A gunman who killed a Florida deputy earlier this week died on Saturday from injuries received in the confrontation, authorities say.
Michael Halberstam, 37, shot two Indian River County deputies and a locksmith on Friday when they were serving an eviction notice at a home near Vero Beach where Halberstam's mother was trying to evict him, officials said. Officers returned fire, striking Halberstam multiple times and he succumbed to his injuries Saturday afternoon, the county's sheriff's department said in a post online.
One of the deputies, Terri Sweeting-Mashkow, was killed and another is recovering from a shoulder injury. The locksmith was in critical condition after the shooting and underwent surgery, Alexander Hagan, a spokesman for HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital, said Friday. The locksmith wasn't identified.
Over the past month, the sheriffs office had received seven calls from the home, almost all of which were from the mother calling about her son, Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers said Friday at a news conference. Still, he said, deputies werent expecting any trouble when they arrived to carry out the eviction.
This was a standard call for service, the sheriff said, adding there was nothing in Halberstam's record that would have precluded him from having a weapon.
Sweeting-Mashkow was a 25-year-veteran of the sheriffs office, Flowers said, growing emotional as he praised the deputy and described working alongside him his entire career.
I can tell you that our team will feel this forever, Flowers said.
Sweeting-Mashkow was posthumously promoted to sergeant in the sheriff's office on Saturday.
Universal Pictures two-part Wicked gamble continues to defy gravity at the box office. Just a year after part one brought droves of audiences to movie theaters around the country, even more people bought opening weekend tickets to see the epic conclusion, Wicked: For Good. According to studio estimates on Sunday, Wicked: For Good earned $150 million from North American theaters in its first days in theaters and $226 million globally.
Not only is it the biggest opening ever for a Broadway musical adaptation, unseating the record set by the first films $112 million launch, its also the second biggest debut of the year behind A Minecraft Movies $162 million.
Universal began rolling out Wicked: For Good in theaters earlier this week, with previews on Monday ($6.1 million from 1,050 theaters) and Wednesday ($6.5 million from 2,300 theaters). By Friday it was playing in 4,115 North American locations and had raked in $68.6 million. IMAX showings accounted for $15.5 million, or 11%, of its domestic haul a November record for the company.
IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond said in a statement that the strong market share shows, our momentum carries into demos and genres beyond our traditional core, including families.
As with the first film, women powered opening weekend, making up around 71% of ticket buyers according to PostTrak exit polls. Critics were somewhat mixed on the final chapter, but audiences werent: An overwhelming 83% of audiences said it was one they would definitely recommend to friends.
Jon M. Chu directed both Wicked films, starring Cynthia Ervio and Ariana Grande. The first film made over $758.7 million worldwide and received 10 Oscar nominations (winning two, for costume and production design. The question is how high Wicked: For Good can soar. Combined, the two films cost around $300 million to produce, not including marketing and promotion costs.
Two other films also opened in wide release this weekend, but further down on the charts behind a buffet of holdovers. Searchlight Pictures opened its Brendan Fraser film Rental Family in 1,925 theaters. The Finnish action film Sisu: Road to Revenge," a Sony release, also played in 2,222 theaters.
Although this weekend the box office was more of a winner takes all scenario, Wicked: For Goods success is vitally important for the exhibition industry as a whole as it enters the final weeks of the year. After the slow fall season, the Thanksgiving blockbusters could not arrive soon enough. Early next week, Zootopia 2 enters the mix and is also expected to drive big crowds to the cineplex over the holiday break.
Fifty of the 303 schoolchildren abducted from a Catholic school in north-central Nigerias Niger state have escaped captivity and are now with their families, the school authority said Sunday, bringing relief to some distraught families after one of the largest school abductions in Nigeria's history.
The schoolchildren, aged between 10 and 18, escaped individually between Friday and Saturday, according to the Most Rev. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Niger state and the proprietor of the school. A total of 253 schoolchildren and 12 teachers are still held by the kidnappers, he said in a statement.
We were able to ascertain this when we decided to contact and visit some parents, Yohanna said.
The pupils and students were seized together with their teachers by gunmen who attacked the St. Marys School, a Catholic institution in Niger states remote Papiri community, on Friday. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the abductions and authorities have said tactical squads have been deployed alongside local hunters to rescue the children.
It was not immediately clear where the Niger state children were being held or how they managed to return home. Nigerias military and police did not immediately respond to an Associated Press inquiry.
As much as we receive the return of these 50 children that escaped with some sigh of relief, I urge you all to continue in your prayers for the rescue and safe return of the remaining victims, the Yohanna said.
The Niger state attack happened four days after 25 schoolchildren were seized in similar circumstances in neighboring Kebbi states Maga town, which is 106 miles away.
Both states are in a northern region of Nigeria where dozens of armed gangs have used kidnapping for ransom as one way of dominating remote communities with little government and security presence.
Satellite image shows that the Niger state school compound is attached to an adjoining primary school, with more than 50 classroom and dormitory buildings. Its located near a major road linking the towns of Yelwa and Mokwa.
School kidnappings have come to define insecurity in Africas most populous nation, and armed gangs often see schools as strategic targets to draw more attention.
Niger state hurriedly closed down all schools after Fridays attack, while some federal colleges in conflict hotspots across the region were also closed by the Nigerian government.
Israel on Sunday struck Lebanons capital for the first time since June, saying it killed Hezbollahs chief of staff Haytham Tabtabai and warning the Iran-backed militant group not to rearm and rebuild a year after their latest war.
The strike in Beiruts southern suburbs killed five people and wounded 25 others, Lebanons Health Ministry said.
Hezbollah did not immediately comment. Earlier, it said the strike, launched almost exactly a year after a ceasefire ended that Israel-Hezbollah war, threatened an escalation of attacks just days before Pope Leo XIV is scheduled to visit Lebanon on his first foreign trip.
We will continue to act forcefully to prevent any threat to the residents of the north and the state of Israel, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. Government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian did not say whether Israel informed the U.S. before the strike, saying only that Israel makes decisions independently. Israel did not issue an evacuation warning.
Tabtabai had led Hezbollahs elite Radwan Unit. Israel's military said he commanded most of Hezbollahs units and worked hard to restore them to readiness for war with Israel."
In 2016, the United States designated Tabtabai as a terrorist, calling him a military leader who led Hezbollahs special forces in Syria and Yemen, and it offered up to $5 million for information about him.
Tabtabai had been the apparent successor of Ibrahim Aqil, who was killed in September 2024 in Israeli attacks that wiped out much of Hezbollahs senior leadership, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Escalation of assaults
Earlier, at the scene of Sunday's strike, Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of Hezbollahs political council, told journalists that a high-ranking militant may have been killed but did not give details.
Hezbollahs leadership is studying the matter of response and will take the appropriate decision, Qamati said. The strike on the southern suburbs today opens the door to an escalation of assaults all over Lebanon.
Israeli airstrikes over southern Lebanon have intensified in recent weeks while Israel and the United States have pressured Lebanon to disarm the powerful militant group. Israel asserts that Hezbollah is trying to rebuild its military capabilities in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese government, which has approved its militarys plan that would disarm Hezbollah, has denied those claims.
Lebanons President Joseph Aoun in a statement condemned Sunday's strike and accused Israel of refusing to implement its end of the ceasefire agreement. He called on the international community to intervene with strength and seriousness to stop the attacks on Lebanon and its people.
Israel's military statement said Israel remains committed to the understandings agreed upon by Israel and Lebanon.
Smoke could be seen in the busy Haret Hreik neighborhood. A video circulated on social media showed dozens of people crowded around the area of the strike, which appeared to be on the fourth floor of an apartment building. Gunshots could be heard to disperse crowds as emergency workers arrived.
This is definitely a civilian area and void of any military presence, especially the neighborhood where we stand, Hezbollah parliamentarian Ali Ammar told reporters near the site.
An Israeli drone was flying near the building targeted. The Lebanese military cordoned off the area, the state-run National News Agency reported.
They want to take our weapons. But our weapons will not be taken, said Maryam Assaf, who lives nearby and heard the strike. She said it "only gives us more determination, strength, and dignity.
Hezbollah severely weakened
Lebanon and United Nations peacekeepers have been critical of ongoing Israel attacks in the country and accuse Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement.
Aoun last week said the country is ready to enter negotiations with Israel to stop its airstrikes and to withdraw from five hilltop points it occupies on Lebanese territory. It was unclear if Israel would agree.
Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam say they are committed to disarming all non-state actors in the country, including Hezbollah.
The latest Israel-Hezbollah war began Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel, as Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas. Israel launched a widespread bombardment of Lebanon last year that severely weakened Hezbollah, followed by a ground invasion.
That war was the most recent of several conflicts involving Hezbollah over the past four decades. It killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, and caused an estimated $11 billion worth of destruction, according to the World Bank. In Israel, 127 people died, including 80 soldiers.
On Tuesday, an Israeli strike killed 13 people in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh near the southern city of Sidon in the deadliest attack since the ceasefire went into effect. The military said it targeted a military facility belonging to the Palestinian Hamas militant group. Hamas denied it has any military facilities in the crowded camp.
A Washington state resident is believed to be the first person to die from a rare strain of bird flu, but state health officials said Friday the risk to the public is low.
The person, an older adult with underlying health conditions, was being treated for a bird flu called H5N5 after becoming seemingly the first known human infected by the strain, according to a statement from the Washington State Department of Health.
The person from Grays Harbor County, about 78 miles southwest of Seattle, had a backyard flock of domestic poultry that had been exposed to wild birds, health officials said.
The risk to the public remains low," the statement from state health officials said. No other people involved have tested positive for avian influenza.
Health officials said they will monitor anyone who came in close contact with the person, but there is no evidence of transmission of this virus between people."
Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a statement about the infection that said no information would suggest the risk to public health has increased as a result of this case.
H5N5 is not believed to be a greater threat to human health than the H5N1 virus behind a wave of 70 reported human infections in the U.S. in 2024 and 2025. Most of those have been mild illnesses in workers on dairy and poultry farms.
The distinction between H5N5 and H5N1 lies in a protein involved in releasing the virus from an infected cell and promoting spread to surrounding cells.
Cracker Barrel shareholders voted Thursday to keep company CEO Julie Felss Masino in place despite a debacle over the company's logo that continues to hurt its sales.
But one of the company's directors, Gilbert Davila, resigned from Cracker Barrel's board Thursday after preliminary results indicated that shareholders rejected his reelection.
Davila, who joined Cracker Barrel's board in 2020, is the president and CEO of DMI Consulting, a multicultural marketing firm. He reviewed Cracker Barrel's advertising as part of his role on the board. Two influential shareholder advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, had recommended against Davila's reelection ahead of the vote.
Sardar Biglari, a longtime Cracker Barrel shareholder and activist investor, was among those pressing for the ouster of Masino and Davila. Biglari is the chairman and CEO of Biglari Holdings Inc., a San Antonio, Texas-based company that owns Steak n Shake. He also owns 3% of Cracker Barrels shares.
Our campaign is about saving Cracker Barrel from a board and management team that are out of touch with Cracker Barrels customer base, Biglari said in a letter sent earlier this month to Cracker Barrel investors.
In its own statement, Cracker Barrel thanked its shareholders and said it was committed to returning the company to sales growth.
We are more focused than ever on delivering high-quality food and experiences to our guests while staying true to the heritage that makes Cracker Barrel so special, ensuring we are here to welcome families around our table for generations to come, the company said.
Cracker Barrel's shares fell nearly 5.5% Thursday to close at $25.97 per share. They are down 52% from the start of this year.
Cracker Barrel hired Masino, a longtime Taco Bell and Starbucks executive, in July 2023. She was chosen for her record as an innovator, with the hope that she would attract new customers to Cracker Barrel, which operates 660 restaurants in 43 states.
Masino introduced updated menu items, like Hashbrown Casserole Shepherds Pie, to increase Cracker Barrels dinnertime traffic. She also started remodeling the companys dark, antique-filled restaurants, lightening the walls and installing more comfortable seating.
But her decision in August to simplify the chains logo had disastrous consequences. Fans didnt like that the new logo didnt include Cracker Barrels longtime mascot, an overall-clad man leaning on a barrel, or the words Old Country Store. They also rebelled against the store redesigns.
Cracker Barrel reversed course a week later, saying it would keep its old logo. In early September, the company also suspended the remodeling of its restaurants.
The moves could hurt Cracker Barrels sales well into next year. Cracker Barrel said in September that store traffic would likely be down between 7% and 8% in its fiscal first quarter and could decline 4% to 7% for the full 2026 fiscal year, which began Aug. 2.
Dr. Smita Das often hears the same myth: You cant get hooked on pot.
And the misconception has become more widespread as a growing number of states legalize marijuana. Around half now allow recreational use for adults and 40 states allow medical use.
But cannabis is definitely something that someone can develop an addiction to, said Das, an addiction psychiatrist at Stanford University.
Its called cannabis use disorder and its on the rise, affecting about 3 in 10 people who use pot, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here's how to know whether you or a loved one are addicted to marijuana and what kinds of treatment exist.
How to identify signs of cannabis use disorder
If pot interferes with your daily life, health or relationships, those are red flags.
The more that somebody uses and the higher potency that somebody uses, the higher the risk of that, Das said.
It's become more common as cannabis has gotten stronger in recent years. In the 1960s, most pot that people smoked contained less than 5% THC, the ingredient that gets you high. Today, the THC potency in cannabis flower and concentrates in dispensaries can reach 40% or more, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Cannabis use disorder is diagnosed the same way as any other substance use disorder by looking at whether someone meets certain criteria laid out in the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the main guide for mental health providers.
These include needing more of the drug to get the same effect, having withdrawal symptoms and spending a lot of time trying to get or use it.
When we break it down into these criteria that have to do with the impacts of their use, its a lot more relatable," Das said.
What the different levels of addiction are
If you've met just two of the criteria for cannabis use disorder in the last year, doctors say you have a mild form of the condition. If you meet six or more, you have a more severe form.
According to the latest version of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 7% of all people 12 or older had cannabis use disorder in 2024 and most had a mild form. About 1 in 5 had a severe form.
People can be dependent on and addicted to substances. Dependence is physical, while addiction involves behavior changes.
Marijuana doesn't affect everyone the same way, though. The same amount can have major impacts on one person's daily life but have no impact on another person's, Das said. It really comes down to: How much is that substance impacting someones functioning and life day-to-day?
Where people can get help for cannabis use disorder
Many marijuana users first come to Das for help coping with something else, like alcohol use disorder. Later, she said, theyll often come back and mention a struggle with cannabis.
She assures them that there are effective treatments for the disorder.
One is called motivational interviewing, a goal-oriented counseling style that helps people find internal motivation to change their behavior. Another is cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT, a form of talk therapy that helps people to challenge negative thought patterns and reduce unhelpful behaviors.
Twelve-step programs like Marijuana Anonymous can also be helpful, Das said. But whether someone chooses to join a group or not, even being able to lean on a community of people who arent using pot is an important part for recovery.
Dave Bushnell, a retired digital executive creative director, started a Reddit group 14 years ago for people who, like him, had developed an addiction or dependency to cannabis and wanted help recovering. Its discussion forum has 350,000 members and continues to grow.
Bushnell, 60, said peer support is essential to recovery and some people feel more comfortable chatting online than in person. This is potheads taking care of potheads, he said.
Doctors urged people who need help to get it, whether it's with a professional or in a peer group.
As with alcohol, just because somethings legal doesnt mean that its safe," Das said.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. personally directed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to update its website to contradict its longtime guidance that vaccines don't cause autism, he told The New York Times in an interview published Friday.
His comments provide clarity into who directed the CDC's website change, after many current and former staffers at the agency were surprised to see new published guidance on Wednesday that defies scientific consensus. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic, has upended the public health agencies he oversees and pushed for and enacted changes that have unsettled much of the medical community, which sees his policies as harmful for Americans.
The whole thing about vaccines have been tested and theres been this determination made, is just a lie, Kennedy said in the interview, which was conducted Thursday.
The CDC's vaccine safety page now claims that the statement vaccines do not cause autism is not based on evidence because it doesn't rule out the possibility that infant vaccines are linked to the disorder. The page also has been updated to suggest that health officials have ignored studies showing a potential link.
Public health researchers and advocates strongly refute the updated website, saying it misleads the public by exploiting the fact that the scientific method can't satisfy a demand to prove a negative. They note that scientists have thoroughly explored potential links between vaccines and autism in rigorous research spanning decades, all pointing to the same conclusion that vaccines dont cause autism.
No environmental factor has been better studied as a potential cause of autism than vaccines, the Autism Science Foundation said in a statement Thursday. This includes vaccine ingredients as well as the bodys response to vaccines. All this research has determined that there is no link between autism and vaccines.
Kennedy, a longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement, acknowledged to The New York Times the existence of studies showing no link to autism from the mercury-based preservative thimerosal or from the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. But he told the newspaper there are still gaps in vaccine safety science and a need for more research.
The move creates another disagreement between the health secretary and Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician and Louisiana Republican who chairs the Senate health committee. During his confirmation process, Kennedy pledged to Cassidy he would leave the statement that vaccines do not cause autism on the CDC website. The statement remains on the website but with a disclaimer that it was left there because of their agreement.
Kennedy told The New York Times he talked to Cassidy about the updated website and that Cassidy disagreed with the decision.
What parents need to hear right now is vaccines for measles, polio, hepatitis B and other childhood diseases are safe and effective and will not cause autism, Cassidy posted on X on Thursday. Any statement to the contrary is wrong, irresponsible, and actively makes Americans sicker.
The updated website comes as Kennedy has taken other steps as health secretary that sow doubt in immunizations. He has pulled $500 million for their development, ousted and replaced every member of a federal vaccine advisory committee and pledged to overhaul a federal program for compensating Americans injured by shots. He also fired former CDC Director Susan Monarez less than a month into her tenure after they clashed over vaccine policy.
Dr. Sean OLeary, head of the infectious diseases committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics, told reporters in a briefing Thursday that the CDC's website update was perpetuating a lie.
This is madness, he said. Vaccines do not cause autism, and unfortunately, we can no longer trust health-related information coming from our government.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which didn't make Kennedy available for an interview with The Associated Press this week, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Ohio police officer who shot and killed Ta'Kiya Young, a pregnant Black mother who had been accused of shoplifting, was acquitted on all counts Friday, including murder.
Blendon Township police officer Connor Grubb had faced up to life in prison if convicted. Youngs grandmother collapsed into sobs at the decision, shouting Its not right! This is not right! The judge then told Grubb he was free to go.
Sean Walton, an attorney for the Young family, called it an American tragedy, the outcome of a dual system of justice in the U.S. Sean Walton, an attorney for the Young family, called it an American tragedy, the outcome of a dual system of justice in the U.S. He vowed to keep pursuing a lawsuit against the township and police chief, while Nadine Young raises her great-grandsons, now 8 and 5.
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It's also heartbreaking because what it does is it normalizes the behavior like that Connor Grubb exhibited that day, and that is not normal, Walton said. If you look at these recent police killings in Columbus, you have officers who have an irrational fear with no weapons involved or folks doing very minimal behavior that they escalate into a murder.
Defense attorney Mark Collins said Grubb and his family are relieved, but that it's wrong to suggest the officer was untouched by the death of Young and her unborn daughter.
For the rest of his life, he has to deal with this, he said. Trust me, you didn't get to hear from him because the government put his statement out, but he took a life on duty and realized another's life after the fact, and to walk around with that is a difficult situation.
At the same time, Collins called it unconscionable that a law enforcement officer would be indicted for felony murder in such a case. He said legislators should fix Ohio's grand jury system.
Grubb had pleaded not guilty to murder, involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault in the death of Young, 21, on Aug. 24, 2023. Bodycam recordings showed Young refusing to exit her parked car outside a Kroger in suburban Columbus, and then turning her steering wheel to the right before the vehicle began slowly rolling forward toward Grubb, who fired one shot into her chest through the windshield.
Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David Young, no relation to TaKiya, dropped four of 10 counts relating to the death of Youngs baby, agreeing with defense attorneys that prosecutors failed to present proof that Grubb knew Young was seven months' pregnant when he shot her.
Jurors were shown the bodycam video and heard testimony from a use-of-force expert, an accident reconstructionist, a police policy expert and Sgt. Erick Moynihan, the officer who with Grubb had ordered Young out of her car.
They never heard from Grubb, whose side of the story was contained in a written statement read into the record by a special agent for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. He attended the trial, but prosecutors were unable to question him directly.
Grubb and Moynihan had approached Youngs parked car about a report that she was suspected of stealing alcohol from a Kroger store in the Columbus suburb. She partially lowered her window and protested as both officers cursed at her and yelled at her to get out. Bodycam video showed Grubb had his left hand on the car's hood while pointing his gun at her with his right. Young could be heard asking them, Are you going to shoot me?
Then, she put on a turn signal and her car rolled slowly forward toward Grubb, who fired a single bullet into her chest, the recording showed.
In the statement, Grubb said he positioned himself in front of Youngs vehicle to provide backup and to protect other people. He said he drew his gun after he heard Young fail to comply with Moynihans commands. When her car moved toward him, he said, he felt the vehicle hit his legs and shins and begin to lift his body off the ground as he shot.
Moments later, after the car came to a stop against the building, they broke the drivers side window. Police said they tried to save her life, but she was mortally wounded. Young and her unborn daughter were pronounced dead at a hospital.
Walton told the AP shortly after the shooting that Young had not stolen anything. He said his law firm found a witness who saw Young put down bottles of alcohol as she left the grocery store.
Ftima Bosch Fernndez of Mexico was crowned Miss Universe 2025 on Friday, a dramatic victory for a 25-year-old at the center of the turbulent 74th staging of the popular beauty pageant in Bangkok who stood up to public bullying from one of the hosts.
The issues at this year's event sprang from a sharp-tongued scolding of Bosch, which sparked a controversy marked by a walkout, feminist solidarity, and a teary, melodramatic apology from the local organizer who set it all off.
When Bosch was announced as the winner, cheers and screams erupted from the audience, with Mexican flags waved by elated supporters.
Speaking to the media after her victory, Bosch said that she would like to be remembered as "a person that changed a little bit the prototype of what is a Miss Universe and a real person that gives the heart."
She also paid tribute to the pageant, describing it as "a platform that is strong because they have the space that women are searching to have a voice."
The first runner-up was 29-year-old Praveenar Singh of Thailand, and 25-year-old Stephany Adriana Abasali Nasser of Venezuela placed third. Rounding up the finishers were Ahtisa Manalo, 28, of the Philippines, and 27-year-old Olivia Yac of Ivory Coast, who came fifth.
At the livestreamed sashing ceremony for the more than 100 contestants on Nov. 4, Thai national director Nawat Itsaragrisil hectored Bosch for allegedly not following his guidelines for taking part in local promotional activities. He called security when she spoke up to defend herself.
Bosch walked out of the room, joined by several others in a show of solidarity, including Miss Universe 2024, Victoria Kjr Theilvig of Denmark.
"What your director did is not respectful: He called me dumb," an unbowed Bosch told Thai reporters. "If it takes away your dignity, you need to go."
Nawat insisted that he did not call her "dumb."
The Miss Universe Organization president, Mexican businessman Ral Rocha Cant, released a statement condemning Nawat's conduct as "public aggression" and "serious abuse."
Even Mexico's first woman president, Claudia Sheinbaum, piled on, saying at a news conference in her country's capital that she wanted to give "recognition" to Miss Mexico for voicing her disagreement in a "dignified" way.
"It seems to me that it is an example of how women should raise our voices," Sheinbaum said.
Sheinbaum recalled being told in the past that "women look more beautiful when they keep quiet."
"We women look more beautiful when we raise our voice and participate, because that has to do with the recognition of our rights," she said.
Nawat later apologized for his actions, appearing both tearful and defiant at the same time.
"If anyone (was) affected and not comfortable it happened, I am so sorry," he said in front of the contestants. He then turned to them and said, "It's passed. OK? Are you happy?"
Bosch's official Miss Universe biography says she studied fashion in Mexico and Italy and has focused on creating sustainable designs and working with discarded materials. It says she has volunteered with sick children, promoted environmental awareness, and engaged in supported migrants and mental health issues.
This year's competition also saw a report that two judges had quit, with one of them suggesting that there was an element of rigging to the contest. The allegation was denied. Separately, Thai police investigated the alleged illegal promotion of online casinos as part of the event's publicity.
Mishaps and controversies are not rare for the pageant. The 2021 event attracted criticism because it was held in Israel, to the dismay of supporters of the Palestinian cause.
An example of a minor misstep literally occurred Wednesday when Miss Universe Jamaica, Gabrielle Henry, fell off the stage during the evening gown competition. She was not badly hurt.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that Ukraine has to confront the possibility of losing its dignity or risking the loss of a key partner as it figures out how to respond to a U.S. peace proposal to end Russia's war with his country.
"This is one of the most difficult moments in our history," Zelenskyy said in a video address to the nation. "Currently, the pressure on Ukraine is one of the hardest. Ukraine may now face a very difficult choice, either losing its dignity or the risk of losing a key partner."
He said Ukraine would "work calmly with America and all partners," as he vowed to work constructively.
Zelenskyy spoke earlier by phone with the leaders of Germany, France and the United Kingdom, who assured him of their continued support, as European officials scrambled to respond to U.S. peace proposals that apparently caught them unawares.
The U.S. plan contains many of Russian President Vladimir Putin's longstanding demands, including Ukrainian territorial concessions, while offering limited security guarantees to Ukraine.
Wary of antagonizing U.S. President Donald Trump, the European and Ukrainian responses were cautiously worded and pointedly commended American peace efforts.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer assured Zelenskyy of "their unchanged and full support on the way to a lasting and just peace" in Ukraine, Merz's office said.
The four leaders welcomed U.S. efforts to end the war. "In particular, they welcomed the commitment to the sovereignty of Ukraine and the readiness to grant Ukraine solid security guarantees," the statement added.
"They agreed to continue pursuing the aim of protecting vital European and Ukrainian interests in the long term," the statement said. "That includes the line of contact being the point of departure for an agreement and that the Ukrainian armed forces must remain in a position to defend the sovereignty of Ukraine effectively."
Starmer said the right of Ukraine to "determine its future under its sovereignty is a fundamental principle."
European countries see their own futures at stake in Ukraine's fight against Russia's full-scale invasion and have insisted on being consulted in peace efforts.
"Russia's war against Ukraine is an existential threat to Europe. We all want this war to end. But how it ends matters," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in Brussels. "Russia has no legal right whatsoever to any concessions from the country it invaded. Ultimately, the terms of any agreement are for Ukraine to decide."
The plan foresees Ukraine handing over territory to Russia, something Zelenskyy has repeatedly ruled out, reduces the size of it army and blocks its route to NATO membership.
Zelenskyy said the leaders discussed the plan and appreciated the efforts of Trump and his team, although he added that they are "working on the document."
"We are closely coordinating to ensure that the principled positions are taken into account," Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post.
The proposals come at a difficult time for Zelenskyy, who is grappling with a push on the battlefield by Russia's bigger army and a major domestic corruption scandal.
A European government official said that the U.S. plans weren't officially presented to Ukraine's European backers.
Many of the proposals are "quite concerning," the European government official said, adding that a bad deal for Ukraine would also be a threat to broader European security.
The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the plan publicly.
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she also would call Zelenskyy to discuss the 28-point plan.
"Important is a key principle we have always upheld, and that is nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine," she said at a G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
European Council President Antonio Costa in Johannesburg said of the U.S. proposals: "The European Union has not been communicated (about) any plans in (an) official manner."
Ukraine examines the proposals
Ukrainian officials said they were weighing the U.S. proposals, and Zelenskyy said he expected to talk to Trump about it in coming days.
"We are fully aware that America's strength and America's support can truly bring peace closer, and we do not want to lose that," Zelenskyy said on Telegram late Thursday.
The Kremlin offered a reserved reaction, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that Moscow has not officially received the U.S. peace plan.
"No, we haven't received anything officially. We're seeing some innovations. But officially, we haven't received anything. And there hasn't been a substantive discussion of these points," Peskov told reporters without elaborating further.
He claimed U.S.-Russian diplomatic contacts are "ongoing," but "nothing substantive is currently being discussed."
A U.S. team began drawing up the plan soon after U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with Rustem Umerov, a top adviser to Zelenskyy, according to a senior Trump administration official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The official added that Umerov agreed to most of the plan, after making several modifications, and then presented it to Zelenskyy.
Umerov on Friday denied that version of events. He said he only organized meetings and prepared the talks.
He said technical talks between the U.S. and Ukraine were continuing in Kyiv. Ukrainian officials are "carefully studying all the partners' proposals, expecting the same respectful attitude toward the Ukrainian position."
"We are thoughtfully processing the partners' proposals within the framework of Ukraine's unchanging principles sovereignty, people's security, and a just peace," he said.
Russian glide bomb hits Ukraine homes
Meanwhile, a Russian glide bomb slammed into a residential district in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing five people, officials said Friday, as Moscow's forces continued to hammer civilian areas of Ukraine. The overnight attack also injured 10 people, including a teenage girl.
The powerful glide bomb damaged some high-rise apartment blocks for the third time since the war began and also wrecked a local market, according to the head of the regional military administration, Ivan Fedorov.
A Russian drone assault on the southern city of Odesa also struck a residential area during the night, injuring five people, including a 16-year-old boy.
The attacks came two days after a Russian drone and missile barrage on Ukraine's western city of Ternopil killed 31 people, including six children, and injured 94 others, including 18 children.
Emergency services say 13 people are still unaccounted for after the attack crushed the top floors of apartment blocks and started fires.
President Donald Trump has further loosened tariffs on Brazil as part of his effort to lower consumer costs for Americans. The decision, released Thursday, affects coffee, fruit and beef, among other goods.
The White House said last week that Trump was rolling back some worldwide tariffs that were originally announced in April.
However, Brazil said that didn't affect levies that Trump had enacted in July to punish the country for prosecuting his political ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro.
Thursday's decision harmonizes Trump's plans, ensuring that neither the April nor July tariffs apply to certain products.
Trump and Brazilian President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva have been negotiating over trade, which could further reduce tariffs.
ESPN and Major League Baseball appeared headed for an ugly separation after the network opted out of its rights deal in February.
Nine months later, it appears to be the best thing to happen to both parties.
ESPN has a reworked deal that includes out-of-market streaming rights while NBC and Netflix will air games as part of a new three-year media rights agreement announced by MLB on Wednesday.
I think its really important that we manage to continue a relationship with ESPN. Theyve been kind of the bedrock of our broadcast program for a long time, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said.
NBC/Peacock will become the new home of Sunday Night Baseball and the Wild Card Series while Netflix will have the Home Run Derby and two additional games.
The three deals will average nearly $800 million per year. ESPN will still pay $550 million while the NBC deal is worth $200 million and Netflix $50 million.
How ESPN benefits
ESPN, which has carried baseball since 1990, loses postseason games and the Home Run Derby but gains something more valuable for its bottom line by becoming the rights holder for MLB.TV, which will be available on the ESPN app.
ESPN also gets the in-market streaming rights for the six teams whose games are produced by MLB: San Diego, Colorado, Arizona, Cleveland, Minnesota and Seattle.
Even though ESPN no longer has Sunday Night Baseball, it will have 30 exclusive games, primarily on weeknights and in the summer months.
Were excited to have a midweek package back out there, Manfred said. This is an evolution of a relationship. Long relationships go through these things, and its an evolution that I think is significant. I think it is consonant with ESPNs focus on streaming going forward.
Baseball is the second league that has its out-of-market digital package available in the U.S. on ESPNs platform. The NHL moved its package to ESPN in 2021.
Welcome back, NBC
NBC, which celebrates its 100th anniversary next year, has a long history with baseball, albeit not much recently. The network carried games from 1939 through 1989. It was part of the short-lived Baseball Network with ABC in 1994 and 95 and then aired playoff games from 1996 through 2000.
Its first game will be on March 26 when the defending two-time champion Los Angeles Dodgers host the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The 25 Sunday night games will air mostly on NBC with the rest on the new NBC Sports Network. All will stream on Peacock.
The first Sunday Night Baseball game on NBC will be April 12 with the next one in May after the NBA playoffs.
The addition of baseball games gives NBC a year-around night of sports on Sunday nights. It has had NFL games on Sunday night since 2006 and will debut an NBA Sunday night slate in February.
NBC will also have a prime-time game on Labor Day night.
The Sunday early-afternoon games also return to Peacock, which had them in 2022 and 23. The early-afternoon games will lead into a studio Whip-Around Show before the Sunday night game.
NBC/Peacock will also do the Major League Futures game on the day before the Home Run Derby and coverage of the first round of the amateur draft on the Saturday heading into the All-Star break.
Netflix and baseball
Netflix's baseball deals are in alignment with its strategy of going for big events in a major sport. The streamer will have an NFL Christmas doubleheader this season for the second straight year.
Besides the Home Run Derby, Netflix will have the first game of the season on March 25 when three-time AL MVP Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees visit the San Francisco Giants. It also has the Home Run Derby and the Field of Dreams game at Dyersville, Iowa, on Aug. 13, when Minnesota faces Philadelphia. Netflix will stream a MLB special event game each year.
Don't forget the others
The negotiations around the other deals were complicated due to the fact that MLB was also trying not to slight two of its other rights holders. MLB receives an average of $729 million from Fox and $470 million from Turner Sports per year under deals which expire after the 2028 season.
Foxs Saturday nights have been mainly sports the past couple years with a mix of baseball, college football, college basketball and motorsports.
Apple TV has had Friday Night Baseball since 2022.
The deals also set up Manfred for future negotiations. He would like to see MLB take a more national approach to its rights instead of a large percentage of its games being on regional sports networks.
The U.S. and Russia have drawn up a plan aimed at ending the war in Ukraine that calls for major concessions from Kyiv, according to a person familiar with the matter, including granting some demands the Kremlin has made repeatedly since the full-scale invasion began nearly four years ago.
It was not clear what, if any, concessions the proposal asks of Russia. The same person confirmed that promises from Moscow of no further attacks are part of the framework.
In other developments, Russias chief military officer, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, announced that Moscows forces had taken full control of Kupiansk in Ukraines Kharkiv region, although he also said that some Ukrainian troops remained in the city.
The general staff for Ukraines armed forces denied Gerasimovs claims and said that Kyivs forces remained in control of Kupiansk.
An aggressive timeline for peace
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff have been quietly working on the peace plan for a month, receiving input from both Ukrainians and Russians on terms that are acceptable to each side, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Thursday.
She declined to comment on details of the emerging proposal, but she said U.S. President Donald Trump has been briefed on it and supports it.
"It is a good plan for both Russia and Ukraine, and we believe it should be acceptable to both sides. And we are working hard to get it done, Leavitt said.
The latest Trump administration push for peace has piled more pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is marshaling his countrys defenses against Russias bigger army, visiting European leaders to ensure they continue their support for Ukraine and navigating a major corruption scandal that has caused public outrage.
U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll was also in Kyiv on Thursday to give a new push to peace efforts and assess the reality on the ground in Ukraine. Zelenskyy confirmed that he had met with Driscoll and discussed options for achieving real peace.
Our teams of Ukraine and the United States will work on the provisions of the plan to end the war. We are ready for constructive, honest and swift work, he wrote in a post on X.
Zelenskyys office also said in a statement that the Ukrainian president expected to talk to Trump in coming days about diplomatic opportunities.
European diplomats urge wider consultations
As reports of the Russia-U.S. peace plan emerged, blindsided European diplomats insisted they and Ukraine must be consulted.
European leaders have already been alarmed this year by indications that Trumps administration might be sidelining them and Zelenskyy in its push to stop the fighting. Trumps at-times conciliatory approach to Russian President Vladimir Putin has fueled those concerns, but Trump adopted a tougher line last month when he announced heavy sanctions on Russia's vital oil sector that come into force Friday.
For any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said at the start of a meeting in Brussels of the 27-nation blocs foreign ministers. She added: We havent heard of any concessions on the Russian side."
German Foreign Minister Johannes Wadephul said he talked by phone Thursday with Witkoff and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to discuss our various current efforts to end Russias war of aggression against Ukraine and thus finally put an end to the immeasurable human suffering.
The conversations also focused on specific ideas that are currently being discussed, Wadephul said in a statement. He did not elaborate.
It was not clear whether the foreign ministers had seen the peace plan, which was first reported by Axios. The proposal was drawn up by U.S. and Russian envoys, and was said to include forcing Ukraine to cede territory, a prospect Zelenskyy has ruled out.
The Trump administrations diplomatic efforts this year to stop the fighting have so far come to nothing.
The proposal, which could still be changed, calls in part for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia and to abandon certain weaponry, according to the person who had been briefed on the contours of the plan but was not authorized to comment publicly. It would also include the rollback of some critical U.S. military assistance.
Russia, as part of the proposal, would be given effective control of the entire eastern Donbas region, Ukraines industrial heartland made up of the Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk regions, even though Ukraine still holds part of it. Putin has listed the capture of the Donbas as the key goal of the invasion.
Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, a close adviser to Putin, have been key to drafting the proposal, according to the person familiar with the matter.
But a peace deal that requires Kyiv to hand over territory to Russia would not only be deeply unpopular with Ukrainians, it also would be illegal under Ukraines constitution. Zelenskyy has repeatedly ruled out such a possibility.
Rubio said on social platform X late Wednesday that American officials are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for a lasting peace agreement which will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that there there are no consultations per se currently underway with the U.S. on ending the war in Ukraine. There are certainly contacts, but processes that could be called consultations are not underway, he told reporters.
EU accuses Russia of insincerity
Though the European diplomats appeared caught by surprise, reported elements of the plan were not new. Trump said last month that the Donbas region should be cut up, leaving most of it in Russian hands.
EU diplomats have accused Putin of being insincere in saying he wants peace but refusing to compromise in negotiations while sustaining Russias grinding war of attrition in Ukraine.
Kallas, the EUs chief diplomat, chided Putins forces for continuing to target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, a day after a strike on the western city of Ternopil killed 26 people and wounded 93 others. About two dozen people were still missing.
Kallas said that if Russia really wanted peace, it could have agreed to (an) unconditional ceasefire already some time ago.
Trump has stopped sending military aid directly to Ukraine, with European countries taking up the slack by buying weaponry for Ukraine from the United States. That has given Europe leverage in talks on ending the conflict.
Russia reports gains in two regions
In a video released by the Kremlin, Gerasimov told Putin, who attended the meeting dressed in combat fatigues, that Russian troops had taken Kupiansk and that they continued to destroy Ukrainian forces encircled on the left bank of the Oskil River.
He also said Russian troops had taken 80% the Ukrainian city of Vovchansk, also in the Kharkiv region, and 70% of the fiercely contested city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.
The Ukrainian military denied all of Gerasimov's claims. In a statement issued late Thursday, the general staff said Kupiansk remained under Kyiv's control and that efforts were underway to eliminate the enemy presence in the city and its suburbs.
The city of Kupiansk and the territories around it were under Russian occupation from early in Russias invasion in February 2022 until September 2022, when Ukrainian forces conducted a rapid offensive operation that dislodged the Kremlins forces from nearly the entire Kharkiv region.
The retaking of those areas strengthened Ukraines arguments that its troops could deliver more stinging defeats to Russia with additional armament deliveries.
Jarring swings keep rocking Wall Street, and U.S. stocks erased a big morning gain to drop on Thursday as the market remains skittish following weeks of doubts and erratic moves.
After initially soaring toward what seemed like its best day since May, with an early surge of 1.9%, the S&P 500 erased all of it and fell 1.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 386 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 2.2%.
The sharpest losses again hit what used to be the markets biggest winners. Nvidia, cryptocurrencies and other areas that had soared with nearly relentless momentum, as traders feared missing out on more gains, forced the market lower. Bitcoin dropped below $87,000, down from nearly $125,000 last month.
The market had been shaky coming into Thursday, largely because of twin worries: Nvidia and other superstar stocks caught up in the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology may have simply shot too high, and the Federal Reserve may be done delivering the invigorating cuts to interest rates that Wall Street loves.
Nvidia initially appeared to tamp down the worries about a bubble for AI stocks after reporting a big profit for the summer, along with a forecast for coming revenue that easily cleared analysts expectations. By delivering strong profits and indicating more are coming, Nvidia can justify its stocks price gains and make it look less expensive.
Given Nvidias forecasts, it is very hard to see how this stock does not keep moving higher from here, according to analysts at UBS led by Timothy Arcuri. They also said the AI infrastructure tide is still rising so fast that all boats will be lifted.
Nvidia jumped to an early gain of 5% but then dropped to a loss of 3%. Because its the biggest company in the U.S. market by value, Nvidias stock has more pull on the S&P 500 than any other companys.
Despite Nvidias big numbers, worries about a potential AI bubble arent gone. The concern among investors is that all the dollars pouring into AI chips and data centers may not ultimately produce the big profits and productivity for the economy that proponents have been promising.
Yes, Nvidia expects to sell another $65 billion of chips in the coming three months, which is more than analysts expected. But will all those chips actually create much bigger profits for Amazon and other companies using them? That question whether all the investment in AI will prove to be worth it in the end is still unanswered.
The most recent survey of global fund managers by Bank of America showed a record percentage of investors saying companies are overinvesting.
Amazon went from an early gain of 2.1% Thursday to a loss of 2.5%. Palantir Technologies swung from a jump of 5.5% to a loss of 5.8%.
The last time the overall stock market had swings in one day as wild as Thursdays was in April, when President Donald Trump shocked the world with his stiff Liberation Day tariffs.
For the second worry thats been dogging Wall Street, interest rates, Thursdays jobs report from the U.S. government came in mixed and offered some relief. Financial markets initially seemed to pick the data apart for encouraging signals, according to Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.
The report showed hiring by U.S. employers was stronger in September than economists expected, which may suggest the economy remains solid. But it also said the unemployment rate worsened slightly, which could give the Fed reason to cut its main interest rate at its next meeting in December.
Traders still see a December rate cut as relatively unlikely, giving it a roughly 40% probability, according to data from CME Group. But thats better than the 30% chance they saw a day earlier.
What the Fed does is critical for the stock market because prices ran to records in part because of expectations for continued cuts to rates. The Fed has already cut rates twice this year to shore up the slowing job market. But lower rates can worsen inflation, which has stubbornly remained above the Feds 2% target.
On the winning side of Wall Street was Walmart, which rallied 6.5% after the retailer delivered another standout quarter. It reported strong sales and profits that blew past Wall Street expectations as it continues to lure cash-strapped Americans nervous about the economy and prices.
That wasnt enough to drown out the losses for Nvidia and tech. Companies enmeshed in the crypto industry also tumbled, as bitcoin dropped to its lowest price since April. Robinhood Markets fell 10.1%, and Coinbase Global sank 7.4%.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 103.40 points to 6,538.76. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 386.51 to 45,752.26, and the Nasdaq composite sank 486.18 to 22,078.05.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.09% from 4.13% late Wednesday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.
Japans Nikkei 225 jumped 2.6%, and South Koreas Kospi rose 1.9% for two of the bigger gains.
The Trump administration announced on Thursday new oil drilling off the California and Florida coasts for the first time in decades, advancing a project that critics say could harm coastal communities and ecosystems, as President Donald Trump seeks to expand U.S. oil production.
The oil industry has been seeking access to new offshore areas, including Southern California and off the coast of Florida, as a way to boost U.S. energy security and jobs. The federal government has not allowed drilling in federal waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which includes offshore Florida and part of offshore Alabama, since 1995, because of concerns about oil spills. California has some offshore oil rigs, but there has been no new leasing in federal waters since the mid-1980s.
Since taking office for a second time in January, Trump has systematically reversed former President Joe Bidens focus on slowing climate change to pursue what the Republican calls U.S. energy dominance in the global market. Trump, who recently called climate change the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world," created a National Energy Dominance Council and directed it to move quickly to drive up already record-high U.S. energy production, particularly fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.
Meanwhile, Trumps administration has blocked renewable energy sources such as offshore wind and canceled billions of dollars in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects across the country.
Even before it was released, the offshore drilling plan has been met with strong opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is eyeing a 2028 presidential run and has emerged as a leading Trump critic. Newsom pronounced the idea dead on arrival in a social media post. The proposal also is likely to draw bipartisan opposition in Florida. Tourism and access to clean beaches are key parts of the economy in both states.
Plans to allow drilling off California, Alaska and Florida's coast
The administrations plan proposes six offshore lease sales off the coast of California.
It also calls for new drilling off the coast of Florida in areas at least 100 miles from that state's shore. The area targeted for leasing is adjacent to an area in the Central Gulf of Mexico that already contains thousands of wells and hundreds of drilling platforms.
The five-year plan also would compel more than 20 lease sales off the coast of Alaska, including a newly designated area known as the High Arctic, more than 200 miles offshore in the Arctic Ocean.
All offshore areas with the potential to generate jobs, new revenue and additional production to advance Americas energy dominance should be considered for inclusion, the American Petroleum Institute and other groups said in a joint letter to the Trump administration in June.
The groups cited Californias history as an oil-producing state. Undiscovered resources could be readily produced given the array of existing infrastructure in the area, particularly in southern California, the letter said.
Opposition from California and Florida
Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican and Trump ally, helped persuade Trump officials to drop a similar offshore plan in 2018 when he was governor. Last week, Scott and fellow Florida Republican Sen. Ashley Moody co-sponsored a bill to maintain a moratorium on offshore drilling in the state that Trump signed in his first term.
As Floridians, we know how vital our beautiful beaches and coastal waters are to our states economy, environment and way of life, Scott said in a statement. I will always work to keep Floridas shores pristine and protect our natural treasures for generations to come.
A Newsom spokesman said Trump officials had not formally shared the plan, but said expensive and riskier offshore drilling would put our communities at risk and undermine the economic stability of our coastal economies."
California has been a leader in restricting offshore oil drilling since the infamous 1969 Santa Barbara spill that helped spark the modern environmental movement. While there have been no new federal leases offered since the mid-1980s, drilling from existing platforms continues.
Newsom expressed support for greater offshore controls after a 2021 spill off Huntington Beach and has backed a congressional effort to ban new offshore drilling on the West Coast.
A Texas-based company, with support from the Trump administration, is seeking to restart production in waters off Santa Barbara damaged by a 2015 oil spill. The administration has hailed the plan by Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp. as the kind of project Trump wants to increase U.S. energy production as the federal government removes regulatory barriers.
Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term reversing former President Joe Bidens ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts. A federal court later struck down Bidens order to withdraw 625 million acres of federal waters from oil development.
Environmental and economic concerns over oil spills
Democratic lawmakers, including California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff and Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, warned that opening vast coastlines to new offshore drilling "would devastate coastal economies, jeopardize our national security, ravage coastal ecosystems, and put millions of Americans health and safety at risk.''
Oil spills not only cause irreparable environmental damage, but also suppress the value of coastal homes, harm tourism economies and weaken coastal infrastructure,'' the lawmakers said in a letter signed by dozens of Democrats. One disastrous oil spill can cost taxpayers billions in lost revenue, cleanup costs and ecosystem restoration, they said.
Joseph Gordon, campaign director for the environmental group Oceana, called the Trump administration's latest plan an oil spill nightmare.
Coastal communities depend on healthy oceans for economic security and their cherished way of life,'' he said. We need to protect our coasts from more offshore drilling, not put them up for sale to the oil and gas industry. Theres too much at stake to risk more horrific oil spills that will haunt our coastlines for generations to come.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to end its monthslong deployment of National Guard troops to help police the nation's capital.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb concluded that President Donald Trump's military takeover in Washington, D.C., violates the Constitution and illegally intrudes on local officials' authority to direct law enforcement in the district. She put her order on hold for 21 days to allow for an appeal, however.
District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued to challenge the Guard deployments. He asked the judge to bar the White House from deploying Guard troops without the mayor's consent.
Cobb found that the president only has the power to call up the Guard "through the exercise of a specific power outlined in state law," not for "whatever reason" he sees fit.
In August, President Donald Trump issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in Washington. Within a month, more than 2,300 National Guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling the city under the command of the Secretary of the Army. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist in patrols.
It's unclear how long the deployments will last, but attorneys from Schwalb's office said Guard troops are likely to remain in the city through at least next summer.
"Our constitutional democracy will never be the same if these occupations are permitted to stand," they wrote.
Government lawyers said Congress empowered the president to control the D.C. National Guard's operation. They argued that Schwalb's lawsuit is a frivolous "political stunt" threatening to undermine a successful campaign to reduce violent crime in the district.
"There is no sensible reason for an injunction unwinding this arrangement now, particularly since the District's claims have no merit," Justice Department attorneys wrote.
Trump's Guard deployments have led to other court challenges, including in Portland, Chicago and Los Angeles.
In Washington, the Trump administration deputized Guard troops to serve as special U.S. Marshal Service deputies. Schwalb's office said out-of-state troops are impermissibly operating as a federal military police force in D.C., inflaming tensions with residents and diverting local police resources.
"Every day that this lawless incursion continues, the District suffers harm to its sovereign authority to conduct local law enforcement as it chooses," his office's attorneys wrote.
The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious, The Associated Press has found.
The predictive intelligence program has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information, and an algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Federal agents, in turn, may then flag local law enforcement.
Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over often for reasons cited such as speeding, failure to signal, the wrong window tint or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view. They are then aggressively questioned and searched, with no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement's radar.
Once limited to policing the nation's boundaries, the Border Patrol has built a surveillance system stretching into the country's interior that can monitor ordinary Americans' daily actions and connections for anomalies instead of simply targeting wanted suspects. Started about a decade ago to fight illegal border-related activities and the trafficking of both drugs and people, it has expanded over the past five years.
The Border Patrol has recently grown even more powerful through collaborations with other agencies, drawing information from license plate readers nationwide run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, private companies and, increasingly, local law enforcement programs funded through federal grants. Texas law enforcement agencies have asked Border Patrol to use facial recognition to identify drivers, documents show.
This active role beyond the borders is part of the quiet transformation of its parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, into something more akin to a domestic intelligence operation. Under the Trump administration's heightened immigration enforcement efforts, CBP is now poised to get more than $2.7 billion to build out border surveillance systems such as the license plate reader program by layering in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
The result is a mass surveillance network with a particularly American focus: cars.
This investigation, the first to reveal details of how the program works on America's roads, is based on interviews with eight former government officials with direct knowledge of the program who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media, as well as dozens of federal, state and local officials, attorneys and privacy experts. The AP also reviewed thousands of pages of court and government documents, state grant and law enforcement data, and arrest reports.
The Border Patrol has for years hidden details of its license plate reader program, trying to keep any mention of the program out of court documents and police reports, former officials say, even going so far as to propose dropping charges rather than risk revealing any details about the placement and use of their covert license plate readers. Readers are often disguised along highways in traffic safety equipment like drums and barrels.
The Border Patrol has defined its own criteria for which drivers' behavior should be deemed suspicious or tied to drug or human trafficking, stopping people for anything from driving on backcountry roads, being in a rental car or making short trips to the border region. The agency's network of cameras now extends along the southern border in Texas, Arizona and California, and also monitors drivers traveling near the U.S.-Canada border.
And it reaches far into the interior, impacting residents of big metropolitan areas and people driving to and from large cities such as Chicago and Detroit, as well as from Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Houston to and from the Mexican border region. In one example, AP found the agency has placed at least four cameras in the greater Phoenix area over the years, one of which was more than 120 miles (193 kilometers) from the Mexican frontier, beyond the agency's usual jurisdiction of 100 miles (161 kilometers) from a land or sea border. The AP also identified several camera locations in metropolitan Detroit, as well as one placed near the Michigan-Indiana border to capture traffic headed towards Chicago or Gary, Indiana, or other nearby destinations.
Border Patrol's parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said they use license plate readers to help identify threats and disrupt criminal networks and are "governed by a stringent, multi-layered policy framework, as well as federal law and constitutional protections, to ensure the technology is applied responsibly and for clearly defined security purposes."
"For national security reasons, we do not detail the specific operational applications," the agency said. While the U.S. Border Patrol primarily operates within 100 miles of the border, it is legally allowed "to operate anywhere in the United States," the agency added.
While collecting license plates from cars on public roads has generally been upheld by courts, some legal scholars see the growth of large digital surveillance networks such as Border Patrol's as raising constitutional questions. Courts have started to recognize that "large-scale surveillance technology that's capturing everyone and everywhere at every time" might be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches, said Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University.
Today, predictive surveillance is embedded into America's roadways. Mass surveillance techniques are also used in a range of other countries, from authoritarian governments such as China to, increasingly, democracies in the U.K. and Europe in the name of national security and public safety.
"They are collecting mass amounts of information about who people are, where they go, what they do, and who they know engaging in dragnet surveillance of Americans on the streets, on the highways, in their cities, in their communities," Nicole Ozer, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at UC Law San Francisco, said in response to the AP's findings. "These surveillance systems do not make communities safer."
'We did everything right and had nothing to hide'
In February, Lorenzo Gutierrez Lugo, a driver for a small trucking company that specializes in transporting furniture, clothing and other belongings to families in Mexico, was driving south to the border city of Brownsville, Texas, carrying packages from immigrant communities in South Carolina's low country.
Gutierrez Lugo was pulled over by a local police officer in Kingsville, a small Texas city near Corpus Christi that lies about 100 miles (161 kilometers) from the Mexican border. The officer, Richard Beltran, cited the truck's speed of 50 mph (80 kph) in a 45 mph (72 kph) zone as the reason for the stop.
But speeding was a pretext: Border Patrol had requested the stop and said the black Dodge pickup with a white trailer could contain contraband, according to police and court records. U.S. Route 77 passes through Kingsville, a route that state and federal authorities scrutinize for trafficking of drugs, money and people.
Gutierrez Lugo, who through a lawyer declined to comment, was interrogated about the route he drove, based on license plate reader data, per the police report and court records. He consented to a search of his car by Beltran and Border Patrol agents, who eventually arrived to assist.
They unearthed no contraband. But Beltran arrested Gutierrez Lugo on suspicion of money laundering and engaging in organized criminal activity because he was carrying thousands of dollars in cash money his supervisor said came directly from customers in local Latino communities, who are accustomed to paying in cash. No criminal charges were ultimately brought against Gutierrez Lugo and an effort by prosecutors to seize the cash, vehicle and trailer as contraband was eventually dropped.
Luis Barrios owns the trucking company, Paquetera El Guero, that employed the driver. He told AP he hires people with work authorization in the United States and was taken aback by the treatment of his employee and his trailer.
"We did everything right and had nothing to hide, and that was ultimately what they found," said Barrios, who estimates he spent $20,000 in legal fees to clear his driver's name and get the trailer out of impound.
Border Patrol agents and local police have many names for these kinds of stops: "whisper," "intel" or "wall" stops. Those stops are meant to conceal or wall off that the true reason for the stop is a tip from federal agents sitting miles away, watching data feeds showing who's traveling on America's roads and predicting who is "suspicious," according to documents and people interviewed by the AP.
In 2022, a man from Houston had his car searched from top to bottom by Texas sheriff's deputies outside San Antonio after they got a similar tipoff from Border Patrol agents about the driver, Alek Schott.
Federal agents observed that Schott had made an overnight trip from Houston to Carrizo Springs, Texas, and back, court records show. They knew he stayed overnight in a hotel about 80 miles (129 kilometers) from the U.S.-Mexico border. They knew that in the morning Schott met a female colleague there before they drove together to a business meeting.
At Border Patrol's request, Schott was pulled over by Bexar County sheriff's deputies. The deputies held Schott by the side of the road for more than an hour, searched his car and found nothing.
"The beautiful thing about the Texas Traffic Code is there's thousands of things you can stop a vehicle for," said Joel Babb, the sheriff's deputy who stopped Schott's car, in a deposition in a lawsuit Schott filed alleging violations of his constitutional rights.
According to testimony and documents released as part of Schott's lawsuit, Babb was on a group chat with federal agents called Northwest Highway. Babb deleted the WhatsApp chat off his phone but Schott's lawyers were able to recover some of the text messages.
Through a public records act request, the AP also obtained more than 70 pages of the Northwest Highway group chats from June and July of this year from a Texas county that had at least one sheriff's deputy active in the chat. The AP was able to associate numerous phone numbers in both sets of documents with Border Patrol agents and Texas law enforcement officials.
The chat logs show Border Patrol agents and Texas sheriffs deputies trading tips about vehicles' travel patterns based on suspicions about little more than someone taking a quick trip to the border region and back. The chats show how thoroughly Texas highways are surveilled by this federal-local partnership and how much detailed information is informally shared.
In one exchange a law enforcement official included a photo of someone's driver's license and told the group the person, who they identified using an abbreviation for someone in the country illegally, was headed westbound. "Need BP?," responded a group member whose number was labeled "bp Intel." "Yes sir," the official answered, and a Border Patrol agent was en route.
Border Patrol agents and local law enforcement shared information about U.S. citizens' social media profiles and home addresses with each other after stopping them on the road. Chats show Border Patrol was also able to determine whether vehicles were rentals and whether drivers worked for rideshare services.
In Schott's case, Babb testified that federal agents "actually watch travel patterns on the highway" through license plate scans and other surveillance technologies. He added: "I just know that they have a lot of toys over there on the federal side."
After finding nothing in Schott's car, Babb said "nine times out of 10, this is what happens," a phrase Schott's lawyers claimed in court filings shows the sheriff's department finds nothing suspicious in most of its searches. Babb did not respond to multiple requests for comment from AP.
The Bexar County sheriff's office declined to comment due to pending litigation and referred all questions about the Schott case to the county's district attorney. The district attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
The case is pending in federal court in Texas. Schott said in an interview with the AP: "I didn't know it was illegal to drive in Texas."
'Patterns of life' and license plates
Today, the deserts, forests and mountains of the nation's land borders are dotted with checkpoints and increasingly, surveillance towers, Predator drones, thermal cameras and license plate readers, both covert and overt.
Border Patrol's parent agency got authorization to run a domestic license plate reader program in 2017, according to a Department of Homeland Security policy document. At the time, the agency said that it might use hidden license plate readers "for a set period of time while CBP is conducting an investigation of an area of interest or smuggling route. Once the investigation is complete, or the illicit activity has stopped in that area, the covert cameras are removed," the document states.
But that's not how the program has operated in practice, according to interviews, police reports and court documents. License plate readers have become a major and in some places permanent fixture of the border region.
In a budget request to Congress in fiscal year 2024, CBP said that its Conveyance Monitoring and Predictive Recognition System, or CMPRS, "collects license plate images and matches the processed images against established hot lists to assist in identifying travel patterns indicative of illegal border related activities." Several new developer jobs have been posted seeking applicants to help modernize its license plate surveillance system in recent months. Numerous Border Patrol sectors now have special intelligence units that can analyze license plate reader data, and tie commercial license plate readers to its national network, according to documents and interviews.
Border Patrol worked with other law enforcement agencies in Southern California about a decade ago to develop pattern recognition, said a former CBP official who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Over time, the agency learned to develop what it calls "patterns of life" of vehicle movements by sifting through the license plate data and determining "abnormal" routes, evaluating if drivers were purposely avoiding official checkpoints. Some cameras can take photos of a vehicle's plates as well as its driver's face, the official said.
Another former Border Patrol official compared it to a more technologically sophisticated version of what agents used to do in the field develop hunches based on experience about which vehicles or routes smugglers might use, find a legal basis for the stop like speeding and pull drivers over for questioning.
The cameras take pictures of vehicle license plates. Then, the photos are "read" by the system, which automatically detects and distills the images into numbers and letters, tied to a geographic location, former CBP officials said. The AP could not determine how precisely the system's algorithm defines a quick turnaround or an odd route. Over time, the agency has amassed databases replete with images of license plates, and the system's algorithm can flag an unusual "pattern of life" for human inspection.
The Border Patrol also has access to a nationwide network of plate readers run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, documents show, and was authorized in 2020 to access license plate reader systems sold by private companies. In documents obtained by the AP, a Border Patrol official boasted about being able to see that a vehicle that had traveled to "Dallas, Little Rock, Arkansas and Atlanta" before ending up south of San Antonio.
Documents show that Border Patrol or CBP has in the past had access to data from at least three private sector vendors: Rekor, Vigilant Solutions and Flock Safety.
Through Flock alone, Border Patrol for a time had access to at least 1,600 license plate readers across 22 states, and some counties have reported looking up license plates on behalf of CBP even in states like California and Illinois that ban sharing data with federal immigration authorities, according to an AP analysis of police disclosures. A Flock spokesperson told AP the company "for now" had paused its pilot programs with CBP and a separate DHS agency, Homeland Security Investigations, and declined to discuss the type or volume of data shared with either federal agency, other than to say agencies could search for vehicles wanted in conjunction with a crime. No agencies currently list Border Patrol as receiving Flock data. Vigilant and Rekor did not respond to requests for comment.
Where Border Patrol places its cameras is a closely guarded secret. However, through public records requests, the AP obtained dozens of permits the agency filed with Arizona and Michigan for permission to place cameras on state-owned land. The permits show the agency frequently disguises its cameras by concealing them in traffic equipment like the yellow and orange barrels that dot American roadways, or by labeling them as jobsite equipment. An AP photographer in October visited the locations identified in more than two dozen permit applications in Arizona, finding that most of the Border Patrol's hidden equipment remains in place today. Spokespeople for the Arizona and Michigan departments of transportation said they approve permits based on whether they follow state and federal rules and are not privy to details on how license plate readers are used.
Texas, California, and other border states did not provide documents in response to the AP's public records requests.
CBP's attorneys and personnel instructed local cities and counties in both Arizona and Texas to withhold records from the AP that might have revealed details about the program's operations, even though they were requested under state open records laws, according to emails and legal briefs filed with state governments. For example, CBP claimed records requested by the AP in Texas "would permit private citizens to anticipate weaknesses in a police department, avoid detection, jeopardize officer safety, and generally undermine police efforts." Michigan redacted the exact locations of Border Patrol equipment, but the AP was able to determine general locations from the name of the county.
One page of the group chats obtained by the AP shows that a participant enabled WhatsApp's disappearing messages feature to ensure communications were deleted automatically.
Transformation of CBP into intelligence agency
The Border Patrol's license plate reader program is just one part of a steady transformation of its parent agency, CBP, in the years since 9/11 into an intelligence operation whose reach extends far beyond borders, according to interviews with former officials.
CBP has quietly amassed access to far more information from ports of entry, airports and intelligence centers than other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. And like a domestic spy agency, CBP has mostly hidden its role in the dissemination of intelligence on purely domestic travel through its use of whisper stops.
Border Patrol has also extended the reach of its license plate surveillance program by paying for local law enforcement to run plate readers on their behalf.
A federal grant program called Operation Stonegarden, which has existed in some form for nearly two decades, has handed out hundreds of millions of dollars to buy automated license plate readers, camera-equipped drones and other surveillance gear for local police and sheriffs agencies. Stonegarden grant funds also pay for local law enforcement overtime, which deputizes local officers to work on Border Patrol enforcement priorities. Under President Donald Trump, the Republican-led Congress this year allocated $450 million for Stonegarden to be handed out over the next four fiscal years. In the previous four fiscal years, the program gave out $342 million.
In Cochise County, Arizona, Sheriff Mark Dannels said Stonegarden grants, which have been used to buy plate readers and pay for overtime, have let his deputies merge their mission with Border Patrol's to prioritize border security.
"If we're sharing our authorities, we can put some consequences behind, or deterrence behind, 'Don't come here,'" he said.
In 2021, the Ward County, Texas, sheriff sought grant funding from DHS to buy a "covert, mobile, License Plate Reader" to pipe data to Border Patrol's Big Bend Sector Intelligence Unit. The sheriff's department did not respond to a request for comment.
Other documents AP obtained show that Border Patrol connects locally owned and operated license plate readers bought through Stonegarden grants to its computer systems, vastly increasing the federal agency's surveillance network.
How many people have been caught up in the Border Patrol's dragnet is unknown. One former Border Patrol agent who worked on the license plate reader pattern detection program in California said the program had an 85% success rate of discovering contraband once he learned to identify patterns that looked suspicious. But another former official in a different Border Patrol sector said he was unaware of successful interdictions based solely on license plate patterns.
In Trump's second term, Border Patrol has extended its reach and power as border crossings have slowed to historic lows and freed up agents for operations in the heartland. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino, for example, was tapped to direct hundreds of agents from multiple DHS agencies in the administration's immigration sweeps across Los Angeles, more than 150 miles (241 kilometers) from his office in El Centro, California. Bovino later was elevated to lead the aggressive immigration crackdown in Chicago. Numerous Border Patrol officials have also been tapped to replace ICE leadership.
The result has been more encounters between the agency and the general public than ever before.
"We took Alek's case because it was a clear-cut example of an unconstitutional traffic stop," said Christie Hebert, who works at the nonprofit public interest law firm Institute for Justice and represents Schott. "What we found was something much larger a system of mass surveillance that threatens people's freedom of movement."
AP found numerous other examples similar to what Schott and the delivery driver experienced in reviewing court records in border communities and along known smuggling routes in Texas and California. Several police reports and court records the AP examined cite "suspicious" travel patterns or vague tipoffs from the Border Patrol or other unnamed law enforcement agencies. In another federal court document filed in California, a Border Patrol agent acknowledged "conducting targeted analysis on vehicles exhibiting suspicious travel patterns" as the reason he singled out a Nissan Altima traveling near San Diego.
In cases reviewed by the AP, local law enforcement sometimes tried to conceal the role the Border Patrol plays in passing along intelligence. Babb, the deputy who stopped Schott, testified he typically uses the phrase "subsequent to prior knowledge" when describing whisper stops in his police reports to acknowledge that the tip came from another law enforcement agency without revealing too much in written documents he writes memorializing motorist encounters.
Once they pull over a vehicle deemed suspicious, officers often aggressively question drivers about their travels, their belongings, their jobs, how they know the passengers in the car, and much more, police records and bodyworn camera footage obtained by the AP show. One Texas officer demanded details from a man about where he met his current sexual partner. Often drivers, such as the one working for the South Carolina moving company, were arrested on suspicion of money laundering merely for carrying a few thousand dollars worth of cash, with no apparent connection to illegal activity. Prosecutors filed lawsuits to try to seize money or vehicles on the suspicion they were linked to trafficking.
Schott warns that for every success story touted by Border Patrol, there are far more innocent people who don't realize they've become ensnared in a technology-driven enforcement operation.
"I assume for every one person like me, who's actually standing up, there's a thousand people who just don't have the means or the time or, you know, they just leave frustrated and angry. They don't have the ability to move forward and hold anyone accountable," Schott said. "I think there's thousands of people getting treated this way."
___
Tau reported from Washington, Laredo, San Antonio, Kingsville and Victoria, Texas. Burke reported from San Francisco. AP writers Aaron Kessler in Washington, Jim Vertuno in San Antonio, AP video producer Serginho Roosblad in Bisbee, Arizona, and AP photographers Ross D. Franklin in Phoenix and David Goldman in Houston contributed reporting. Ismael M. Belkoura in Washington also contributed.
Federal investigators released dramatic photos Thursday of an engine flying off a doomed UPS cargo plane that crashed two weeks ago, killing 14 people in Kentucky, and said there was evidence of cracks in the left wing's engine mount.
NTSB issues the preliminary report for its ongoing investigation of the Nov. 4 crash of a UPS Boeing MD-11F airplane in Louisville, Kentucky. Download the report PDF: https://t.co/WS0Q629CUzpic.twitter.com/7pORlou2av
The MD-11 plane only got 30 feet (9.1 meters) off the ground, the National Transportation Safety Board said, citing the flight data recorder in its first formal but preliminary report about the Nov. 4 disaster in Louisville, Kentucky.
Three pilots on the plane were killed along with 11 more people on the ground near Muhammad Ali International Airport.
The NTSB said the plane was not due yet for a detailed inspection of key engine mount parts that had fractures. It still needed to complete nearly 7,000 more takeoffs and landings. It was last examined in October 2021.
It appears UPS was conducting this maintenance within the required time frame, but Im sure the FAA is now going to ponder whether that time frame is adequate, aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti told The Associated Press after reading the report.
A series of photos released by the NTSB shows the left engine coming off the UPS plane and flying up and over the wing as it rolled down the runway. The final image shows the plane slightly airborne with left wing ablaze.
Earlier this week, Bill Moore, president of UPS Airlines, an arm of UPS, said the company is working with investigators to determine the root cause of the crash.
Once we determine that, then theyll be able to develop an inspection plan, Moore said at a news conference in Louisville. Can we inspect it? If so, how do we repair it? How do we put it back together? And then eventually return the fleet to service. But thats not going to happen quickly.
UPS said it has grounded its fleet of MD-11s and is using other aircraft during the busy holiday season.
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