comment. The Kremlin has previously accused the United States of inflaming tensions in the Arctic.
THE KOLA PENINSULA THREAT
One of the most pressing challenges for European NATO members is keeping tabs on military activity on Russia’s Kola Peninsula, which borders both Finland and Norway. The peninsula is home to roughly two-thirds of Russia’s second-strike nuclear capabilities, including the Northern Fleet, which operates six of Russia’s 12 nuclear-armed submarines.
From the Kola Peninsula, Russia could launch hypersonic missiles toward the United States, making early warning systems essential. It could also deploy submarines toward the U.S. East Coast via the Bear Gap in the Barents Sea and the GIUK Gap — the strategic waterway between Greenland, Iceland, and Britain.
Norway and other NATO allies currently monitor Russian naval activity in both the GIUK Gap and the Barents Sea, where undersea cables have been damaged in incidents that some officials attribute to Russia. Norway also conducts surveillance of Kola Peninsula installations and shares that intelligence with the Americans.
But NATO needs to significantly improve its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, according to Mauro Gilli, a professor of military strategy at the Berlin-based Hertie School.
None of this comes cheaply in the Arctic, where standard military equipment frequently fails. Parts of northern Norway can experience temperatures as low as -45 degrees Celsius (-49 degrees Fahrenheit) in winter, not accounting for wind chill.
Because much of the Arctic is ocean — stretching across Greenland, Iceland, northern Norway, and the Barents Sea — any meaningful security presence must be primarily naval, which is inherently expensive, Grimsson noted. The United States currently operates only two icebreakers. Russia, which controls by far the largest share of Arctic territory, has 42, some of them nuclear-powered.
Satellite systems capable of operating at high latitudes are critical for real-time monitoring, Gilli said, as are long-range drones engineered to function in extreme cold, expanded underwater surveillance networks, and various types of ground-based radar systems. He estimated the total investment needed could reach hundreds of billions of dollars.
Climate change is also complicating submarine detection, as warming oceans alter salinity levels and currents in ways that affect how sound travels underwater — shrinking the range at which submarines can be tracked. Research from the NATO Defence College published in 2025 highlighted the North Atlantic as warming particularly rapidly.
“At the moment we can listen to and track submarines in the Barents Sea and follow them. If we are not doing that and we lose control of the submarines, then we have a problem,” Norwegian Defence Minister Tore Sandvik told reporters in January.
In June, the Icelandic government reported that a Russian intelligence vessel had been spotted monitoring NATO exercises in the North Atlantic and was tracked moving between Iceland and Greenland — a reminder that Moscow is actively watching the region’s strategic waterways.
IS NATO PREPARED?
There are indications that NATO is taking the challenge seriously. Nordic nations rank among the alliance’s top defense spenders and are on pace to reach NATO’s target of spending 5% of GDP on defense by 2035. The U.S. and Finland are jointly working to build up to six new icebreakers, with the first expected next year. Norway is purchasing frigates and submarines. The Nordic countries have also combined their air forces into a fleet comparable in size to Britain’s.
Canada, rattled by Trump’s suggestions that it could become a U.S. state and eager to reduce its long reliance on American defense support, announced a major C$35 billion ($25.7 billion) Arctic defense plan in March. The plan covers military infrastructure including airfields in the region. Canada is also working more closely with Nordic countries and, alongside Denmark, investing in ice-capable vessels. Prime Minister Mark Carney told Reuters during a March visit to Oslo that NATO’s renewed focus on Arctic security was long overdue but welcome.
British officer Vice-Admiral James Morley, deputy commander of JFC Norfolk, said Arctic Sentry will help more NATO personnel gain experience operating in harsh polar environments. “It provides a much more realistic environment,” Morley told Reuters at the Bardufoss air base in northern Norway, where British Royal Marines train on snowmobiles, skis, and helicopters.
The United Kingdom is doubling its permanent Royal Marines deployment in Norway to 2,000 troops. In June, NATO activated a new military grouping of 600 soldiers based in the Lapland regions of Sweden and Finland.
Still, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and global resilience Iris Ferguson, who held that role from 2022 to 2025, cautioned that keeping the Arctic a priority is difficult. “When you have a hot war burning in the East, it’s hard to direct investment into a region that doesn’t feel as hot,” Ferguson told Reuters, referring to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
KEEPING THE U.S. ENGAGED
American military leaders participating in the Arctic Sentry exercise, known as Cold Response, sought to reassure their European counterparts. “Our commitment is to defend every last inch of NATO territory,” said Major General Daniel Shipley, commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces for Europe and Africa, speaking in Bardufoss, Arctic Norway.
But anxiety among European leaders remains elevated following Trump’s Greenland threats and his talk of withdrawing from NATO. Last month, the U.S. announced reductions to its contributions to NATO’s crisis response force, including cuts to fighter jets, drones, and ships.
Norway, which has historically maintained close ties with Washington, joined France’s nuclear deterrence initiative in June. Norwegian officials now find themselves making the case that it is in America’s own interest to remain engaged in the Arctic — an argument they never previously felt compelled to make.
“100 kilometres from my border is the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. And it is not directed against me, Mr. President, but against you,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a speech in February, recounting a conversation he had with Trump at the White House.
Burkina Faso has announced it is ending its diplomatic relationship with France, accusing the European nation of failing to uphold the principles of mutual respect and non-interference.
Communications minister Gilbert Ouedraogo delivered the announcement on state television on Friday, making clear that Burkina Faso views France as having violated the terms of a respectful bilateral relationship.
Drivers traveling eastbound on Foulk Road faced a right lane closure due to construction activity between Chatham Drive and Stones Throw Road.
The lane restriction was scheduled to remain in place until 3 PM, according to traffic incident information. Motorists in the area were encouraged to allow extra travel time or consider alternate routes during the closure.
LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — In the aftermath of two devastating earthquakes, rescue teams fanned out across Venezuela as the death toll climbed to at least 920 people, with thousands more reported injured and an unknown number still missing.
As recovery operations continued, humanitarian aid began reaching affected areas to support those displaced and impacted by the disaster.
Images captured by photo editors document the ongoing search and rescue efforts taking place throughout the earthquake-stricken country.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood alongside ambassadors from Israel and Lebanon on Friday to announce a framework agreement that officials are calling a first step toward ending months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The agreement was signed by Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, and Nada Hamadeh, Lebanon’s ambassador to the United States. However, officials did not disclose the specific details of what the framework contains.
MIAMI — A 35-year-old nurse living in Kentucky has drafted her will, designated a legal guardian for her four children, and transferred her property into their names. She says she felt compelled to prepare as though she might not survive — because if she is deported back to Haiti, a country she left at the age of 9, she fears for her life.
Her anxiety intensified after the Supreme Court ruled Thursday to allow the Trump administration to strip legal protections from migrants who fled violence and natural disasters in Haiti and Syria. The decision sent waves of panic through those communities nationwide, leaving hundreds of thousands of people facing potential deportation.
“I have been living with this internal fear, it’s like preparing for a funeral, just in case I die when going to another country,” said the nurse, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of being targeted for deportation.
She is one of approximately 350,000 Haitians who hold Temporary Protected Status, a designation that has allowed many of them to live and work legally in the United States for decades — many with children who are U.S. citizens. The ruling, set to take effect July 27, also affects around 6,000 Syrians and could open the door to ending protections for as many as 1.3 million people from 17 different countries.
Congress established Temporary Protected Status in 1990 as a way to halt deportations to countries considered too dangerous due to natural disasters, civil conflict, or widespread instability. The program allows recipients to work legally in the U.S. but does not offer a route to citizenship. It can be renewed in up to 18-month intervals if the homeland security secretary determines conditions in the home country remain unsafe.
The Biden administration roughly doubled the number of people covered under TPS. The Trump administration moved to end those protections, arguing the program was designed to be short-term, that the affected countries are now safe, and that the previous administration expanded it too broadly without properly screening recipients.
For TPS holders, life has long been uncertain — but Thursday’s Supreme Court decision may represent the most serious threat yet to their ability to legally live and work in the United States.
The Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, was thrust into the national spotlight during the 2024 presidential campaign when Trump repeated unfounded claims that Haitians in that city were eating residents’ pets. Those claims have no basis in fact.
Even so, that community has been under relentless pressure since those remarks, according to Viles Dorsainvil, executive director of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield.
Thursday’s ruling only deepened the anxiety. Dorsainvil said people are unsure whether to pull their money out of the bank, whether they can legally work, or whether their children can continue attending school. Many are already making contingency plans to leave behind their U.S. citizen children if they are forced out of the country.
“As a Haitian, I always say that life has not been easy for us, nothing has been easy for us and this is another chapter in our life. And we’ve been in that type of situation since after the presidential campaign when they came up with that type of conspiracy theory of us eating cats and dogs,” Dorsainvil said. “We’ve been targeted. We’ve been in the spotlight for their political agenda.”
Dorsainvil said his primary focus right now is keeping people calm and urging them not to make desperate decisions that could put them or their children in greater danger.
A Haitian mother in Florida — a 37-year-old with a 17-month-old son — woke up Thursday morning to the news of the ruling.
“I was reading it and I just for a moment there I just felt like I couldn’t breathe, like as if something was just sitting on my chest, like my lungs couldn’t extend,” she said, her voice breaking.
She also asked not to be named, fearing detention and deportation.
“I did not expect this. It is so hard to accept. Maybe I am in denial but I think this can’t be real,” she said. “I had so much hope.”
She came to the United States in 1995 at age 7 and completed high school here, but was unable to pursue a college degree due to her lack of legal status. That changed in 2010, when the U.S. extended TPS protections to Haitians following a devastating earthquake. With repeated renewals amid the gang violence that has since overtaken the country and displaced more than a million people, she was eventually able to apply, attend school, and become a nurse. She was scheduled to begin a new job in just two weeks — but now she is uncertain whether she is even authorized to work.
Industry groups warn that the long-term care sector — including nursing homes and facilities serving people with disabilities — could be especially hard hit, since TPS holders are heavily represented in caregiving roles.
The Kentucky nurse said she is trying to stay focused on her job caring for people with disabilities, but she cannot stop imagining the worst: being separated from her children, who are 13, 12, 8, and 2 years old, and being sent to a country she left more than two decades ago — one she now reads about only in terms of gang warfare, kidnappings, and killings.
“I don’t want to go there. I am very Americanized,” she said. “It’s like someone saying, hey, do you want to go live in a horror movie? Like, you know, no, I don’t.”
Dozens of community organizations across the American South are set to receive a financial boost this summer, as a nonprofit dedicated to Black women and girls announces a new round of grant funding.
The Southern Black Girls and Women’s Consortium will distribute $350,000 among 24 Southern community groups operating across thirteen states. The money is intended to support organizations tackling pressing issues affecting underserved Black women and girls, including maternal health, prevention of gender-based violence, and educational assistance.
The announcement arrives at a challenging time for organizations focused on underserved communities, many of which are feeling the financial squeeze following the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The administration has used civil rights laws — historically seen as protections for marginalized groups — to pursue investigations into what it describes as “anti-white racism” and “illegal DEI” practices within corporations, nonprofits, and government agencies.
“We’ve seen this retrenchment in philanthropy, and people are not putting resources on the ground,” said Chanceé Lundy, the organization’s executive director. “Organizations are struggling, and we want to make sure that people know that we see them. We value the work that we’re doing, and we want to be able to help fill some of the gaps that they are experiencing.”
Alongside the grant announcement, the consortium is launching its summer “Joy and Justice” tour, a series of community-building events, resource drives, and festivals planned for nine cities. The majority of tour stops will be held at schools and community centers located in predominantly Black neighborhoods. One event is planned at the Virginia Capitol, where agency leaders advocating for diversity in state government are expected to participate.
Southern Black Girls has managed to hold on to support from some major corporations and foundations, but Lundy described maintaining those relationships as “extremely difficult” for most organizations right now, given that backing race- and gender-conscious groups could draw scrutiny from the federal government.
LaTosha Brown, a voting rights activist and co-founder of the organization, put it bluntly: “We’re being punished for who we are.”
President Donald Trump defeated former Vice President Kamala Harris — the first Black woman nominated for president by a major political party — in the last election. According to an AP VoteCast survey, roughly nine out of ten Black women supported Harris. Brown said Black women’s long history of involvement in progressive politics has made them a “target” in the current political environment.
“We have always been anchored, particularly in the social justice movements of this country, and I don’t think that that’s any different now. I think in many ways it has been exacerbated, just given the environment,” Brown said.
Both Brown and Lundy pointed out that Black women have historically faced discrimination and exclusion across the South, even as they remained essential contributors to the region’s economy and culture. Lundy reflected on stories of earlier generations of Black women who cared for white families that supported Jim Crow-era policies — laws that underfunded Black schools, suppressed voting rights, and allowed political violence against Black communities.
“You have to have a deep, deep sense of humanity to be able to do that,” Lundy said. She added that the tour is also about honoring Black women’s role in American history as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary. “We’ve kept our humanity intact through it all, and I think this moment requires that.”
Lundy said her ultimate hope is that the tour and grants will help young Black girls realize their full potential. Her message to them, she said, is a joyful one: “You matter now in this moment. And you’re not a victim. You are actually the solution, that you are the antidote to what is happening right now.”
With the Fourth of July approaching and America preparing to mark its 250th birthday, Utah’s governor declared a state of emergency Friday and placed temporary restrictions on fireworks — a response to the nation’s largest wildfire, which continues to burn completely out of control.
The Cottonwood Fire, which ignited Monday in a lightly populated stretch of southern Utah, had grown to nearly 111 square miles (287 square kilometers) by Friday with zero containment reported by forestry officials. It is one of six major wildfires currently burning across Utah. The blaze has caused serious damage to the Eagle Point ski resort in Beaver County and triggered mandatory evacuation orders for nearby residents.
Bruce Brown, 76, joined the local sheriff on Thursday to survey the damage, only to discover that his cabin — which he had owned for 31 years — and others nearby had been completely destroyed.
“It looks a lot like the moon,” he said. “Just burned out. Power poles tipped over all up the canyon.”
Alyssa Olsen, 27, also lost her family’s cabin in the fire. The structure held a room full of keepsakes from her grandfather’s days on the ski patrol. It was also the last place her family had gathered for photos with her grandmother before she passed away from cancer — and her brother had planned to get married there in just two months.
“That stuff you can’t just build back,” Olsen said.
Smoke from the fire has been drifting east and northeast, leaving popular tourist destinations like Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks — located well south of the fire — largely unaffected beyond some haze near the Bryce area. Even so, visitors have shared videos on social media capturing the massive smoke plume visible in the distance. The smoke has traveled hundreds of miles, reaching as far as Colorado.
“This is unlike anything we’ve seen in recent memory,” state forester Jamie Barnes said in a statement Thursday. “We’re seeing fires spread farther and faster under conditions that defy historical expectations. Some of the fires we’ve responded to this year are behaving in ways veteran firefighters simply haven’t seen before.”
Much of Utah is gripped by severe to extreme drought conditions, and parts of Arizona and Colorado are also experiencing severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Gov. Spencer Cox put the fireworks restrictions in place through July 5, saying “this year is different.” His order gives state forester Barnes the authority to restrict or ban fireworks displays in Utah cities and towns, rather than leaving those calls to local communities.
The National Weather Service office in Salt Lake City issued a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” warning — the first time in the office’s history it has done so — covering five Utah counties, including the area where the Cottonwood Fire is burning. That designation was originally created to alert the public to tornado conditions. A red flag warning was also issued for most of the state, with the service urging residents to “prepare now for rapid fire growth.”
A similar warning had been issued ahead of the 2025 Palisades Fire in Los Angeles, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes across Pacific Palisades and Malibu. In a related development Friday, a federal judge declared a mistrial in the arson case against Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man accused of starting that fire, after the jury was unable to reach a verdict.
Extreme fire weather was forecast for Utah on Friday, with wind gusts reaching up to 50 mph (80 kph) and very low humidity levels across the southwest desert and central and southern mountain areas, including the Cottonwood Fire zone.
Rocky Mountain Power issued a public safety power shut-off watch and warning for parts of central, southern, and eastern Utah from Friday through the weekend.
Beaver County, where the Cottonwood Fire is burning, is home to roughly 7,400 people, according to the U.S. Census.
Separately, the Iron Fire — located about 70 miles (113 kilometers) southwest of Salt Lake City — had burned through 63 square miles (163 square kilometers) by Friday and was 26% contained. That fire had forced the evacuation of Eureka, a town of about 1,000 residents, along with people at a nearby ranch. Those residents were allowed to return Thursday.
While investigators have not determined what started the Cottonwood Fire, Gov. Cox’s emergency order noted that more than 75% of Utah’s wildfires this season have been caused by human activity.
Red flag warnings stretched across a wide portion of the western United States on Friday — from Idaho down through southern Arizona and New Mexico — indicating that low humidity, warm temperatures, and strong winds were creating extreme wildfire risk. Those warnings were expected to continue into Saturday, with winds of 25 to 35 mph (40 to 56 km/h) and very low humidity. The most dangerous conditions were forecast from northern Arizona into central and southern Utah.
In New Mexico, firefighters were working to contain a wildfire that forced evacuations at campgrounds and a YMCA camp in the Jemez Mountains. In Arizona, a separate fire near Sedona prompted evacuations last weekend, burning several hundred acres of steep, rugged terrain near Oak Creek Canyon.
Motorists traveling on Levels Road over Route 301 should plan for slowdowns as construction crews have closed left lanes in both directions.
According to traffic officials, the eastbound and westbound left lanes on Levels Road over Route 301 are currently shut down due to construction activity. The lane restrictions are scheduled to be lifted by 3:00 PM.
Drivers are encouraged to allow extra travel time or seek alternate routes until the work is completed and the lanes reopen.
Undefeated heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk made a major announcement Friday, revealing he has stepped down from his WBC, WBA, and IBF heavyweight titles in order to pursue one final bout.
The 39-year-old Ukrainian fighter boasts a flawless professional record of 25 wins and zero losses. He cemented his place in boxing history in 2024 when he handed British fighter Tyson Fury the first defeat of his career, claiming undisputed heavyweight champion status in the process.
Usyk, who also won Olympic gold in 2012, had already given up his WBO belt last year. Most recently, he picked up a TKO victory over Rico Verhoeven just last month.
In a video posted to Instagram, Usyk explained his decision: “Today is a good day to announce that I want to give up all the titles that I now hold. To leave them free so that all the guys that are standing in line behind me can box for them.”
Despite walking away from his championships, Usyk made clear his career is not over. “My friends, I am giving up my titles, but I am not leaving sport because I have a last dance… there is more to come. Glory to God, Glory to Ukraine,” he added.
As peace talks between Islamic Republic officials and the United States continue in Switzerland, more than 75 million internet users inside Iran are still struggling with heavily restricted online access.
Although connectivity has been slowly returning over the past four weeks following an 88-day nationwide blackout — described by outside monitors as one of the longest ever recorded — users say the current internet environment looks nothing like what it was before the January 8 shutdown and the violent crackdown on protesters that came with it.
Users report that internet speeds have dropped even further, and reaching popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok remains nearly impossible, even when using various VPN services to try to get around the restrictions.
A source with knowledge of Iran’s communications sector told The Media Line that the government has restored internet access under conditions set by the Supreme National Security Council on the Supreme Council of Cyberspace.
“One of the main conditions was that the quality of access to, and control over, the global internet be altered in such a way that it becomes far more manageable and controllable,” the source said. “VPNs are also being heavily monitored and tracked, and in practice, bypassing censorship has become considerably more difficult than before.”
The source added that surveillance aimed at updating blocklists has intensified on an hour-by-hour basis, and that virtually all workarounds proposed by internet platforms and activists are monitored continuously in real time, drastically shortening how long any such solution remains effective.
According to the source, the only truly effective solution would be widespread access to Starlink for millions of people. If house-to-house networks were established at that scale, it would make government tracking of Starlink usage far more difficult. Currently, an estimated half a million people — mostly in northern Tehran — have access to Starlink, but users risk being identified if they access domestic websites while connected. Security agencies have also set traps targeting those seeking Starlink equipment, fueling distrust among potential users.
In recent weeks, raids by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, police, and the Ministry of Intelligence on private homes to seize Starlink equipment have increased, with some confrontations resulting in injuries or even deaths.
The restoration of internet access has allowed new images and testimony from the January crackdown to surface online, including some deeply disturbing videos. However, the Islamic Republic’s security agencies have also used the reconnection to hunt down opponents and those communicating with journalists abroad or sending information to foreign media outlets.
Niko, a young protester in Tehran, told The Media Line that the Islamic regime has imposed sweeping controls that have made online content and social media far less accessible than before the blackout. Despite the risks of contacting foreign journalists, she said that while the government claims it has restored internet access, speeds have been throttled to the point that VPNs that worked reasonably well just months ago are now practically useless.
“At the same time, if you used government-approved applications while your VPN was active, you could be immediately identified, and they could cut off your access. The money you paid for the VPN would effectively be wasted,” she said.
In her most recent message — sent while the Islamic Republic and the United States were again engaged in hostilities despite a ceasefire — Niko expressed deep concern about another potential shutdown. “If they cut the internet again, our situation will become even worse. The next step for the Islamic Republic will probably be to take away our mobile phones,” she said.
While Iranian officials have acknowledged the economic toll of internet restrictions, communication with human rights and civil society activists inside the country remains severely limited. Many have faced threats and intimidation intended to silence them. Although the internet has not been officially shut down again, sources say the level of repression has grown even more severe than it was before the January crackdown.
Tara Dachek, a human rights activist based in Canada, told The Media Line that the situation in Iran has moved beyond simple censorship. “The scope of filtering has expanded to such an extent that communications that were previously possible can no longer be achieved,” she said.
Dachek noted that many people cannot afford Starlink due to its rising cost, and that smuggling the equipment into the country has become harder and now carries stiffer penalties.
She also described Iran’s so-called tiered internet system, in which users are divided into categories with vastly different levels of access. At the top are individuals — typically affiliated with intelligence institutions — who enjoy completely unrestricted access and use it to monitor activists, build fake networks, infiltrate opposition groups, and sow divisions among critics of the government. The next tier consists of regime agents and officials who can access most internet content, with the exception of certain blacklisted sites, and are tasked with propaganda and routine government operations. A third group, described as insiders benefiting from a form of “white internet,” faces more restrictions but can still reach platforms such as X.
At the bottom of this hierarchy are ordinary citizens, who make up the overwhelming majority of users. They can access almost nothing beyond government-approved content and Islamic Republic applications, where monitoring can be carried out with relative ease.
Dachek said this classification system is the core of the problem — it determines which voices inside Iran are allowed to be heard and which are silenced.
High-profile figures including rapper Toomaj Salehi, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, and civil rights activists such as Sepideh Qolian have faced extensive threats. Some users who posted content on Instagram that could be read as criticism of the war have shared images of judicial summonses ordering them to appear before Revolutionary Prosecutors’ Offices.
Meanwhile, CITNA, a website focused on information technology news in Iran, has reported that 68% of active Instagram users have still not returned to the platform since internet access was restored. Users say commonly available VPN services still fail to provide reliable access to Instagram, which has been restricted since the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in 2022.
Beyond political repression, internet shutdowns in Iran have been linked to rising levels of depression among young people. Research presented at the Global Communication Association conference in Casablanca last year found that internet filtering in Iran contributes to increased depression and hopelessness among young Iranians.
While digital freedom remains a core demand for many Iranians, shutdowns also carry risks for the authorities themselves — by stoking public anger and driving political frustration from online spaces into street protests. That concern was echoed on Sunday by President Masoud Pezeshkian, who warned that if people reach the limits of their endurance, they will once again flood the streets.
Maryland state parks are rolling out a full slate of activities this week to honor America’s 250th anniversary, with events including a historic tree planting, a Fourth of July bike parade, historical reenactments, and hands-on crafts for children.
Parks will remain open on Independence Day, giving families the chance to start a new holiday tradition — whether that’s hitting the trails, exploring park exhibits about American history, or enjoying a patriotic picnic in the great outdoors.
Visitors should be aware that reservations are required on July 4th at several parks to prevent overcrowding and traffic delays. Those parks include: Gunpowder Falls State Park (Hammerman Area), Greenbrier State Park, Point Lookout State Park, Newtowne Neck State Park, North Point State Park, Rocks State Park’s Kilgore Falls area, Rocky Gap State Park, Sandy Point Park, and Swallow Falls State Park. Reservations can be made at parkdayuse.maryland.gov.
Liberty Tree Planting — Janes Island State Park, Crisfield July 1 at 11 a.m. As part of the statewide Maryland Liberty Tree Project, a tulip poplar tree descended from Maryland’s original 1775 Liberty Tree will be planted at the park to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Foraging 101: Eating Maryland State Parks — Bill Burton Fishing Pier State Park, Cambridge July 3 at 6 p.m. This beginner-friendly program offers an introduction to wild foods found in Maryland state parks. Attendees can learn how Indigenous peoples and freedom-seekers gathered food from the land, and discover what edible plants may already be growing in their own backyards.
Fourth of July Festival — Assateague Island State Park, Berlin July 4 from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Campers and beachgoers are invited to join the annual Independence Day bike parade through the state campground. Registration runs from 10 to 10:30 a.m. in the ranger station parking lot, with the parade heading to the Nature Center. Prizes will be given out, and all participants must wear helmets. The Nature Center will also host raffles, games, food, drinks, crafts, and tie-dye activities.
A Miller’s Life for Me — Freedman’s State Park, Brookeville July 4 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Visitors can try their hand at thrashing, winnowing, and hand-grinding wheat. The program explores the history of mills in the Patuxent River Valley and their importance to local farmers, including the Howard family.
Traditional Children’s Games and Crafts — Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park, Church Creek July 4 and July 5 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Families can stop by the visitor’s center to play classic games like jacks, mancala, and marbles, and learn how to make traditional crafts including yarn dolls.
… And Zeal for Liberty… — Fort Frederick State Park, Big Pool July 4 and 5 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Through historical interpretation, visitors can learn about the men and women who lived at Fort Frederick during the American Revolution. The fort served as a holding site for British prisoners of war. Scheduled activities include musket-firing demonstrations, military drills, and children’s drills.
Exhibit Hall Tour — Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park, Church Creek July 5 at 2 p.m. A park ranger will lead a guided tour through the exhibit hall at Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park.
Miles for Maryland — All State Parks, Year-Round There’s still time to join the Maryland Park Service’s Miles for Maryland challenge. The goal is to hike 250 miles within Maryland state parks over the course of the year — one mile for each year since the United States was founded. Participants can submit photos from their hikes for a chance to win prizes.
America in Miniature — All State Parks, Through November 15 A photographic scavenger hunt organized by the Maryland Park Service is also underway through November 15. More details are available on the Maryland Department of Natural Resources website.
Celebrate All Year Long The America 250 celebration continues through the end of 2026. Upcoming highlights include a U.S. trivia trail walk at Assateague State Park in August and a program at Fort Frederick exploring American military gear from 1753 to 1953. A full calendar of events is available on the Maryland Department of Natural Resources website.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko gathered for talks on Friday, according to the Kremlin, with the war in Ukraine expected to dominate the agenda.
The two leaders convened at Putin’s Valdai residence in northwestern Russia, where they covered topics including trade and economic cooperation, joint projects, and regional security concerns.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had told state news agency TASS ahead of the meeting that no press statements or document signings were planned once the talks concluded.
The meeting comes as tensions between Belarus and Ukraine have been escalating. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he believes Putin is pressuring Lukashenko to increase his country’s involvement in the conflict on Russia’s side.
Both Moscow and Minsk have rejected that characterization, with Belarus instead pointing the finger at Ukraine and Western nations for stoking tensions. Lukashenko said on Thursday that he had met with representatives of Zelenskiy and cautioned them against attempting to pull Belarus into the war.
Putin and Lukashenko are considered close political allies and meet on a regular basis. The Kremlin accused Ukraine of threatening Belarusian sovereignty after Zelenskiy, the previous Friday, gave Minsk one week to shut down signal relay stations he claimed were being used to help direct Russian military strikes.
The Kremlin had signaled on Monday that the two leaders were expected to address Zelenskiy’s comments “in the foreseeable future.”
By Wednesday, Zelenskiy announced that the relay stations had gone offline, though no independent sources were able to verify that claim.
While Lukashenko has stopped short of sending Belarusian soldiers to fight alongside Russian forces, he did allow Putin to use Belarusian territory as a staging ground for the initial assault on Ukraine in February 2022. He later agreed to host Russian tactical nuclear missiles on Belarusian soil.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced Friday that it is holding back its newest artificial intelligence model at the request of the Trump administration — marking the latest step in an unprecedented government review of AI technology over potential cybersecurity threats.
The new AI product, called GPT-5.6 Sol, will be made available only to a “small group of trusted partners” that have received approval from the Trump administration, OpenAI said.
In a statement, OpenAI made clear it has reservations about the arrangement going forward: “We don’t believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default.” The company described the restricted rollout as a temporary measure on the “path to broader availability in the coming weeks.”
This cautious, phased launch comes on the heels of government action earlier this month against Anthropic, a competing AI company and maker of the Claude chatbot. Anthropic was forced to pull two of its newly released models — known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — offline just days after their public debut, in response to a Trump directive that blocked foreign nationals from accessing them.
Government officials have been on high alert since Anthropic flagged earlier this year that its Mythos model showed an unusual ability to identify weaknesses in software — a capability that could potentially be exploited by malicious hackers to attack critical computer systems worldwide.
President Trump signed an executive order on AI oversight in June, creating a framework that allows the federal government to evaluate the national security risks of the most powerful AI systems for up to 30 days before they become publicly available. While the order describes AI developer participation as voluntary, the full framework has not yet been put in place.
OpenAI said its Sol model “is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities” than it is at enabling cyberattacks, and that it does not exceed the company’s own internal risk limits. However, OpenAI acknowledged that unexpected risks could still emerge, particularly if the model is used alongside other tools.
“That uncertainty, along with the model’s broader step change in capabilities, is why we are pairing the model’s increased capabilities with stronger safeguards and a phased release,” the company said Friday.
KHIRBET AL-GHAZAL, Syria — One of the biggest surprises at this year’s World Cup is Deniz Undav, a striker playing for Germany who carries with him the pride of two communities that have no national team of their own. The 29-year-old, who identifies as a Kurdish Yazidi and is the son of Yazidi refugees, has become a symbol of hope for people who have endured generations of hardship and violence.
Coming off the bench as a substitute, Undav has scored three goals and set up two more during the tournament, placing him in elite company on the scoring charts alongside global superstars like Argentina’s Lionel Messi, France’s Kylian Mbappé, and Brazil’s Vinicius Jr.
At a news conference Wednesday, Undav was asked about the impact of his performance on the Yazidi community. He said he hopes his play inspires fans everywhere, and particularly those within his own heritage community.
“I always get the news from my parents how they view me, how they see me and it’s making me proud, you know, that we finally have somebody,” he said.
In the village of Khirbet al-Ghazal in northeastern Syria, a small group of Yazidis gathered Thursday evening at the home of community leader Ismail Dalaf to watch Germany face Ecuador. Many of the people there share family ties with Undav’s mother, who originally came from a nearby village that has since been abandoned — its residents either leaving for economic reasons or fleeing during Syria’s civil war, which began in 2011.
Dalaf described Undav’s World Cup run as something that has made him “a symbol that shows Yazidis can reach a higher position and be seen with respect.”
“When people see a Yazidi entering the field, scoring goals and changing the result of matches, it changes public perception,” Dalaf said. “It tells the world that Yazidis have a role in the world.”
The Kurdish people are among the world’s largest stateless ethnic groups, with approximately 30 million living as minorities across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking religious minority found primarily in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. According to Irfan Ortac, chair of the Central Council of Yazidis in Germany, around 235,000 Yazidis now live in Germany — many of whom arrived following a brutal 2014 attack in Iraq’s Sinjar region, in which thousands of Yazidis were killed or taken captive by Islamic State militants who labeled them heretics.
“Until now, we have mostly been known as victims of violence,” Ortac said. “Whenever we spoke about Yazidis, we always had to talk about genocide, discrimination, and displacement. It makes us very proud and happy to be able to talk about something positive.”
Iraq is home to the world’s largest concentration of Yazidis and the site of their most sacred place of worship, the Lalish temple. There, too, Undav’s accomplishments have drawn celebration.
“It makes me very happy to see a Yazidi bringing our name to the World Cup and playing in front of the whole world,” said Luqman Sleiman, a spokesperson for the temple.
Diyar Bakir, a 29-year-old Yazidi from Sinjar, said he dreams of one day traveling to Germany to watch Undav play in person. He reflected on the journey Undav’s family has taken.
His family “came from a place where his ethnicity and religion were not appreciated, yet he is now recognized and valued by a great team like Germany,” Bakir said. “He emerged from the womb of suffering, and we wish him every success.”
Undav’s path has not been without difficulty. He has faced abuse tied to his heritage, both from spectators in the stands and on social media. When his club team Stuttgart traveled to Turkey to play Fenerbahce last year, German media outlets reported offensive chants directed at him. Two Kurdish anti-discrimination organizations characterized the social media attacks against him as part of a broader pattern of “racist and ethnically motivated hostility.”
His choice to represent Germany rather than Turkey — a decision other German-born players with similar eligibility have made differently — also drew backlash from some Turkish fans online. Despite that, his popularity has grown significantly during the tournament.
Düzen Tekkal, a documentary filmmaker and author of Kurdish Yazidi heritage from northwestern Germany — the same region where Undav grew up — is the co-founder of Scoring Girls(asterisk), a nonprofit that provides free soccer instruction to girls from a variety of backgrounds. She spoke about what she sees as a cultural moment.
“There definitely is a Deniz Undav effect and it’s very important,” she said, noting that children can now celebrate their heritage and feel a sense of belonging in Germany at a time when immigration is frequently framed as a political issue.
“It is no coincidence that he plays with this lightness and freedom,” Tekkal added. “People are asking how come he’s so good under pressure or he can cope with so much pressure? Because he doesn’t know it any other way. That is the DNA, that is the resilience. … That’s how he scores these goals because what is that pressure compared to being Kurdish or Yazidi?”
After scoring against Curacao, Undav celebrated with a traditional Yazidi-inspired dance, hands clasped behind his back. He was joined in the celebration by Antonio Rüdiger, a Black German soccer star who has himself endured racist and anti-Muslim abuse throughout his career. Tekkal called the moment “one of the highlights, no matter how this World Cup goes from here.”
“Dancing is a form of expressing resistance for us,” Tekkal said. “We dance on the graves of our dead. Our mantra is that resistance is life. He’s dancing there for his forefathers who were oppressed.”
Mahmoud Kanabi, a Kurd from Irbil who relocated to Berlin in 2020 and works at a Kurdish restaurant, said Undav’s presence in the tournament inspired him to buy a Germany jersey — something he would not have considered otherwise.
“Unfortunately, for us Kurds, we don’t have a team because we don’t have a country,” he said. “Now, when a Kurdish player is in a team, we have to be fans of it. It doesn’t matter what team it is.”
The Utah judge overseeing the murder case connected to the killing of Charlie Kirk found prosecutors in contempt of court Friday, citing public statements they made to media outlets regarding the guilt of the accused, Tyler Robinson.
Judge Tony Graf determined that those statements crossed the line established by his own restrictions on what either side in the case is permitted to say publicly. However, Graf turned down a request from the defense to remove the death penalty from consideration as a consequence for the violation. He concluded that the issue could be better addressed through the jury selection process, which is designed to identify and exclude potentially biased jurors.
Robinson has not yet entered a plea in the case. The 23-year-old, who is from southwestern Utah, faces a charge of aggravated murder in connection with the September 10 assassination of Kirk, a political ally of President Donald Trump. Kirk was shot in the neck while speaking before a crowd of thousands at Utah Valley University.
Defense attorneys had argued that Deputy Utah County Attorney Christopher Ballard went on what they described as a “media tour,” discussing ballistics evidence in the case and stating that prosecutors had sufficient evidence to prove Robinson committed the murder.
Judge Graf acknowledged that the comments were not made with any intention of tainting the jury pool, but he still characterized the statements about Robinson’s guilt as “unreasonable” given the court’s existing restrictions on public commentary about the case.
Legal experts had previously noted that eliminating the death penalty as an option would have been a highly unusual and extreme remedy for such a violation.
Twenty-seven incarcerated individuals in Delaware took a major step forward Thursday, walking across a stage in cap and gown to receive their high school diplomas during commencement ceremonies held inside two state prisons.
The Delaware Department of Correction and the Delaware Department of Education partnered to host the graduation events, which took place in the chapels of Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution and Sussex Correctional Institution.
The ceremonies were held to recognize and celebrate the academic accomplishments of students who completed their high school education while serving time behind bars, marking the close of the academic year.
Graduates were joined by others to observe the milestone occasion at each of the two correctional facilities.
Washington, D.C. has reached a financial settlement with a local resident who claims he was illegally detained by police while using Darth Vader’s theme music as a form of protest against the presence of National Guard troops patrolling the city’s streets.
A court document filed late Thursday confirms that the plaintiff, Sam O’Hara, has agreed to drop his legal claims against the district and four Metropolitan Police Department officers within three business days of receiving payment. The exact dollar amount was not disclosed in the filing. O’Hara is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia.
In a Friday email, an ACLU spokesperson described the financial terms as “a significant amount” that O’Hara “is pleased with,” but said the specific figure would not be released in order to protect his privacy. A spokesperson for D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s office declined to offer any comment on the matter.
While O’Hara’s dispute with the district has been resolved, his legal claims against an Ohio National Guard member remain active. Attorneys for that Guard member, Sgt. Devon Beck, have asked a judge to throw out O’Hara’s claims against him.
“He was there because that was his assigned duty,” Beck’s lawyers wrote in court documents. “This was not an accidental encounter or a one-time disagreement on a public sidewalk.”
A February court filing had previously indicated that O’Hara and the district had reached a settlement “in principle,” prompting a judge to pause the case while the two sides worked out the details.
O’Hara originally filed suit against the district last October, alleging that officers violated his First Amendment right to free speech and his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable detention and excessive force.
The music O’Hara played — “The Imperial March,” the iconic and foreboding theme associated with Darth Vader in the Star Wars film series — served as the backdrop for his ongoing protests against the deployment of Guard members in Washington under President Donald Trump. According to his lawsuit, millions of TikTok users have watched his videos documenting his interactions with the troops.
O’Hara, an artist who also works in the hospitality industry, maintains that he did nothing to interfere with the Guard patrol during their September 11, 2025, encounter on a public street. After one of the troops called in Metropolitan Police Department officers, O’Hara was stopped and kept in handcuffs for 15 to 20 minutes before being let go without any charges filed, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit included a pointed Star Wars-themed line: “The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from shutting down peaceful protests.”
The Guard presence in Washington stems from an executive order Trump signed last August declaring a crime emergency in the city. In the weeks that followed, hundreds of Guard troops and federal agents joined local police in patrolling Washington’s streets — a move that sparked significant tension with residents of the heavily Democratic district.
A man who authorities say faked his own death and fled to Europe to escape rape charges in the United States has died after being transported from a Utah prison to a hospital, officials announced Friday.
Nicholas Rossi, 38, had been serving a sentence of at least 10 years following his 2025 convictions on two separate sexual assault charges.
Rossi passed away Thursday night due to “complications of an existing medical condition after choosing to discontinue medical treatment,” according to Richard Piatt, a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Corrections.
Piatt confirmed that Rossi’s victims and family members had been informed of his death. He declined to provide specifics about the nature of Rossi’s health issues, though Rossi had appeared in a wheelchair and relied on supplemental oxygen during court proceedings.
Also known by the name Nicholas Alahverdian, Rossi was brought back to the United States from Scotland in 2024 after being extradited to face charges in Utah.
Utah investigators had been searching for Rossi after a DNA match from a rape kit collected more than a decade earlier identified him in 2018. Shortly after charges were filed, an online obituary surfaced claiming he had died on February 29, 2020, from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. However, Rhode Island police, a former attorney, and a former foster family all raised serious doubts about whether he had actually died.
He was taken into custody in Scotland the following year while being treated for COVID-19. Hospital workers recognized him by his distinctive tattoos, including a Brown University crest tattooed on his shoulder — despite the fact that he never attended the school.
Throughout the legal proceedings, Rossi maintained that he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being wrongfully accused. Investigators say they uncovered at least a dozen different aliases he had used over the years in an effort to avoid being caught.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump issued a stark warning Friday, threatening to impose a 100% tax on imports from any nation that levies a digital services tax on American companies.
Trump made the announcement via social media, calling out European countries he said are moving toward “imminent” implementation of taxes targeting U.S. tech firms. Many countries have been seeking new revenue streams as their economies shift increasingly toward digital commerce — a space largely dominated by American businesses.
“Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America,” Trump wrote in his post.
Trump also stated that the new tariff would override any previously established trade agreements. While the warning applies to any country that moves forward with a digital services tax, Trump’s post specifically called out European nations.
This is not the first time Trump has pushed back against foreign efforts to tax or regulate American technology companies. Last August, he warned of new tariffs on any nation taking such steps, writing that digital taxes and regulations “are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology.”
The latest threat comes just ahead of a July 4 deadline for the European Union and the United States to begin carrying out a tariff agreement that caps most EU export tariffs at 15%. That deal was finalized in May, following months of internal EU debate after European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen tentatively reached the agreement last year during a visit to Trump’s golf course in Scotland.
Digital services taxes were not included in that agreement and have continued to be a point of contention between Washington and the European bloc.
The U.S. government has previously launched tariff investigations into digital services taxes under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. However, it remains unclear exactly how Trump would carry out his latest threat or whether tariffs would be applied broadly or targeted at specific countries first.
Britain, which is no longer a member of the EU, has collected a 2% digital services tax since 2020. The tax applies to revenues earned by search engines, social media platforms, and online marketplaces that “derive value” from users in the United Kingdom.
When the tax was introduced, the British government said in a policy document that existing corporate tax rules for digital businesses had “led to a misalignment between the place where profits are taxed and the place where value is created.” The tax was designed to apply mainly to large international companies and was meant to “ensure the large multinational businesses in-scope make a fair contribution to supporting vital public services.”
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge brought the arson trial of the man accused of igniting the catastrophic 2025 Palisades Fire to an abrupt halt Friday, declaring a mistrial after jurors announced they were hopelessly deadlocked. Federal prosecutors wasted no time signaling their intention to bring the case back to court.
The jury in the trial of 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht had informed the court a day earlier that deliberations had reached a complete standstill. Rinderknecht faced three federal charges: arson, malicious destruction by means of a fire, and timber set aflame.
Judge Anne Hwang formally ended the proceedings, stating, “The court finds there is a manifest necessity to declare a mistrial because the jury is deadlocked.” The split stood at 10 jurors favoring not guilty and two pushing for conviction.
In a note submitted to the court Thursday, jurors described the situation plainly: “We have people on both sides that are dead set, unwavering and unwilling to change their opinion.” The jury also indicated there was nothing the court could do to break the impasse and confirmed they were divided on every single charge.
Prosecutors had asked Judge Hwang to instruct the jury to continue deliberating, but she declined, citing a “risk of coercion” given how firmly entrenched both sides appeared to be.
Defense attorney Steve Haney characterized the vote tally as a “pretty resounding indication” that his client did not commit the crime.
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli pushed back strongly, declaring that prosecutors “fully intend to retry this case before a new jury and obtain guilty verdicts on all charged counts.” He added, “The evidence is strong that Jonathan Rinderknecht is responsible for igniting the fire on January 1, 2025, which eventually became the Palisades fire.”
Rinderknecht has maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings. The fire he is accused of starting became one of the most destructive wildfires in the history of California. Prosecutors contend he lit a fire on January 1, 2025, which smoldered undetected in underground root systems before erupting again on January 7. The Palisades Fire ultimately claimed 12 lives and leveled thousands of homes across the hillside communities of Pacific Palisades and Malibu. Recovery has been painfully slow — only 17 homes have been cleared for occupancy.
The trial got underway on June 8 and included eight days of detailed testimony from investigators, expert witnesses, and people who lived in the surrounding area. Jurors spent a total of 13 hours deliberating over two days before concluding they could not reach a unanimous decision.
Prosecutors used security camera footage to argue the fire originated at a location known as the Hidden Buddha clearing, a hillside spot accessible via a neighborhood trail. Rinderknecht, who was working as an Uber driver that evening, dropped off his final passenger in the same neighborhood shortly before midnight.
He called 911 more than a dozen times that night, and cell phone location data placed him at the clearing. Records showed him walking down the trail while making those calls. Prosecutors also noted that Rinderknecht told investigators he had not seen or heard anyone else at the location.
To establish motive and state of mind, prosecutors introduced a wide range of digital records pulled from his phone, email, Uber account, OpenAI account, and various social media platforms. Investigators reviewed thousands of exchanges between Rinderknecht and the AI chatbot ChatGPT, which he regularly used as a personal journal several times a week.
In one entry, he wrote: “Why am I so angry all the time?” He also expressed frustration over wealth inequality and climate change, feeling powerless to make any difference.
Digital records also showed he had searched for information about Luigi Mangione, who is charged with murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. On Reddit, he searched the phrase “lets kill all the billionaires.” He also looked up the home address of DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, including whether Xu had children or security cameras at his residence.
Prosecutors also highlighted his romantic frustrations. He had reached out to a woman earlier on New Year’s Eve asking about her plans, and after she turned him down, he sent her angry and offensive messages from a separate phone.
After firefighters arrived to battle the blaze, Rinderknecht followed them and recorded video of the fire. While doing so, he also asked ChatGPT whether a person could be held responsible for a fire accidentally started by a cigarette. He screen-recorded both his 911 calls and that ChatGPT exchange — something prosecutors presented as an attempt to mislead investigators.
On January 6 — the day before powerful Santa Ana winds fanned the smoldering roots back into a full-scale inferno — Rinderknecht recorded a selfie video in which he said he was experiencing a mental breakdown.
Prosecutors also referenced a recorded interview Rinderknecht gave to agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in late January, before he was considered a suspect. ATF agent Matthew Beals spoke with him for approximately eight hours, at one point driving with him to the fire site so Rinderknecht could walk through his movements during the timeframe when the fire began.
Agent Beals testified that Rinderknecht’s account of events conflicted with the geolocation data from his phone and the timestamps on his 911 calls. Beals also said Rinderknecht grew “agitated” during questioning, at one point accusing the agent of treating him like a suspect, and repeatedly brought up his frustrations with politics when asked about the fire.
In one recorded moment, Rinderknecht speculated about why someone might hypothetically set a fire in Pacific Palisades: “If people are specifically targeting this area, I’m thinking it’s probably because they’re like, ‘Oh, do people think they can have their own little road up here in paradise and just, you know, be here with their money while we’re basically being slaves for them?’”
Arson behavioral expert Kevin Kelm testified that Rinderknecht’s conduct was consistent with what he described as a “revenge, or societal revenge motivated” arsonist.
The defense, meanwhile, argued that fireworks — not Rinderknecht — were the most probable cause of the fire. One firefighter testified to hearing fireworks in the area around midnight on New Year’s Eve. Three additional witnesses called by the defense — two Pacific Palisades residents and a neighborhood security guard — said they either saw flashes of light or heard fireworks, and two of them reported seeing a group of teenagers running down the trail afterward.
Two defense expert witnesses also cast doubt on the federal investigation, pointing out that the scene of the January 1 fire was left unsecured for 13 days, leaving it potentially compromised. Both concluded fireworks were the most likely cause.
Former Los Angeles fire investigator Ed Nordskog testified that he had responded to dozens of fires on both the Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve, the majority of which were caused by fireworks. He accused government investigators of falling victim to confirmation bias in their pursuit of Rinderknecht. “They’re choosing to look at information in a very sinister way when they should be a little more open about it,” he said.
Defense attorney Haney also noted that a search of Rinderknecht’s entire digital history turned up no searches related to arson, fire-starting techniques, or purchases of fire-starting materials. While investigators found his DNA on a barbecue lighter in his vehicle, they could not prove that lighter caused the fire — only that it was started with an “open flame,” Haney said.
Haney argued that calling 911 repeatedly and remaining on scene while firefighters worked was itself evidence of innocence. “No arsonist sets a fire and calls 911 for them to put it out … and then waits around to be arrested,” he said.
LOS ANGELES — Ann Blyth, a gifted actress and singer who earned an Academy Award nomination at just 17 years old for her unforgettable performance in “Mildred Pierce” alongside Joan Crawford, has passed away. She was 98 years old.
Her daughter, Eileen McNulty, confirmed that Blyth died Wednesday from natural causes at her residence in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Her family was gathered around her at the time of her passing.
Considered one of the final living links to Hollywood’s golden studio era, Blyth built a remarkable career that spanned youth pictures, dramatic films, and big-screen musicals. She shared the screen with some of cinema’s biggest names, including Bing Crosby, Gregory Peck, and Robert Mitchum. By the close of the 1950s, she had stepped away from film to focus on raising her children, though she continued performing in television productions, concert tours, and stage musicals ranging from “Show Boat” to “The Sound of Music.”
Her path to stardom began early. At 13, she landed her first major role as Paul Lukas’s daughter in Lillian Hellman’s anti-Nazi stage play “Watch on the Rhine,” which also featured Bette Davis. She spent nearly a year performing the show on Broadway, followed by another year on a national tour.
When the production traveled to Los Angeles, Universal Studio took notice and signed her to a contract at $175 per week. The dark-haired young actress with a naturally melodic singing voice went on to appear alongside a young Donald O’Connor in modest musical productions such as “Chip Off the Old Block” and “Bowery to Broadway.” It was a loan-out to Warner Bros. for “Mildred Pierce” that truly launched her career into a higher orbit and opened the door to more mature roles.
Much like “Double Indemnity,” which Billy Wilder adapted for the screen in 1944, “Mildred Pierce” was rooted in a James M. Cain thriller built around themes of revenge and scheming. Crawford took home the 1945 Oscar for Best Actress, playing a waitress who climbs her way to restaurant ownership. Blyth received a supporting actress nomination for her portrayal of Mildred’s spoiled and calculating daughter, Veda, who seduces her mother’s second husband — played by Zachary Scott — and then shoots him in a fit of jealous fury.
The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, the same filmmaker behind “Casablanca,” and stands as a celebrated example of film noir, set largely in shadowy nighttime scenes. For Blyth, the role was a sharp departure from the lighthearted musicals that had defined her early work — especially striking given that magazine profiles of her had carried titles like “Incorruptible!”, “Angelic Annie,” and “Ann Blyth: Success Without an Enemy.”
In 1946, her career was nearly derailed when she broke her back in a toboggan accident. She endured seven months confined to a body cast and another seven months in a wheelchair. During that difficult stretch, she leaned heavily on her Roman Catholic faith.
“The busy, exciting world I had known faded away, and my life slowed down to little things,” she once told The Associated Press. “But even here I found myself blessed, for a new sense of prayer began to unfold to me.”
After her recovery, she returned to the screen in a series of films, including roles opposite Sonny Tufts in “Swell Guy,” Howard Duff in “Brute Force,” and Mickey Rooney in the boxing picture “Killer McCoy.” She also demonstrated her dramatic range playing a young woman in love with a man suspected of murdering his wife — portrayed by Charles Boyer — in “A Woman’s Vengeance.”
Her most compelling post-“Mildred Pierce” dramatic work came in “Another Part of the Forest,” Lillian Hellman’s prequel to her celebrated drama “The Little Foxes.” Blyth took on the role of a young Regina Hubbard, a character previously brought to life on Broadway by Tallulah Bankhead and on film by Bette Davis.
Her career shifted direction again in 1951 when she starred opposite Mario Lanza in “The Great Caruso.” Her bright soprano voice proved a natural complement to his powerful tenor, and the two were set to reunite for “The Student Prince.” However, the notoriously difficult Lanza withdrew from the project after recording his musical numbers, leaving British actor Edmund Purdom to appear on screen while lip-syncing to Lanza’s recordings. Blyth also co-starred with Howard Keel in “Rose Marie” and “Kismet.”
Among her other notable films were “Top o’ the Morning” with Bing Crosby, “The World in His Arms” with Gregory Peck, and a reunion with Donald O’Connor in “The Buster Keaton Story.” Her final film appearance came in 1957 with “The Helen Morgan Story,” which starred Paul Newman alongside her.
Blyth was born in 1928 in Mount Kisco, New York, to an Irish mother and an English father who worked as a valet. She grew up in New York City. After her father left the family, her mother — known as Nan Blyth — supported herself and her two daughters by taking in laundry and working in beauty parlors.
Nan Blyth had high aspirations for her daughter’s future in entertainment, and by age 5, young Ann was already performing on a New York radio program. She continued as a radio performer and spent three years studying and performing with the San Carlo Opera Company.
Reflecting on those early years after achieving fame, Blyth once said: “I’d become blue and despondent when I failed to get a job, and my mother’s encouraging words made me want to try again.” Tragically, her mother died of cancer before she witnessed her daughter’s breakthrough in “Mildred Pierce.”
In 1953, Blyth married Dr. James McNulty, the brother of tenor and comedian Dennis Day. The couple had five children and remained together until Dr. McNulty’s death in 2007. In a memorable moment in television history, Blyth performed the song “Secret Love” at the Academy Awards ceremony just weeks before the birth of her son Timothy in 1954 — visibly pregnant as she sang the lyrics, “Once I had a secret love … and my secret love’s no secret anymore.”
Even with a preliminary deal in place to end the Iran war and reopen a critical Middle Eastern shipping lane, profits for diesel fuel producers remain stubbornly strong — a sign that traders aren’t yet convinced the crisis is over.
The U.S. diesel futures crack spread — a key measurement of how profitable it is to refine diesel fuel — reached its highest point in three weeks on Thursday, settling at $62.84 per barrel, according to LSEG data. That marks the highest level since June 3. The crack spread is calculated by looking at the gap between the price of ultra-low sulfur diesel futures and the U.S. crude oil benchmark known as West Texas Intermediate.
Analysts say the strength in diesel refining margins reflects a cautious mindset among fuel traders, who are hesitant to bet against prices in case tensions in the Middle East reignite. The diesel market has been among the hardest hit by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — a vital waterway for global fuel supplies and for Middle Eastern crude oil grades that are particularly well-suited for diesel production.
Rory Johnston, founder of the Commodity Context newsletter, explained the current dynamic this way: “It is pretty clear at the moment that oil market tightness is concentrated in products rather than crude, so it is probably a safer way to play upside.”
Johnston also noted that Russian fuel exports have dropped sharply due to damage caused by Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries inside Russia, adding further strain to global diesel supplies.
The diesel crack spread, along with the broader oil market, has fallen significantly in recent weeks as U.S. negotiations with Iran made progress toward ending the conflict and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. At its peak back in March — the first month of the Iran war — the U.S. diesel futures crack spread topped $90 per barrel, and climbed even higher in physical markets.
Still, diesel prices have held up far better than crude oil during the recent retreat. Since the beginning of this month, West Texas Intermediate crude futures have tumbled roughly 22%, while ultra-low sulfur diesel futures have declined just over 9%.
Uncertainty in the region persists. Although some vessels that had been stranded have recently passed through the Strait of Hormuz, a container ship was struck near Oman on Thursday, and the United Nations temporarily halted its efforts to guide ships and sailors through the waterway.
Brokerage StoneX told clients Thursday that diesel inventories are the tightest of all refined fuel products, making diesel especially vulnerable to any new developments in the Middle East.
The most recent government data paints a clear picture of that tightness. U.S. distillate fuel inventories — made up mostly of diesel along with smaller amounts of heating oil — stood at 106 million barrels as of June 19, roughly 12 million barrels below the five-year average, according to the Energy Information Administration.
OpenAI announced Friday that it is holding off on a full public release of its latest artificial intelligence model, GPT-5.6, after the U.S. government requested early access to the technology before it becomes widely available.
Rather than launching to the general public, the company is initially making the model accessible only to a limited group of vetted partners, whose identities have been shared with federal authorities.
The move reflects increasing concern in Washington about the national security implications of powerful AI systems. Policymakers have been pushing tech companies to put stronger safeguards in place around their most advanced tools.
By gaining early access to these so-called frontier AI models, U.S. officials hope to spot potential threats — from cyberattacks to military misuse — before the technology is broadly deployed.
In a blog post, OpenAI described the restricted release as a short-term measure while the company collaborates with the federal government on a wider framework for how future AI models will be launched. The company also noted that it briefed the government on its plans and the model’s capabilities ahead of the release.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month creating a voluntary framework that allows AI developers to give the U.S. government access to advanced “covered frontier models” for up to 30 days before sharing them with trusted partners.
“We are taking this short-term step because we believe it is the strongest path to broader availability in the coming weeks, while we work with the Administration to develop the cyber Executive Order framework and a repeatable process for future model releases,” OpenAI stated.
The company said it will continue thorough testing and close coordination with partners as it prepares for a broader release. However, OpenAI also warned that this level of government oversight should not become a permanent standard, and it did not disclose the names of its partner organizations.
OpenAI expressed concern that ongoing government restrictions could limit access to advanced AI tools for developers, businesses, cybersecurity professionals, and international partners who stand to benefit from them.
The centerpiece of the new model lineup is GPT-5.6 Sol, described as the company’s most capable model to date. It is accompanied by a mid-range option called Terra and a lower-cost version called Luna.
The Montreal Canadiens made a roster move Friday, obtaining forward Brett Berard from the New York Rangers in exchange for defensive prospect William Trudeau.
Berard, 23, was unable to register a point in 13 appearances last season. Over 48 career games with New York — dating back to when the Rangers selected him in the fifth round of the 2020 draft — he has tallied 10 points, made up of six goals and four assists.
Trudeau, also 23, was originally chosen by Montreal in the fourth round of the 2021 draft. He spent the last four seasons playing for the Laval Rocket in the American Hockey League, where he put up 20 points — eight goals and 12 assists — across 62 games during the 2025-26 season.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump issued a sharp warning Friday, threatening to hit any country that taxes American technology companies with a sweeping 100% tariff on all goods entering the United States.
Trump made the announcement through a social media post, noting that several European nations have been moving toward implementing digital services taxes aimed at U.S. companies.
“Numerous European Countries have been discussing the imminent implementation of a Digital Services Tax on American Companies,” Trump wrote. “Some of these Countries are close to actually doing this.”
“Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America,” he added.
Trump further stated that the threatened tariff would take precedence over any trade agreements with the United States, “whether implemented, signed or not.”
The announcement comes just days after French President Emmanuel Macron publicly declared that France would not back down from its digital tax on U.S. tech giants, even under pressure from Trump. The two leaders made those remarks ahead of their meeting at the G7 summit.
Prior to traveling to the summit in France, Trump had already warned that the U.S. would “have no choice” but to impose 100% tariffs on French wine if Paris refused to drop its digital tax.
France has had a 3% levy in place since 2019 on revenue generated through digital services by companies earning more than €25 million within France and more than €750 million globally.
The International Monetary Fund’s chief economist has given his stamp of approval to Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s decision to pull back on forward rate guidance, describing the move as “entirely appropriate” — though he cautioned that central banks will always need to offer some degree of long-term direction for financial markets.
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, who is stepping away from his role next week to return to academia, said that strong forward guidance has earned “really bad press” because it locks central banks into future actions regardless of how economic conditions change.
“That is something that is not tenable, of course,” Gourinchas said in an interview, explaining that rigid commitments proved particularly damaging when U.S. inflation spiked in 2021 and 2022 but the Fed was slow to respond because it had previously pledged to hold rates steady.
“So I think moving away from these strong forms of forward guidance is entirely appropriate. Saying there is no forward guidance, I don’t think that is actually the case ever. You do it explicitly, or implicitly, the market is going to form a view,” he said.
Warsh, who took the helm of the Fed last month, has launched a sweeping review aimed at reshaping how the central bank operates and communicates with the public. During his first policy meeting as chair, he guided a unanimous agreement around a simplified policy statement that removed any near-term guidance on potential rate actions.
Gourinchas’ remarks represent the first public comments from a senior IMF official regarding the Fed’s new communication strategy. They come after years in which the global lending institution urged central banks to be open about their monetary policy intentions in order to keep inflation expectations stable.
Gourinchas said the IMF has observed other central banks moving in a similar direction, though many continue to operate under inflation-targeting frameworks designed to manage inflation over a one-to-two-year horizon.
“You need to provide some amount of guidance, so that the market will form some views about what the long-term rates are going to be, and that actually is what’s going to have an influence on the conditions,” he said.
He added that even without explicit statements, central banks would step in to correct market expectations if they drifted too far off course. “If that view somehow is not the one that you want to communicate, central banks will communicate differently, and they will try to guide where they want it to be,” Gourinchas said.
He also pointed out that markets, businesses, and banks are constantly seeking signals to guide investment decisions, set mortgage rates, and plan ahead — a demand that extends well beyond the scheduled meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee, where interest rates are formally set.
The 2026 Wimbledon Championships are officially underway, and Reuters has pulled together a fascinating collection of facts and figures that tell the story of tennis’s most storied event.
1 — Only one woman in the Open Era has won a Wimbledon singles final with a “double bagel” — a 6-0, 6-0 shutout. That distinction belongs to Iga Swiatek, who achieved the feat against Amanda Anisimova in 2025.
5 — Both Roger Federer and Bjorn Borg share the record for the most consecutive men’s singles titles at Wimbledon, each winning five in a row.
7 — Serena Williams has claimed seven Wimbledon women’s singles titles in the Open Era. She returns to the tournament’s women’s singles draw this year for the first time since 2022, having been awarded a wildcard into the main draw.
8 — During the tournament, the grass at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is maintained at a precise height of eight millimetres.
8 — Roger Federer also holds the all-time record for the most men’s singles titles at Wimbledon, with eight championships to his name.
9 — Martina Navratilova holds the Open Era record for women’s singles titles at Wimbledon, having won nine times.
9 — In a remarkable stretch of variety at the top of the women’s game, the last nine Wimbledon ladies’ singles titles have been won by nine different players.
11 — The longest match in Wimbledon history lasted 11 hours and five minutes, with John Isner defeating Nicolas Mahut in 2010. That record is now considered virtually unbreakable after Wimbledon introduced a final-set tie-break in 2019, later updated to a 10-point tie-break at 6-6 in 2022.
15 — Lottie Dod became the youngest women’s singles champion in Wimbledon history when she won the title at just 15 years old back in 1887.
17 — Boris Becker holds the equivalent record on the men’s side, having won Wimbledon at the age of 17 in 1985.
20% — Prize money at Wimbledon received its largest single-year increase in 2026, jumping 20% to a total purse of £64.2 million (approximately $84.85 million). Both the men’s and women’s singles champions will each take home £3.6 million.
23 — Since the Open Era began in 1968, 23 different men have won the Wimbledon singles title.
26 — On the women’s side, 26 different players have claimed the singles crown during the Open Era.
37 — Charlotte Cooper Sterry is the oldest women’s singles champion in tournament history, winning her title at age 37 in 1908.
41 — Arthur Gore is the oldest men’s singles champion ever at Wimbledon, having taken the title at 41 years old in 1909.
125 — Croatia’s Goran Ivanisevic holds the record as the lowest-ranked singles champion in Wimbledon history. He was ranked 125th in the world when he won the men’s title in 2001. On the women’s side, Marketa Vondrousova claimed that distinction in 2023, winning the championship while ranked 42nd in the world.
129 mph — The fastest serve ever recorded in the women’s competition at Wimbledon was struck by Venus Williams in 2008, clocking in at 129 miles per hour.
153 mph — The outright fastest serve in Wimbledon history was recorded last year by Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, who topped the previous record of 148 mph set by American Taylor Dent in 2010.
2,000,000 — Tournament organizers say up to two million strawberries are eaten across the Wimbledon venues during the two-week event.
The City of Rehoboth Beach has issued its latest edition of “Lines in the Sand,” dated June 26, 2026.
“Lines in the Sand” is a regular publication from the City of Rehoboth Beach used to share official updates, announcements, and information relevant to residents and visitors of the coastal community.
The full contents of this particular edition were not available for review at the time of this report. For complete details, residents are encouraged to visit the City of Rehoboth Beach’s official website.
Northbound Route 13 at the St. Georges Bridge is currently closed following a crash, according to Delaware transportation officials.
Motorists traveling through the area are advised to allow extra time or find an alternate route while crews work at the scene. The closure is in effect as of the time of this report.
No further details regarding the crash, including the number of vehicles involved or any injuries, have been made available. TV Delmarva will provide updates as more information becomes available.
For many soccer fans, attending a World Cup match is a dream come true — but for some ticket holders, that dream has turned into a nightmare.
Fans who purchased resale tickets for World Cup matches have been left scrambling after those tickets fell through, leaving them unable to get into games they had planned and paid for.
The situation has put supporters in a difficult position: either accept missing out on what many consider a once-in-a-lifetime sporting event, or race to find replacement tickets — a process that often means spending even more money for seats that are far less desirable than what they originally purchased.
Outside one stadium in the Dallas area, fans were spotted holding signs reading “World Cup tickets wanted” as a match between the Netherlands and Japan got underway on June 14 in Arlington, a scene that illustrated just how desperate the situation had become for some attendees.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Toronto Maple Leafs and their new general manager, John Chayka, hold the top spot in Friday night’s NHL draft, with Penn State forward Gavin McKenna widely considered the best player available.
For Chayka, who was recently brought on board, the first overall pick represents another chance to help revamp one of hockey’s most storied franchises. Toronto finished last in the Atlantic Division, signaling a period of change for the organization. Chayka has already brought in Jim Hiller as the team’s new head coach and last week added defenseman Darren Raddysh through a sign-and-trade agreement with Tampa Bay.
The focus now turns to adding young talent — fittingly in the same downtown Buffalo arena where Toronto used the first pick in the 2016 draft to select star forward Auston Matthews.
McKenna, a right winger known for his playmaking ability, hails from Whitehorse, Yukon. Other highly regarded prospects in this year’s class include Swedish left winger Ivar Stenberg, center Caleb Malhotra, and a group of defensemen: Latvia’s Alberts Smits, North Dakota’s Keaton Verhoeff, and Chase Reid, who is considered the top American-born prospect in the draft.
Assuming no trades shake things up, the next four selections are expected to go to San Jose at No. 2, followed by Vancouver, Buffalo, and the New York Rangers rounding out the top five.
KINSHASA, Congo — Congo announced Friday that it has brought a formal legal case against Rwanda at the International Court of Justice, charging its neighbor with legal responsibility for more than three decades of brutal violence that has torn apart the eastern part of the country.
In the filing, Congo accused Rwanda of violating international agreements covering genocide, racial discrimination, discrimination against women, and torture. According to Congo, civilians in the eastern region have endured massacres, unlawful killings, torture, sexual violence, forced displacement, and ethnic and gender-based persecution dating back to the 1990s.
Eastern Congo, a region abundant in mineral resources, has been caught in a cycle of conflict for decades. Government forces and allied militias have been battling more than 100 armed groups, with the most powerful being the M23 rebel group, which has received backing from Rwanda. M23 fighters made significant territorial gains early last year, capturing the city of Goma and other important areas as they rapidly expanded their control.
The United Nations has described the situation in eastern Congo as “one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises on Earth.”
The roots of the conflict stretch back to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when Hutu fighters who carried out mass killings fled into eastern Congo. In the years that followed, Rwanda repeatedly sent soldiers or provided support to armed groups in the region, claiming it was working to neutralize those Hutu fighters and protect its own national security. Both Congo and the U.S. government have accused Rwanda of using those rebel groups as cover to gain access to the region’s vast mineral wealth.
Congo’s filing named several Rwandan-backed rebel groups it holds responsible for the violence over the years, including M23. Congo is asking the ICJ to declare Rwanda internationally responsible for the conflict, order it to stop its activities inside Congo, require guarantees that such actions will not happen again, and award financial reparations to both Congo and the civilian victims.
The court confirmed in a statement that Congo had submitted the application to open proceedings but did not indicate whether it had yet determined it holds jurisdiction to hear the case.
Rwanda’s government did not publicly respond to the filing. Rwanda has consistently denied that it supports armed groups in Congo, though United Nations experts have reported finding evidence that Rwandan troops have fought alongside and provided direction to M23 fighters.
This is the third time Congo has attempted to bring Rwanda before the ICJ. An earlier case was withdrawn by Congolese authorities in 2001, and a second case was thrown out in 2006 due to lack of jurisdiction — the court found Rwanda had not signed, or had placed reservations on, some of the treaties Congo referenced, or that other legal requirements had not been satisfied.
The new legal action comes as separate peace talks between Congo and Rwanda — mediated by the United States and Qatar — have so far failed to produce a lasting agreement.
Just one day before the ICJ filing, on Thursday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on a Rwanda-based gold refinery, describing it as part of “a network working in coordination” with M23 in eastern Congo. The U.S. said the sanctions against Gasabo Gold Refinery were intended to support ongoing American and Qatari peace efforts in the region.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has been issuing significant rulings at a fast pace, but even with some of its most consequential decisions still ahead, visible friction among the justices is becoming hard to ignore.
A particularly unusual moment unfolded Thursday as the justices took their seats to deliver brief summaries of their latest decisions — among them two major immigration victories for President Donald Trump.
After conservative Justice Samuel Alito finished presenting the majority’s ruling that limits how individuals can seek asylum at the southern border, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor rose to read aloud from her strongly worded dissent.
Sotomayor recounted the hardships many asylum seekers endure and invoked a painful episode from history: the 1939 turning away of a ship carrying Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany by the United States and other nations. Roughly 250 of those passengers would later perish in the Holocaust.
In her dissent, Sotomayor argued the majority’s ruling would enable the Trump administration to prevent people from applying for asylum at the border, leading to more deaths. She said the decision “regrettably and tragically extinguishes the light of the torch of the Statue of Liberty.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh watched Sotomayor closely as she spoke, while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson kept her gaze fixed straight ahead.
While majority opinions are always delivered from the bench, dissenting justices may also speak up to emphasize their objections — though this typically occurs in only a handful of cases each term. Additional rulings are expected Monday.
Sotomayor’s decision to speak appeared to catch Alito off guard. In a highly unusual move, he responded off the cuff, sounding visibly irritated. He said he had no idea she planned to speak and would have elaborated more in his own summary had he known.
From the conservative majority’s perspective, the case centered on whether border officials have the authority to delay asylum seekers’ entry into the country “until they can be processed in a safe and orderly way.”
Alito defended the ruling by pointing out that the policy in question had been used under both the Obama and Trump administrations. “I won’t add anything more to that,” he said.
The public dispute comes as the court prepares to issue rulings next week on some of the most significant questions of the term, including Trump’s effort to limit birthright citizenship and his push to expand presidential authority to remove members of independent federal agencies.
This is not the first sign of unusual tension this term. In April, Sotomayor issued a rare public apology to Justice Kavanaugh for what she described as “hurtful comments” made during a law school appearance, where she suggested a colleague “probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.”
Earlier, in March, Kavanaugh and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly clashed over the numerous emergency orders the court had issued allowing the Trump administration to move forward with key elements of its agenda.
Billionaire investor Leon Black sat before a U.S. House committee Friday and made a firm declaration: he had no part in — and no knowledge of — the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s “heinous conduct.”
“Let me state unequivocally that I have never abused a woman. I have never been with an underage woman,” Black said in his opening statement to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
He continued: “I have never engaged in sex trafficking. I have never paid Epstein for access to women. I was never blackmailed by Epstein.”
Black is among several individuals with ties to Epstein who have been called in for private interviews with the panel, which is examining the federal government’s handling of the Epstein case. Epstein, a well-known financier with connections to powerful figures in politics and business, pleaded guilty in 2008 to state prostitution charges and spent 13 months behind bars.
He was taken into custody again in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges involving minors. His death later that year in a Manhattan jail cell was officially ruled a suicide.
Black stepped away from his role leading private equity firm Apollo Global Management in 2021, following an independent law firm review that revealed he had paid Epstein $158 million for tax and estate planning services. In 2023, he also agreed to pay $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands to settle potential legal claims stemming from an Epstein-related investigation.
Several women have filed lawsuits against Black alleging sexual abuse. Two of those cases have been dismissed, while a third remains active. Black has denied all allegations and has not faced any criminal charges.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said the panel has hundreds of questions ready for Black — covering financial dealings and communications with survivors.
“Of all the witnesses that have come thus far, this one has the potential to be the most groundbreaking deposition, in my opinion,” Comer told reporters.
Black told the committee he would voluntarily answer questions related to his payments to Epstein and the services provided, but said he would not speak about his personal life.
In his testimony, Black noted that he had known Epstein for 18 years before ever paying him anything. He said Epstein helped him resolve what he described as a “massive estate problem.”
Black acknowledged he was aware of Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea, but said he was told at the time “it was an isolated incident resulting from a fake ID.” He said he now regrets giving Epstein another chance in 2013, and that he cut off the professional relationship in 2018 “after more than a year of increasing turmoil in our professional arrangements.”
U.S. health officials announced Friday that the country is sending doses of an experimental Ebola treatment to Africa, along with 2,500 diagnostic tests, as an ongoing Bundibugyo ebolavirus outbreak continues to worsen.
The response effort is being led by the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response through its Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, known as BARDA. The agencies are coordinating support for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, where the outbreak is active.
Unlike some other Ebola strains, the Bundibugyo strain currently has no approved vaccines or treatments available, making experimental options a critical part of the response.
At the center of the treatment effort is MBP134, an experimental monoclonal antibody therapy developed in partnership with Mapp Biopharmaceutical. Doses are being transferred to the affected countries for compassionate use — meaning it can be given to patients outside of a formal clinical trial setting due to the severity of the situation.
Additional doses are also being provided for a randomized clinical trial being conducted by the University of Oxford to formally evaluate how well the drug works.
Officials noted that MBP134 has demonstrated activity against multiple Ebola species in early laboratory studies and has already completed an initial safety trial. Data gathered from its use during the current outbreak could play a role in future regulatory decisions about the therapy.
On the testing front, BARDA has pre-positioned 2,500 rapid diagnostic tests for potential deployment to Africa to help identify infections and guide public health decision-making.
At the same time, BARDA is moving forward with efforts to develop a vaccine specifically targeting the Bundibugyo strain. The agency has issued a request for proposals seeking vaccine candidates built on the same platform used to create Merck’s Ervebo — the first Ebola vaccine approved in the United States, which targets a different strain known as Zaire.
Volkswagen is weighing a dramatic restructuring plan that could involve shutting down four of its German manufacturing facilities and eliminating as many as 100,000 positions — a move that would potentially go down as the most sweeping overhaul the auto industry has ever seen.
The automaker is under growing strain from aggressive competition out of China, steep tariffs on vehicles entering the U.S. market, and a sharp drop in consumer demand across Europe. Volkswagen has stated that these pressures have made its current business model impossible to sustain.
To put the potential scale of Volkswagen’s cuts in context, here is a look at some of the largest workforce reductions ever announced in the global auto industry:
General Motors — December 1991 Jobs cut: 74,000 General Motors announced it would eliminate 74,000 positions and shut down 21 production plants as the auto sector grappled with massive financial losses driven by sluggish sales and growing competition from Japanese manufacturers.
General Motors — 2006 to 2009 Jobs cut: 60,500 Over a three-year span, General Motors eliminated 60,500 factory jobs, which represented half of its entire manufacturing workforce. The company also announced plans to reduce its white-collar staff by 20%, though no exact number was given. Its salaried employee count had been 110,000 as of December 2005.
General Motors — February 2009 Jobs cut: 47,000 As part of a broader restructuring effort, General Motors announced it would eliminate 47,000 jobs over the course of the year. The company also revealed it would require $30 billion in government funding from taxpayers in order to remain viable.
Ford Motor — January 2002 Jobs cut: 35,000 Ford announced it would cut 35,000 jobs across its global operations, close five plants in North America, and reduce its production capacity by 16% as part of a wide-ranging restructuring initiative.
Volkswagen — January 1993 Jobs cut: 30,000 Volkswagen previously announced a plan to eliminate 30,000 jobs at plants around the world by the end of 1994. The cuts were part of a plan developed across its four brands at the time: VW, Audi, SEAT SA, and Skoda.
The Detroit Pistons are on the verge of landing guard Isaiah Joe from the Oklahoma City Thunder, with ESPN reporting the deal on Friday. Detroit will send two future second-round draft picks to Oklahoma City to complete the transaction.
Joe, who will celebrate his 27th birthday next week, put together the finest scoring season of his career in 2024-25, averaging 11.1 points per game. He connected on 45.5% of his field goal attempts and knocked down 42.3% of his three-point shots across 71 appearances, including nine starts.
Over the course of his professional career, Joe has appeared in 392 games — with 38 starts — for the Philadelphia 76ers and the Thunder, averaging 8.2 points and 2.1 rebounds per contest.
Joe entered the NBA when the 76ers selected him in the second round of the 2020 NBA Draft after his college career at Arkansas. Most recently, he added an NBA championship ring to his resume after the Thunder won the title in the 2024-25 season.
As the United States men’s national soccer team makes its run through the 2026 World Cup, fans may be surprised to learn that a prominent Wall Street billionaire played a key behind-the-scenes role in putting the team in a position to succeed.
Ken Griffin, the 57-year-old billionaire who founded and runs the hedge fund Citadel, made the single largest financial contribution toward hiring Argentine coach Mauricio Pochettino to lead the U.S. men’s national team — a fact confirmed by a Citadel spokesman. The deal was struck nearly two years ago.
Pochettino brings a wealth of high-level coaching experience, having previously led major European clubs including Tottenham Hotspur, Paris Saint-Germain, and Chelsea. He was brought on to revitalize a U.S. squad that had been knocked out of the Copa America in 2024. The team has since turned things around, reaching the knockout stage of the current World Cup.
Next up for the Americans is a round of 32 matchup against Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 1. The team’s strong showing has generated enormous excitement, with Wall Street portfolio managers, bankers, and lawyers reportedly flying across the country to attend matches and telling colleagues not to disturb them during the three hours of game play.
Griffin was approached by fellow hedge fund manager Scott Goodwin, who asked him to help fund Pochettino’s two-year contract. According to a Citadel spokesman, Griffin didn’t hesitate — consistent with his well-established reputation for paying top dollar to attract elite talent, whether in finance or elsewhere. The exact dollar amount Griffin contributed was not disclosed.
Griffin’s passion for soccer runs deep. A Citadel spokesman said he began playing the sport at age 6, competed on a high school team that finished second in the state, and continued both playing and coaching into adulthood.
His Miami-based firm, Citadel, manages $68 billion in assets and was recognized as the most profitable hedge fund of all time for the fourth straight year in 2025, according to LCH Investments. The firm’s flagship Wellington multi-strategy fund is up 5% through June 22 of this year, according to a fund investor.
Griffin has given away more than $2.5 billion over the years to a wide range of causes, from medical research to political campaigns. He made national headlines for donating more than half a billion dollars to his alma mater, Harvard University, where he first began trading stocks from his college dormitory room.
Soccer has long been a beneficiary of his generosity. In 2017, Griffin donated $3 million to the U.S. Soccer Foundation to build 50 mini-pitches throughout Chicago, where Citadel was headquartered at the time. Six years later, he gave $5 million to fund 50 more mini-pitches in Miami-Dade County, Florida — where both he and Citadel are now based. Griffin also founded Citadel Securities, a market-making firm also headquartered in Miami. He has spoken about soccer as a vehicle for teaching young players teamwork, discipline, and the joy of competition.
For the 2026 World Cup, Griffin teamed up with real estate developer Stephen Ross to donate more than 1,200 tickets to Miami residents for games held in Miami, one of the tournament’s official host cities.
Griffin shared his personal enthusiasm for the event with Reuters. “It’s been a special experience to have the World Cup in America,” he said, adding that “my children and I enjoyed the match in Miami on Father’s Day” — referring to the game in which Uruguay and Cape Verde tied 2-2.
The New Castle County Division of Police has announced the passing of retired K9 Ax, expressing deep sorrow over the loss of a canine who gave years of service to the community.
Ax was born on September 1, 2013, in Slovakia, and came to the United States to join the Division in 2015. He was paired with Master Corporal Chad Carter, and the two worked side by side protecting and serving the residents of New Castle County.
After years of dedicated work, Ax officially retired on November 14, 2023, closing out a career that spanned nearly a decade from his birthplace in Slovakia to the streets of New Castle County.
Bear Stewart LLC, based in Chicago, Illinois, has announced a voluntary recall of a single lot of Bakr Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Ready To Bake Cookie Dough pouches due to the possible presence of undeclared soy.
The concern is significant for anyone with a soy allergy or severe sensitivity to the ingredient. According to the company, consuming the affected product could trigger a serious or potentially life-threatening allergic reaction.
Shoppers who have purchased this cookie dough are encouraged to check whether their product is part of the recalled lot. Anyone with a soy allergy should not consume the product and should follow guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding next steps.
JERUSALEM — Israel has declassified a large collection of previously secret government documents offering a detailed look at the decision-making process behind one of history’s most celebrated hostage rescue missions — the 1976 raid on Entebbe Airport in Uganda.
The operation involved dozens of Israeli commandos who stormed the airport where Palestinian and German militants, supported by Ugandan forces, were holding 106 passengers from a hijacked Air France flight that had originated in Tel Aviv and was bound for Paris. The entire rescue was completed in under an hour, with few casualties among the soldiers and hostages — the majority of whom were Israeli or Jewish — cementing its place as one of the most daring military operations ever carried out.
The documents were made public ahead of the raid’s 50th anniversary on July 3, and come at a time when Israel continues to deal with the fallout from the hostage situation that began after Hamas-led militants attacked the country on October 7, 2023. That attack claimed roughly 1,200 lives and resulted in 251 people being taken to Gaza as hostages.
The newly released files add depth to what was already known about the crisis team assembled by then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and reveal how Israeli officials wrestled with the choice between negotiating with the hostage-takers and launching a high-risk long-distance military strike requiring commandos to fly thousands of miles over multiple unfriendly nations.
At first, Rabin’s team took a firm stance against any negotiations with the two groups responsible for the hijacking — the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and West Germany’s Revolutionäre Zellen. The hijackers had seized the Air France aircraft when it made a stopover in Athens, and demanded the release of prisoners held in several countries. They also threatened to begin killing hostages if their deadline passed without results.
However, as the standoff stretched across six days and pressure from hostages’ families intensified, Israeli officials gradually softened their position on talks, according to a summary provided by the Israel State Archives.
One internal memo from Rabin’s crisis team captured the urgency of the moment: “The zero hour is approaching … We believe that a supreme effort must be made and break the ultimatum,” the team wrote, giving the go-ahead to negotiate on certain terms.
While the Entebbe raid has long been viewed as a turning point in which Israel chose military force over diplomacy, the newly released files paint a more nuanced picture. Officials only moved toward a military solution after diplomatic efforts hit a dead end and confidence in the planned operation increased.
The documents show Israel pursued a dual strategy — supporting France-led negotiations with Ugandan President Idi Amin while simultaneously constructing scale models of the airport and preparing transport aircraft to fly to Kenya and then on to Uganda for a nighttime assault.
When the commandos struck, they rescued all but three hostages who were killed in the crossfire. Every hijacker and dozens of Ugandan soldiers were killed in the battle. The sole Israeli commando lost in the operation was Yonatan Netanyahu, the older brother of future Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The raid drew sharp condemnation from Idi Amin and the Organization of African Unity — the predecessor to today’s African Union — who argued that Israel had violated Uganda’s sovereignty at a time when Uganda claimed to be actively working toward a peaceful resolution.
For Israel, the mission was widely regarded as a triumph, particularly coming just four years after all nine Israeli athletes taken hostage at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich died during a German-led rescue attempt. Even so, Israeli leadership recognized that military victories alone could not resolve the broader conflict.
Rabin himself reflected on this in one of the memos made public Friday. “Let us not deceive ourselves,” he wrote. “It was an extraordinary operation and achievement. However, the problem is not over. Terrorism continues to operate. What other problems terrorism will pose to us and what lessons we must learn from this matter, it is too early to say. We have finished one battle, but the war continues.”
ATHENS, Greece — Greek fishermen are now being paid by their government to pull a dangerous invasive fish out of the Mediterranean Sea, as warming ocean temperatures drive the species northward into unfamiliar waters.
The silver-cheeked toadfish is a torpedo-shaped creature with distinctive teeth that closely resemble human teeth. Both its skin and internal organs carry a potent neurotoxin capable of triggering fatal heart failure if a person eats the fish.
Officials say the fish have not been spotted near swimming beaches at Greek island resorts. However, in recent weeks, the creatures have caused serious problems for fishermen working off the coast of Crete and several other Greek islands, tearing through their fishing nets.
Giorgos Kyriakakis, a member of a Cretan fishermen’s association, described the toll to Greek public broadcaster ERT on Friday. “It’s got to the point where we might go out fishing one day and then spend the next three days fixing our nets,” he said. “They eat our catch and damage our nets — that’s very costly.”
Scientists believe the fish made their way into the Mediterranean by traveling through the Suez Canal, drawn by the region’s increasingly warm waters. The problem prompted Cyprus to roll out a similar bounty program earlier this year.
Beginning Friday, the Greek government began offering fishermen 5.33 euros per kilogram — roughly $2.75 per pound — for every silver-cheeked toadfish they bring in. The species is typically found in tropical waters.
Agriculture Minister Margaritis Schinas, a former European Commission vice president, announced the initiative ahead of its launch. “It’s the first time that such a measure has been taken in Greece,” he said.
Schinas explained that the collected fish — a relative of the puffer fish — would be frozen and then incinerated at local government facilities. He also indicated the program would likely be extended beyond the currently impacted islands to cover all Greek waters.
Public alarm has grown in Greece following the spread of videos online, posted by Greek fishing crews, that show the fish biting down on soda cans and pieces of wood with their powerful jaws.
The Greek Red Cross has issued a public health advisory about the species, detailing first-aid steps for bite-related bleeding injuries and highlighting the lethal neurotoxin found in the fish’s organs.
Despite the concern, authorities and business groups on Crete urged residents and visitors not to panic. A joint statement released Friday by 16 medical and tourism associations on the island pushed back on the alarm. “The presence of these fish in the Mediterranean has been known for years,” the statement read. “There is, however, no ‘invisible’ or imminent danger to bathers. Marine predators do not threaten the safety of visitors and residents. Exaggeration is often a feature of public debate.”
A prosecutor in eastern Idaho has announced that misdemeanor drug charges against Olympic skiing champion Bode Miller will be thrown out, even though authorities say there was enough evidence to justify his arrest.
Miller, 48, was taken into custody on June 6 in Fremont County — a rural area bordering both Montana and Wyoming — and faced charges of possessing psilocybin mushrooms. He entered a not guilty plea last week, maintaining that a friend traveling with him had a small quantity of drugs that Miller had no knowledge of.
County Prosecutor Lindsey Blake released a statement to The Associated Press on Friday confirming her office intends to drop both the drug possession and drug paraphernalia charges against the skiing star.
“Although the deputy had sufficient probable cause to arrest Mr. Miller at the beginning of June, we recently received information which resulted in our office determining it is in the interest of justice to dismiss Mr. Miller’s misdemeanor charges,” Blake stated. “I will not be discussing the specifics of this recent information due to it being related to another active case.”
Blake offered no further details about the other case in question. However, court records available online connected to Miller’s case show that another individual was charged with the same offenses.
Miller’s attorney, Jeromy Stafford, had not responded to phone or email messages by Friday. Earlier in the week, Stafford told reporters that Miller did not have any drugs on him at the time of his arrest.
On Wednesday, Miller took to Instagram to share his account of events, saying he was pulled over after speeding up to pass another vehicle on a highway. He explained that his companion had a small amount of cannabis and a cannabis pipe — items Miller said he was unaware of.
“We fully cooperated with the officer,” Miller wrote. “I am hopeful the misdemeanor charges will be dropped once the facts are reviewed.”
According to a probable cause statement, Fremont County Sheriff’s Deputy Jacob Hurt reported discovering a white dispensary bag in Miller’s possession containing 4.1 grams of psychedelic mushrooms.
Throughout his athletic career, Miller was known for his daring, all-or-nothing approach to ski racing. That fearless style earned him six Olympic medals — including a gold in the super-combined at the 2010 Vancouver Games — along with a number of spectacular crashes along the way.
His final major competition came at the 2015 world championships in Beaver Creek, Colorado, where a serious fall ended his super-G run. He later had surgery to repair a torn right hamstring tendon caused when his ski cut into him during the crash. By late 2017, Miller announced he was permanently retired from the sport.
Over the course of his career, Miller claimed 33 World Cup victories and two World Cup overall championships, while also taking home four gold medals at world championships.
