The U.S. Coast Guard is leading the search for the small craft, named Titan, in the North Atlantic Ocean. The remote area is where the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew.

This was OceanGate Expeditions' third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of Titanic since 2021. The sunken ship is about 2.4 miles (3.8 kilometers) below the surface.

The undersea exploration company has been chronicling the ship's decay as well as the underwater ecosystem that has sprung up around it over the last century.

What we know so far:

WHEN AND WHERE DID THE TITAN GO MISSING?

The craft submerged Sunday morning, and its support vessel lost contact with it about an hour and 45 minutes later, according to the Coast Guard.

The vessel was reported overdue about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, according to Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The Titan was being launched from an icebreaker that was hired by OceanGate and formerly operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship ferried dozens of people and the submersible craft to the North Atlantic wreck site, where the Titan makes multiple dives.

David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate, told The Associated Press on Monday that the submersible had a 96-hour oxygen supply. He said officials are working to get a remotely operated vehicle that can reach a depth of six kilometers (3.7 miles) to the site as soon as possible.

WHO WAS ON BOARD?

The Coast Guard said there was one pilot and four “mission specialists” aboard. “Mission specialists” are people who pay to come along on OceanGate’s expeditions. They take turns operating sonar equipment and performing other tasks in the five-person submersible.

An initial group of tourists in 2021 paid $100,000 to $150,000 apiece to go on the trip. OceanGate’s website described the “mission support fee” for the 2023 expedition as $250,000 a person.

British businessman Hamish Harding, who lives in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, was one of the mission specialists, according to Action Aviation, a company for which Harding serves as chairman.

Harding is an adventurer who holds three Guinness World Records, including the longest duration at full ocean depth by a crewed vessel. In March 2021, he and ocean explorer Victor Vescovo dived to the lowest depth of the Mariana Trench. In June 2022, he went into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, members of one of Pakistan's most prominent families, were also on board, according to a family statement sent to the AP. Their eponymous firm invests in agriculture, industries and the health sector. Shahzada Dawood also is on the board of trustees for the California-based SETI Institute that searches for extraterrestrial intelligence.

WHAT KIND OF DEEP-SEA VESSEL WAS IT?

Titan is capable of diving four kilometers (2.4 miles) “with a comfortable safety margin,” according to documents filed by the company in April with a U.S. District Court in Virginia that oversees Titanic matters.

In a May 2021 court filing, OceanGate said the Titan had an “unparalleled safety feature” that assesses the integrity of the hull throughout every dive. At the time of the filing, Titan had undergone more than 50 test dives, including to the equivalent depth of the Titanic, in deep waters off the Bahamas and in a pressure chamber, the company said.

During its 2022 expedition, OceanGate reported that the submersible had a battery issue on its first dive and had to be manually attached to its lifting platform, according to a November court filing.

WHAT WAS THE TITAN'S MISSION?

The goal of OceanGate's expeditions has been chronicling the Titanic's deterioration as well as the underwater ecosystem that shipwrecks often spawn.

What's left of the Titanic is slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria that consumes hundreds of pounds of iron a day. Holes pervade the wreckage, while the crow’s nest is already gone. Some have predicted the ship could vanish in a matter of decades as holes yawn in the hull and sections disintegrate.

The company outfitted the Titan with high-definition cameras and multi-beam sonar equipment. Charting the wreck's decomposition can help scientists predict the fate of other deep-sea wrecks, including those that sank during the world wars. Another focus is the sea life: Hundreds of species have only been seen at the wreck.

"The ocean is taking this thing, and we need to document it before it all disappears or becomes unrecognizable,” Stockton Rush, president of OceanGate Expeditions, told the AP in 2021.

The vessel was reported overdue Sunday night about 435 miles (700 kilometres) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, according to Canada's Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Lt. Cmdr. Len Hickey said a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and military aircraft were assisting the search effort, which was being led by the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston.

Rear Adm. John Mauger, a commander for the U.S. Coast Guard, said additional resources would arrive in the coming days.

“It is a remote area — and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area," he said. "But we are deploying all available assets to make sure we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board.”

According to the Coast Guard, the craft submerged Sunday morning, and its support vessel, the Canadian research icebreaker Polar Prince, lost contact with it about an hour and 45 minutes later.

The Polar Prince will continue to do surface searches throughout the evening and Canadian P8 Poseidon aircraft will resume their surface and subsurface search in the morning, the Coast Guard said on Twitter.

The submersible was operated by OceanGate Expeditions.

David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate, said the submersible had a 96-hour oxygen supply starting at roughly 6 a.m. Sunday. In an email to The Associated Press, Concannon said he was supposed to be on the dive but could not go due to another client matter. He said officials were working to get a remotely operated vehicle that can reach a depth of 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) to the site as soon as possible.

OceanGate’s expeditions to the Titanic wreck site include archaeologists and marine biologists. The company also brings people who pay to come along, known as “mission specialists.” They take turns operating sonar equipment and performing other tasks in the five-person submersible. The Coast Guard said Monday that there was one pilot and four “mission specialists” aboard.

OceanGate said its focus was on those aboard and their families.

“We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible,” it said in a statement.

U.K. businessman Hamish Harding was one of the mission specialists, according to Action Aviation, a company for which Harding serves as chairman. The company’s managing director, Mark Butler, told the AP that the crew set out on Friday.

“There is still plenty of time to facilitate a rescue mission, there is equipment on board for survival in this event,” Butler said. “We’re all hoping and praying he comes back safe and sound.”

Harding is a billionaire adventurer who holds three Guinness World Records, including the longest duration at full ocean depth by a crewed vessel. In March 2021, he and ocean explorer Victor Vescovo dived to the lowest depth of the Mariana Trench. In June 2022, he went into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

Harding was “looking forward to conducting research” at the Titanic site, said Richard Garriott de Cayeux, the president of The Explorers Club, a group to which Harding belonged.

"We all join in the fervent hope that the submersible is located as quickly as possible," he said in a statement.

The expedition was OceanGate’s third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of Titanic, which struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew. Since the wreckage’s discovery in 1985, it has been slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria. Some have predicted the ship could vanish in a matter of decades as holes yawn in the hull and sections disintegrate.

The initial group of tourists in 2021 paid $100,000 to $150,000 apiece to go on the trip.

Unlike submarines that leave and return to port under their own power, submersibles require a ship to launch and recover them. OceanGate hired the Polar Prince to ferry dozens of people and the submersible craft to the North Atlantic wreck site. The submersible would make multiple dives in one expedition.

The expedition was scheduled to depart from St. John’s, Newfoundland, in early May and finish up at the end of June, according to documents filed by the company in April with a U.S. District Court in Virginia that oversees Titanic matters.

CBS journalist David Pogue, who went on the trip last year, noted his vessel got turned around looking for the Titanic.

“There’s no GPS underwater, so the surface ship is supposed to guide the sub to the shipwreck by sending text messages,” Pogue said in a segment aired on CBS Sunday Morning. “But on this dive, communications somehow broke down. The sub never found the wreck.”

The submersible, named Titan, is capable of diving 4 kilometers (2.4 miles) “with a comfortable safety margin,” OceanGate said in its court filing.

It weighs 20,000 pounds (9,072 kilograms) in the air, but is ballasted to be neutrally buoyant once it reaches the seafloor, the company said.

The Titan is made of “titanium and filament wound carbon fiber” and has proven to “withstand the enormous pressures of the deep ocean,” OceanGate stated. OceanGate told the court that Titan’s viewport is “the largest of any deep diving submersible” and that its technology provides an “unrivaled view” of the deep ocean.

In a May 2021 court filing, OceanGate said the Titan had an “unparalleled safety feature” that assesses the integrity of the hull throughout every dive.

At the time of the filing, Titan had undergone more than 50 test dives, including to the equivalent depth of the Titanic, in deep waters off the Bahamas and in a pressure chamber, the company said.

During its expedition in 2022, OceanGate reported that the submersible had a battery issue on its first dive, and had to be manually attached to its lifting platform, according to a November court filing.

“In the high sea state, the submersible sustained modest damage to its external components and OceanGate decided to cancel the second mission for repairs and operational enhancements,” the filing stated.

More missions, however, followed. The company reported that 28 people visited the wreck site last year.

Experts said Monday that rescuers face steep challenges.

Alistair Greig, a professor of marine engineering at University College London, said submersibles typically have a drop weight, which is “a mass they can release in the case of an emergency to bring them up to the surface using buoyancy.”

“If there was a power failure and/or communication failure, this might have happened, and the submersible would then be bobbing about on the surface waiting to be found,” Greig said.

Another scenario is a leak in the pressure hull, in which case the prognosis is not good, he said.

“If it has gone down to the seabed and can’t get back up under its own power, options are very limited," Greig said. “While the submersible might still be intact, if it is beyond the continental shelf, there are very few vessels that can get that deep, and certainly not divers.”

Even if they could go that deep, he doubts they could attach to the hatch of OceanGate's submersible.

___

AP reporters Danica Kirka, Jill Lawless and Sylvia Hui in London, Robert Gillies in Toronto, Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco, and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Bret had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph) at 11 p.m. Monday as it moved west across the Atlantic at 18 mph (30 kph). Forecasters expect it to strengthen over the next two days, reaching Category 1 hurricane strength of 74 mph (120 kph) by Wednesday night as it nears the Lesser Antilles. Because of wind shear, the storm is not expected to strengthen into a Category 2 storm.

Bret is forecast to move across the Lesser Antilles as a hurricane on Thursday and Friday and unleash flooding, heavy rainfall and dangerous storm surge and waves, the center said. It is then expected to weaken slowly while still in the eastern Caribbean region, although the center warned that its forecast “remains a low confidence prediction.”

"Everyone in the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands should closely monitor updates to the forecast for this system and have their hurricane plan in place,” the center said.

The National Hurricane Center said there’s a possibility Bret could turn north or continue west into the Caribbean and threaten the Dominican Republic, Haiti and other islands.

“There continues to be larger than usual uncertainty,” the center said of the storm’s forecasted path.

Almost a century has gone by since a storm last strengthened into a hurricane in the tropical Atlantic in June, according to Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist at Colorado State University. The last such storm recorded was Trinidad in 1933, he tweeted.

Tropical Storm Arlene, the first named storm of the 2023 season, formed earlier this month. It petered out after two days, never threatening landfall. Previously, a subtropical storm formed in the Atlantic Basin in January.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has forecast 12 to 17 named storms for this year's hurricane season. It said between five and nine of those storms could become hurricanes, including up to four major hurricanes of Category 3 or higher.

A tropical disturbance that is trailing Bret has a 50% chance of formation, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Breaking weeks of public silence since her husband was impeached in May, Angela Paxton did not address the accusations in a statement released by her office.

Whether Paxton will cast a vote with her husband's job on the line has raised ethical questions ahead of the looming trial in the Senate, which is set to begin no later than August. State law compels all senators to attend, but is silent on whether she must participate.

“As a member of the Senate, I hold these obligations sacred and I will carry out my duties, not because it is easy, but because the Constitution demands it and because my constituents deserve it,” Paxton said.

A spokesperson did not immediately respond Monday night when asked whether she intends to vote.

The statement was released on the eve of when rules surrounding the trial are expected to be finalized Tuesday by the Texas Senate. There are 31 senators in the chamber, which is led by Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has declined to comment on Sen. Paxton's potential participation in the trial.

Ken Paxton is temporarily suspended from office pending the outcome of the trial.

Police said the man began the attack at about 9 p.m. Monday in the north Auckland suburb of Albany.

Police arrested a 24-year-old suspect at the scene and charged him with wounding, with the intention of causing grievous bodily harm. The man, a Chinese national, made a brief court appearance Tuesday. Police did not immediately offer a motive for the attack but said they had no evidence it was racially motivated.

Auckland City Hospital said Tuesday one patient from the attack remained there in stable condition. North Shore Hospital said it had one patient with moderate injuries and a second with minor injuries, both of whom were in stable condition, and had earlier discharged a third patient.

A diner told the New Zealand Herald newspaper he was eating dinner with a friend when the man walked in and started attacking his friend, who was seriously injured.

“I was in shock. When I realized what was happening, he tried to target me," the man, who asked not to be named, told the Herald. “I blocked his axe with my hand. He was also trying to target my head, so I blocked the axe with my hand.”

The diner said the man with the axe chased them out of the restaurant and then turned around and walked into another restaurant.

The Herald posted an image of what appeared to be a wood-splitter-style axe lying on the sidewalk.

Surveillance footage posted by the news website Stuff showed people fleeing from one of the restaurants, including one person who ran out backward holding a chair as a barricade followed closely by another person holding a weapon.

Police said they expect to file more charges against the man, who they believe acted alone. Police increased their presence in the area around the restaurants Tuesday.

"We acknowledge how frightening this incident was for those involved, and for the wider community, and we are ensuring there is support in place for both the victims and their friends and family," Inspector Stefan Sagar said in a statement.

During his court appearance, the defendant was helped by a Chinese-language interpreter. He was not required to enter a plea. He was granted temporary name suppression, a common outcome in New Zealand's legal system.

The restaurants the man entered were Yues Dumpling Kitchen, Zhangliang Malatang and Maya Hotpot. They are among a cluster of restaurants on the street that aim to give diners low-cost options reminiscent of Chinese street food offerings.

Dustin Harker, a father of 13, was rafting on the Arkansas River near Cañon City, Colorado with his family in early June when the raft capsized in some rapids.

Harker, a neurologist, was able to rescue three of his children who were thrown into turbulent waters, working to get them out from under the raft and back into the vessel.

"He was underwater for fifteen minutes," said Sharon Neu Young, Harker's sister-in-law. "They did CPR on him for 30 to 45 minutes, but they weren't able to bring him back."

After he was pulled from the water, Harker was brought onto the nearby Royal Gorge Route Railroad. The conductor had stopped the train asking passengers if there were any medics, according to Yvette Ramos, a first responder who was onboard the train during the incident.

Ramos told Nexstar's KXRM all she wanted was to bring Harker back to his family.

"I kept looking at his ring and I kept thinking, this is somebody's husband, this is somebody's father, this is somebody's uncle and grandfather," stated Ramos. "I broke down and started crying because I felt like I didn't do enough... like I needed to do more."

Young said authorities told her family Harker had suffered cerebral hematomas from the accident.

"They are right now suspecting he had crashed into some rocks… and maybe he was conscious and able to do things for a few minutes, but the effects of that head trauma took his life," Young said.

Harker had used what remaining strength he had to give his life for those he loved.

"Thirteen kids losing their dad, it just magnifies the grief," stated Young. "It was like a meteor hit. I knew the second [Harker's wife] said the words that the moment before was one part of life, and this was a different reality."

Despite the sudden loss, the family is finding comfort in the words of strangers after Young made a Facebook and GoFundMe page for people to post memories and pictures of Harker. They wouldn't realize how many lives Harker had connected with until people across multiple communities began donating and interacting with posts.

"It's been amazing to just observe all of the comments and reaching out from his patients of how much they appreciated how he cared for them, which isn't really something that I've had an insight to before," said Young. "It's been such a treasure to be able to have them gather with us and share the bits of him that we didn't have the opportunity to know as well."

It was this very Facebook and GoFund Me page Ramos would find after days of searching for his family. She wanted to tell the family, she and other first responders did everything they could to save Harker.

"I've been looking every day to see if I could see a story about him, to see if it was published on the news... I [decided] to reach out for peace of mind and so that they have peace themselves," said Ramos. "So they knew we tried, that we really tried for their husband."

Harker's family continues to remember their loved one as someone who was a "creator of many good laughs," loved outdoor adventures and was incredibly compassionate, according to Young.

"Being a brother or sister was definitely, I think, embedded in his philosophy of how he connected with people and how he treated them all," stated Young. "He was very thoughtful in the things that he did and careful in how he did them to make sure they align with his values."

The shootings happened in cities and rural areas alike, following a surge in homicides and other violence over the past several years that accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic. Officers responded to mass shootings in Washington state, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Southern California, Milwaukee and Baltimore.

“There’s no question there’s been a spike in violence,” said Daniel Nagin, a professor of public policy and statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. “Some of these cases seem to be just disputes, often among adolescents, and those disputes are played out with firearms, not with fists.”

Researchers disagree over the cause. Theories include the possibility that violence is driven by the prevalence of guns in America, or by less aggressive police tactics or a decline in prosecutions for misdemeanor weapon offenses, Nagin said.

Only the Idaho killings fit the definition of a mass killing in which four or more people die, not including the shooter. However, the number of injured in most of the weekend cases matches the widely accepted definition for mass shootings.

Here's a look at some of the shootings this weekend:

CHICAGO

Five people were shot, two fatally on the city's South Side on Sunday evening when someone opened fire from a car that pulled up to a gathering, according to police.

Another four men were shot, one fatally, during an altercation in a garage in the West Side neighborhood of Austin around 3 a.m. Sunday, police said. Five others including a teenage girl were shot early Saturday near Lincoln Park Zoo, and two dozen more were shot in other incidents since Friday evening, city data shows.

Meanwhile in the suburbs, at least 23 people were shot, one fatally, early Sunday in a parking lot where hundreds of people had gathered to celebrate Juneteenth, authorities said.

The White House issued a statement calling the violence a tragedy and saying the president was thinking of those killed and injured. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement that he was monitoring the investigation.

KELLOGG, IDAHO

Police in Idaho arrested a suspect in a shooting that killed four people on Sunday at an apartment complex behind a church.

Responding officers found four people, all dead from gunshot wounds, at a residence in Kellogg that's behind the Mountain View Congregational Church, according to the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office and news reports. Idaho State Police said a 31-year-old man was detained, KXLY-TV reported.

ST. LOUIS

An early Sunday shooting in a downtown St. Louis office building killed a 17-year-old and wounded 11 other teenagers, the city’s police commissioner said.

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Commissioner Robert Tracy identified the victim who was killed as 17-year-old Makao Moore. A spokesman said a minor who had a handgun was in police custody as a person of interest.

Teenagers were having a party in an office space when the shooting broke out around 1 a.m. Sunday.

The victims ranged from 15 to 19 years old. A 17-year-old girl was trampled as she fled, seriously injuring her spine, Tracy said.

WASHINGTON STATE

Two people were killed and two others were injured when a shooter began firing “randomly” into a crowd at a Washington state campground where many people were staying to attend a nearby music festival on Saturday night, police said.

The suspect was shot in a confrontation with law enforcement officers and taken into custody, several hundred yards from the Beyond Wonderland electronic dance music festival.

CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA

One state trooper was killed and a second critically wounded just hours apart in central Pennsylvania on Saturday after a gunman attacked a state police barracks.

The suspect drove his truck into the parking lot of the Lewistown barracks about 11 a.m. Saturday and opened fire with a large-caliber rifle on marked patrol cars before fleeing, authorities said Sunday.

Lt. James Wagner, 45, was critically wounded when he was shot after encountering the suspect several miles away in Mifflintown. Later, Trooper Jacques Rougeau Jr., 29, was ambushed and killed by a gunshot through the windshield of his patrol car as he drove down a road in nearby Walker Township, authorities said.

The suspect was shot and killed after a fierce gunbattle, said Lt. Col. George Bivens.

“What I witnessed ... was one of the most intense, unbelievable gunfights I have ever witnessed,” Bivens said, lauding troopers for launching an aggressive search despite facing a weapon that “would defeat any of the body armor that they had available to them.”

A motive was not immediately known.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

A shooting at a pool party at a Southern California home left eight people wounded, authorities said Saturday.

Authorities were dispatched shortly after midnight in Carson, California, south of Los Angeles, KABC-TV reported.

The victims range in age from 16 to 24, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.

BALTIMORE

Six people were injured in a Friday night shooting in Baltimore. All were expected to survive.

Officers heard gunshots in the north of the city just before 9 p.m. and found three men with numerous gunshot wounds. Medics took them to area hospitals for treatment.

Police later learned of three additional victims who walked into area hospitals with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds. The wounded ranged in age from 17 to 26.

SAN FRANCISCO

Six people were injured after a “car-to-car” shooting in the streets of San Francisco on Sunday evening, police said.

Two victims sustained gunshot wounds, one with life-threatening injuries, in the moving shootout beginning shortly before 7 p.m., San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said at a news conference Sunday.

Suspects in two cars, a black SUV and a white sedan, “drove very recklessly and chased each other while engaged in gunfire” near the northern waterfront, Scott said. The area includes Fisherman’s Wharf, one of the city’s busiest tourist areas.

Three victims were injured by glass shards caused by “errant gunfire,” Scott said, with none of the injuries considered to be life-threatening.

Two girls, ages 10 and 16, were struck by one of the two vehicles while walking their bicycles across the street. The younger girl was injured and transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries while the older girl was not injured.

PHILADELPHIA

A 4-year-old boy was among five victims of a shooting in south Philadelphia Saturday night.

Police responded to the block shortly before 8 p.m. Saturday and found a 58-year-old woman with gunshot wounds to the legs, a 54-year-old woman with gunshot wounds to her wrist and leg, and the boy, who was brought to Presbyterian Hospital with a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

A 30-year-old man also arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound to the wrist and a 40-year-old man was brought in with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The last victim was listed in critical condition; all others were said to be in stable condition.

MILWAUKEE

At least six teenagers were shot Monday afternoon around where Milwaukee’s Juneteenth celebration had just wrapped up.

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said among the wounded was a 17-year-old who may have been a gunman himself and is in custody. Police were still seeking additional suspects who hadn’t yet been identified.

Police said the victims, four girls and two boys, ranged in age from 14-19.

Norman said the shooting may have stemmed from a fight among a number of girls and young women, but he didn’t know what sparked the dispute. The injuries of those wounded varied but did not appear life-threatening, the chief said.

—

Brown contributed from Billings, Mont. Savage is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

While many have treated the long holiday weekend as a reason for a party, others urged quiet reflection on America's often violent and oppressive treatment of its Black citizens. Still others have remarked at the strangeness of celebrating a federal holiday marking the end of slavery in the nation while many Americans are trying to stop parts of that history from being taught in public schools.

“Is #Juneteenth the only federal holiday that some states have banned the teaching of its history and significance?” author Michelle Duster asked on Twitter, referring to measures in Florida, Oklahoma and Alabama prohibiting an Advancement Placement African American studies course or the teaching of certain concepts of race and racism.

The holiday commemorates June 19, 1865, when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed — two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued during the bloody Civil War. For generations, Black Americans have recognized Juneteenth, but it only became a federal holiday two years ago.

In Fort Worth, Texas, the woman known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth," Opal Lee, led her annual Walk for Freedom. The 96-year-old former teacher and activist is largely credited for rallying others behind a campaign to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. This year, Lee became only the second Black person to have her portrait hung in the Senate chamber of the Texas Capitol.

Vice President Kamala Harris said in brief remarks on a CNN special that also featured musical guests, including Miguel and Charlie Wilson, that the holiday honors Black excellence and celebrates freedom, one of the country's founding principles.

“America is a promise, a promise of freedom, liberty, and justice,” Harris said. “The story of Juneteenth, as we celebrate it, is the story of our ongoing fight to realize America’s promise, not for some, but for all.”

At a Sunday Mass in Detroit, one Roman Catholic church devoted its service to urging parishioners to take a deeper look at the lessons from the holiday.

“In order to have justice we must work for peace. And in order to have peace we must work for justice,” John Thorne, executive director of the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, said to the congregation at Gesu Catholic Church while standing before paintings of a Black Jesus and Mary.

It was important to speak about Juneteenth during the service, the Rev. Lorn Snow told a reporter.

“The struggle’s still not over with. There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said.

Most Black Americans agree, according to a recent poll. A full 70% of Black adults queried in a AP-NORC poll said “a lot” needs to be done to achieve equal treatment for African Americans in policing. And Black Americans suffer from significantly worse health outcomes than their white peers across a variety of measures, including rates of maternal mortality, asthma, high blood pressure and Alzheimer's disease.

Ryan Jones, the associate curator at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, said Juneteenth should be celebrated in the U.S. with the same emphasis that July 4 receives as Independence Day.

“It is the independence of a people that were forced to endure oppression and discrimination based on the color of their skin,” Jones said.

The museum is located at the site of the old Lorraine Motel, the former Black-owned hotel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968. It offered free admission on the holiday. At the museum, visitors can hear recorded speeches from civil rights leaders including King, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers and others.

Jones said the Juneteenth holiday is a time to reflect on the past.

“It acknowledges the sacrifices of those early civil rights veterans between World War I and World War II, and of course in the modern society, the protests, the demonstrations, the non-violence, the marches,” Jones said.

The Tennessee Legislature passed a bill this year making Juneteenth a state holiday.

In New York, a hybrid event in Central Park on Monday celebrated the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, with an emphasis on the local Black’s community’s impact on the genre. The event capped off a packed weekend of festivities that saw a growing number of collaborators working together to spread awareness of the holiday, according to Athenia Rodney, the founder of the nonprofit group Juneteenth NYC.

Rodney said she planned to spend Monday at home, reflecting on the historical roots of the holiday and how much has changed.

“Juneteenth isn’t just about a party or a festival, it’s about how we bring the community together under the umbrella of unity,” Rodney said.

As Americans gathered to mark the holiday, at least one event was marked by violence. In the Chicago suburb of Willowbrook, Illinois, on Saturday night, one person was killed and 22 were injured in a shooting where hundreds had gathered for a Juneteenth celebration.

And in Milwaukee, at least six teenagers were shot Monday afternoon around where the city's Juneteenth celebration had just wrapped up.

___

Associated Press writers Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, and Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.

The shooting happened about 4:20 p.m. outside Greater Philadelphia Church of God in Christ, according to witnesses and a Facebook Live video taken by a bystander in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, according to local media outlets.

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said six teens were shot, including a 17-year-old who may have been a gunman himself and is in custody. Police were still seeking additional suspects who hadn’t yet been identified.

Police said the victims, four girls and two boys, ranged in age from 14-19.

Norman said the shooting may have stemmed from a fight among a number of girls and young women, but he didn’t know what sparked the dispute. The injuries of those wounded varied but did not appear life-threatening, the chief said.

“Milwaukee, what’s going on with our children?” Norman wondered aloud at a news conference. He noted that he has taken part in the city’s Juneteenth celebrations for eight years without any such bloody aftermath.

“Parents, guardians, elders, we need to engage in ensuring that this violence that our children are bringing these streets ceases. No handgun, no weapons of destruction, should be in the hands of our young ones.”

“This is a story that plays out too often, and it’s getting really old. Really old,” Norman said.

The violence followed a bloody weekend of shootings across the United States.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson stressed that Monday's Juneteenth observance itself was a safe and growing event, calling the subsequent violence “totally, totally unacceptable.”

“We had thousands and thousands of people here celebrating and bringing themselves together and having a sense of community. That’s a powerful thing. That’s the true story about what this day is,” said Johnson, a Democrat.

A man who identified himself as T. Jenkins told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that a fight between two women preceded the shooting. A young man pulled out a gun and everyone scattered, Jenkins said. The man did some of the shooting, he said.

Jenkins provided aid to a young woman with a neck wound. There was blood coming out of the left side of her neck, he said. “I applied pressure to her neck,” he said. “I tried to keep everyone calm around me.”

A Facebook Live video taken in the immediate aftermath of the shooting shows at least two young people with gunshot wounds being treated by paramedics on the pavement.

The person who filmed the Facebook Live said in the video that a teenage girl or young woman had suffered a gunshot wound to the neck. The Facebook user tried to comfort her sobbing friend, who was trying to contact her mother. Only about 20 minutes after the festival had officially ended, hundreds of people were still walking along the street.

Thousands of people packed King Drive for the festival, which ran from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Vendors selling food and wares lined the street along with community organizations offering resources, snacks and free giveaways.

Music thumped from booths and food trucks offering refreshing treats in the heat drew long lines. Youth dance groups, marching bands and drill teams entertained crowds in a parade along King Drive earlier in the day. Police officers were stationed in several places along the route.

Keith Caldwell, another vendor, described the scene this way: “I just heard commotion, gunshots, people screaming.”

On security at the event, Caldwell talked of the need for gun control.

“Right now, it’s like an uncontrollable situation,” he said.

Sands - best known for starring roles in “The Killing Fields,” “Warlock,” “A Room with a View,” and “Arachnophobia" - disappeared while hiking in the area of Mount Baldy, a 10,000-foot peak northeast of Los Angeles.

The 65-year-old was reported missing in mid-January. At the time, Sands was believed to be somewhere along the Baldy Bowl Trail, a popular hike in the San Gabriel Mountains. Despite search and rescue efforts at the time, which were hampered by severe weather and "alpine conditions," Sands was never located.

Efforts to find Sands have continued, with over 80 search and rescue volunteers, deputies, and staff searching for him over the weekend, with the help of two helicopters and drone crews.

Aviation resources conducted aerial search and assessment efforts over remote areas across Mount Baldy, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office said Saturday, adding drone crews searched areas that were inaccessible to ground crews.

“Despite the recent warmer weather, portions of the mountain remain inaccessible due to extreme alpine conditions,” SBSD said in a statement. “Multiple areas include steep terrain and ravines, which still have 10 [or more] feet of ice and snow.” 

During an initial search for Sands, authorities were able to track a delayed ping through his iPhone to a trail leading to Mount Baldy's summit. His phone last pinged just a few days after he was reported missing.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has conducted eight ground and air searches specific to Sands since his January disappearance. 

Sands remains an active missing person, and efforts to find him "will continue in a limited capacity."

Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective B. Meelker at the Fontana Station at 909-356-6710. 

Eight other unrelated search and rescue operations have also been conducted in the Mount Baldy area during that time, authorities said. 

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), retailers lost close to $95 billion in 2021 due to "shrink" — which accounts for various inventory losses but is primarily driven by external theft. Retailers reported a 26.5% increase in organized retail crime from the year prior, NRF found.

Some of those incidents have been brazen "smash and grab" robberies in the nation's largest cities.

In New York City, there were more than 63,000 shoplifting complaints last year — a 45% jump from 2021, according to a recent New York Post analysis.

In response, some local retailers started using facial recognition software to identify repeat offenders. But that technology has also received pushback from various city council members who are concerned about privacy and racial bias.

Other businesses have opted for more traditional security measures, placing merchandise in locked cases and adding guards.

Locked up merchandise

Across the country, businesses are putting items under lock and key to deter theft. It's not a new strategy, but recent comments suggest it may become more common.

"We're looking at literally putting everything behind showcases to ensure the product's there for customers who want to buy it," Rite Aid's chief retail officer Andre Persaud said on a September earnings call.

Last month, Ulta's Chief Operating Officer Kecia Steelman said the beauty retailer plans to have locked cabinets in 70% of its stores to protect fragrances, which are often targeted by thieves.

Target is also locking up more products and expects theft-related losses this year could be $500 million more than in 2022.

Other companies are testing store concepts where most products are kept out of sight entirely.

Earlier this month, Walgreens opened a redesigned store in Chicago with just two aisles of touchable merchandise, as reported by CWBChicago. For the majority of items, customers order at a kiosk and pick them up at the counter.

Walgreens has pushed back against the idea that the store's design is meant to deter theft. Instead, the company has said the new concept — which allows people to order ahead online, among other changes — provides "enhanced convenience" for customers and streamlines the shopping experience.

Locking up merchandise can make it more difficult to steal but the security approach also comes with limitations. Retailers risk turning off customers, who may feel inconvenienced or surveilled.

Joe Budano, CEO of Indyme, a technology company that sells retailers security devices, recently told the Associated Press that locking up items reduces sales by 15% to 25%.

More money for guards

Shoppers may be noticing more security guards at stores. About one-third of NRF survey respondents last year said they were increasing their budget for guards.

That response comes amid more retail theft but also an increase in violent attacks. Nearly 80% of retailers surveyed by NRF said guest-on-associate violence was up over the past five years.

In some cases, the increased security presence isn't human.

In February, Lowe's began testing security robots at four stores across Philadelphia, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The 5-foot-tall egg-shaped bots reportedly use an array of microphones, sensors, and cameras to detect anomalies which are then reported to Lowe's central monitoring team in real time.

After increasing their presence in recent years, some retailers are pulling back on specific types of security guards.

"We're putting in more law enforcement as opposed to security companies," Walgreens CFO James Kehoe said on an earnings call in January. "The security companies are proven to be largely ineffective."

At least one state lawmaker wants retailers to be required to use armed security.

Earlier this year, a Democratic state representative in Illinois introduced a bill that would mandate grocery stores and gas stations in Chicago to hire their own armed security during hours they are open. So far, that bill hasn't advanced in the state legislature.

Calls for legislation

Industry groups like the NRF are calling for federal legislation to help crack down on organized retail crime. The bipartisan Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which has been introduced in the House and Senate, would establish a new investigative unit within the Department of Homeland Security to help combat retail crime.

If passed, the bill would follow other legislative efforts at the state and local levels.

In April, New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham signed a law aimed at curtailing theft at retail stores. The law allows prosecutors to impose stricter penalties and they can charge criminals with a new crime: “Aggravated shoplifting.”

Last year, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker also signed legislation imposing stricter penalties for people who commit retail crimes, including smash-and-grab burglaries.

Matthew Boggs went to pick up his two sons after they were dropped off by a school bus on May 15 in Bosque County, located northwest of Waco, The Dallas Morning News reports. The boy, Grayson, and his father were holding hands when Boggs was struck by lightning and the current passed through him and his son.

Boggs was pronounced dead following the lightning strike, authorities told The Dallas Morning News. After a monthlong stay in the hospital, Grayson died on Friday.

Extended family launched a GoFundMe, which has raised nearly $100,000 from approximately 2,000 donors.

"Grayson went to be with our Lord and his father," an update from Friday read in part. "Please pray for the family at this time. Fly high, sweet boy."

Matthew Boggs is survived by his wife; children, Elijah and Navaeh Smith; mother and father; and brothers, among other relatives, according to his obituary.

According to one analysis, Texas saw the most lightning in 2022, with over 27 million cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground bolts recorded.

The National Weather Service reported an average of 20 people die each year from lightning strikes, with hundreds more injured. Surviving a lightning strike can mean living with lifelong neurological complications as a result, per NWS.

Earlier this month, a longtime town maintenance worker in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey survived a lightning strike while working on a soccer field. The man, Eric Baumgartner, didn't have a pulse when officers arrived on scene but emergency crews were able to revive him with an AED.

He was rushed to an area hospital and was listed in stable condition.

In a news release late Monday afternoon, Idaho State Police said they were still investigating the shooting deaths in the small city of Kellogg, about 36 miles (58 kilometers) east of Coeur d’Alene, after working through the night.

“This is a tragic situation that will affect the Kellogg community. Detectives continue working to establish a timeline and what led to the shooting,” Lieutenant Paul Berger, a detective with the Idaho State Police, said in the news release.

“Investigators are releasing that the suspect is the neighbor of the victims,” the news release said. “However, neither the relationships between the parties nor the suspect’s motive will be confirmed by law enforcement until after the initial court appearance when records become available through the courts.”

The bodies of the four victims are in the custody of the Shoshone County Coroner's Office, according to the news release. The detained suspect was being held at the Shoshone County Jail.

Crime scene tape on Monday blocked off parts of an apartment complex in Kellogg, KXLY-TV reported. The shooting occurred at multi-dwelling units behind the Mountain View Congregational Church on Sunday, The Shoshone News-Press reported on the newspaper's Facebook page.

Around 7:20 p.m. on Sunday, the Shoshone County dispatch center received a 911 call indicating that multiple people had been killed inside a residence in Kellogg, state police said Sunday night in a news release. Law enforcement officers found four people dead when they arrived and detained a 31-year-old male believed to be connected with the deaths, according to the release.

The Shoshone County Sheriff's Office, which said in a Facebook post that it responded to the scene with the Kellogg Police Department, said the four people died of gunshot wounds.

The Kellogg Police Department did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking additional information.

The mass shooting was part of a spate of gun violence over the weekend that killed and wounded people across the U.S., including at least 60 shot in the Chicago area alone.

It's unclear why the sub lost contact or, if found, what state the vessel and crew may be in. Over the years, few underwater rescues have been completed. Here's how submarine rescues in the past have happened.

HMS K13, 1917

During World War I, the Royal Navy HMS K13 was on a training mission in Gareloch, Scotland, with 80 people on board. Once in the lake, the vessel failed to level out at 20 feet, and it was pulled underwater.

Four ventilators in the engine had not been properly closed, flooding the submarine, according to reports. It was the middle of the night when people on the surface realized something had gone wrong and the rescue mission wasn't able to be launched until the following day.

Rescuers were able to attach an air line to the ballasts and inflate them to bring the submarine back to the surface where the hull could be cut open in an attempt to rescue the crew. While 48 made it, 32 of the crew did not survive the rescue.

USS Squalus, 1939

In another training incident, the USS Squalus was off the coast of New Hampshire, carrying 56 Navy personnel and three civilians when an air valve in the engine room failed, flooding the compartment. Of those on board, 26 immediately perished as the sub sank under 240 feet of water, according to the National Medal of Honor Museum.

The 32 crew and one civilian in the forward compartments sent up a location marker and used Morse code to communicate with rescuers from the USS Sculpin. In addition to being trapped in a flooded submarine, those on board also faced the risk of chlorine gas that had begun leaking from the battery compartment.

A newly-developed rescue chamber was used to bring the survivors to the surface in four trips. The Navy divers involved in the rescue were awarded the Medal of Honor.

Pisces III, 1973

Two men were aboard the commercial submarine Pisces III as it worked to lay transatlantic telephone cables, BBC reports. As the Canadian submarine was being towed to a ship, the hatch broke off the aft compartment and the vessel plunged to a depth of 1,575 feet.

The men on board were in contact with rescuers as they worked to conserve the 66 hours of oxygen they had left. They positioned themselves as high up as possible and avoided speaking or moving to conserve air.

Over two days, multiple efforts to lift the sub failed. Eventually, crews were able to bring the vessel to the surface but it took another 30 minutes to remove the hatch. When the two crewmen were finally free, they had only 12 minutes of oxygen left.

AS-28, 2005

The Russian AS-28 ran into trouble after becoming tangled in a fishing net during a military exercise. The rescue vessel had five days of oxygen on board, but a Russian Navy spokesperson later said there were only 24 hours of air on board, with no clear reason for the discrepancy.

Initial efforts to rescue the sub failed and Russia called for international help, something they had failed to do in the 2000 sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine, resulting in the death of all 118 on board.

British and American rescue crews eventually freed the vessel and brought it to the surface with four to six hours of air remaining for the seven crew members on board.

As of Monday night, crews are continuing to search for the submarine in a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean.

State emergency workers were still working with counties to assess the damage from storms in which high temperatures and hail in some areas accompanied tornadoes. The death and injuries were reported by officials in eastern Mississippi's Jasper County.

The small, rural town of Louin bore the brunt of the damage. Drone footage and photos showed wide expanses of debris-covered terrain, decimated homes and mangled trees. At least one person was lifted from the wreckage in a stretcher.

Standing in front of his damaged home on Monday, Lester Campbell told The Associated Press that his cousin, 67-year-old George Jean Hayes, is the person who died. Reached by phone Monday, Jones County Coroner Don Sumrall said Hayes was pronounced dead at 2:18 a.m. from “multisystem trauma.”

Campbell fell asleep in his recliner Sunday evening. He was awakened around midnight after the lights went out. After he walked to the kitchen to grab something from the refrigerator, the tornado struck.

“It happened so fast," Campbell said. “It was like a train sound, a ‘roar, roar, roar.’”

He dropped to the floor and crawled to his bedroom closet, where his wife had already taken shelter. By the time he reached the closet, the tornado had passed.

Campbell said he heard calls for help across the street, where Hayes lived in a trailer home. He emerged from his home to find emergency workers carrying his cousin, with a bloodied forehead and leg, into an ambulance. She was conscious and talking when he saw her but died before reaching the hospital, he said.

Most of the people injured in Jasper County, including Hayes, were transported to the South Central Regional Medical Center in Laurel between 2 and 3 a.m., said Becky Collins, a spokesperson for the facility. About 20 people had bruises and cuts. Most were in stable condition Monday morning.

Eric Carpenter, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, said an unseasonably strong jet stream blew through the area. A tornado emerged near Louin before traveling at least 7 miles (11 kilometers) south to Bay Springs.

Tornadoes typically hit Mississippi in early to mid-spring. Carpenter called the timing of the tornadoes, along with persistent thunder and hail as well as high temperatures, “a very unusual situation.”

“This is a whole different game here," Carpenter said. "What we would typically see in March and April, we're seeing in June.”

On March 24, a vicious tornado carved a path of destruction through parts of western and northern Mississippi, killing at least 26 and damaging thousands of homes. Some towns in the rural, poverty-stricken Mississippi Delta face a daunting task to rebuild.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said Monday's tornadoes also struck Rankin County, which borders the capital city of Jackson. Emergency crews were doing search and rescue missions and damage assessments, deploying drones in some areas because they were impossible to reach by vehicle due to downed power lines.

On Monday afternoon, another possible tornado struck the south Mississippi town of Moss Point. Photos showed homes with obliterated roofs and tilted power lines. As high winds and heavy rain blanketed Jackson County, WLOX-TV reported that eight people were trapped inside a bank in downtown Moss Point. They were later rescued uninjured. The county remained under a flash flood warning Monday.

In a Monday news release, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said more than 49,000 homes in central Mississippi were without power. Tens of thousands of people in Hinds County, the most populous area of the state, were still without power Monday morning after high winds pummeled the state early Friday.

Reeves said the state is opening command centers and shelters for those displaced by the severe weather.

After fleeing his home Monday morning, Campbell returned to survey the damage. He arrived to find that half of the roof was gone, the garage destroyed and the windows shattered. He felt lucky compared to his neighbors.

“Most of the houses are gone. They are demolished. They’re done,” Campbell said.

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Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/mikergoldberg.

The buzz after the 65th annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament revolves around the blue marlin caught by anglers on the boat Sensation. The fish was hooked up Saturday around 2:15 p.m. and was not boated until just over six hours later.

The fish was weighed just before 11:30 p.m. Saturday and was unofficially a 619.4-pound catch. However, tournament officials noticed bite marks on the fish and announced the board would have to meet to determine whether the fish was eligible.

International Game Fish Association rules indicate that any "mutilation to the fish, prior to landing or boating the catch, caused by sharks, other fish, mammals, or propellers that remove or penetrate the flesh" are grounds for disqualification.

“OK guys, let’s talk about the rules here for a second,” said Tommy Bennett, a Big Rock board member at the time of Saturday's livestream. “It would appear that this fish has been bitten by a shark.”

The Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament board consulted its rules committee, board of directors, biologists and the IGFA officials before announcing Sunday the fish had been disqualified and the fishermen about boat Sushi had been named the winner.

"After careful deliberation and discussions between the Big Rock Rules Committee and Board of Directors with biologists from both NC State CMAST (Center for Marine Sciences and Technology) and NC Marine Fisheries biologists as well as an IGFA (International Game Fish Association) official, it was determined that SENSATIONS 619.4lb Blue Marlin is disqualified due to mutilation caused by a shark or other marine animal. It was deemed that the fish was mutilated before it was landed or boated and (sic) there for it was disqualified," the statement read.

Officials said the disqualification was "consistent with prior decisions made by the tournament in similar circumstances over the last 65 years."

Sensation owner Ashley Bleau said he's filed a protest over the decision. Meanwhile, Sushi took home the $2,769,438 million top prize with its catch of a 484.5-pound blue marlin. Chasin' A was second and C-Student was third.

Sensation Capt. Greg McCoy said they didn't notice the shark bite during the fight with the blue marlin. Once they got it on board, they knew it was big enough to win. He also said he knew about the rule dealing with fish mutilation but didn't have much of a concern at the time.

"I've never really been a money guy, but that paycheck would have been real nice. But you just, you know, we're not gonna get our plaque on the Big Rock fountain there," McCoy said. "It's a tough pill to swallow.

"I'm not gonna say I was not aware of the rule, but I really didn't have much concern."

McCoy said he's not sure if he'll fish in the tournament again.

"You always dream about winning the Big Rock and I thought we had done it," McCoy said. "I still, in my heart, I know we won it. So everybody else knows we won it. The Big Rock committee knows we won it, but they chose not to honor that. So that's their decision."

Zack Stroupe, who is part of the Sushi crew, said bringing in their catch to be weighed at Big Rock Landing on Friday was the opportunity of a lifetime. He said they were unsure of what would happen after hearing about Sensation's big haul.

"When I heard that, I was like, you know, about just passed out said, 'you know, what a blessing,'" Stroupe said. "You know, I hate it for the team, but other boats have been in that position many times. It's not the first time.

"So we're happy to take the win and we feel we're blessed."

Attorneys for Montana's Republican attorney general laid out their defense following a week of often emotional testimony in state court from young people who sued the state in 2020.

The 16 plaintiffs, ranging in age from 5 to 22 years old, say they’re being harmed by wildfire smoke, excessive heat and other effects of climate change. They’re asking a judge to declare unconstitutional a state law that prevents agencies from considering the impacts of greenhouse gases when issuing permits for fossil fuel development.

Final arguments were expected Tuesday — days earlier than scheduled after the state did not call one expert witness who was expected to testify and sharply limited the testimony of a second expert. Plaintiffs' attorneys had questioned the credibility of the two witnesses, who said Montana's greenhouse gas contributions were of little significance versus global totals.

Scientists say greenhouse gas emissions from coal, oil and natural gas are making Earth hotter and that every additional ton makes a difference.

Montana has never denied a permit for a fossil fuel project, according to the plaintiffs' attorneys. The state's lead environmental regulator said Monday that permitting practices would not change if the young environmentalists win their case.

“We do not have the authority to not permit something that fully complies with the law,” said Department of Environmental Quality Director Chris Dorrington. “We are the ones that implement the law. We are not the ones that create the law."

State officials also drew a distinction between the law being challenged — a provision of the Montana Environmental Protection Act that they characterized as “procedural” — and regulatory acts such as the Clean Air Act of Montana.

Only regulatory acts can be used as the basis for permit rejections, and those don't allow permits to be denied in Montana based on climate impacts, said DEQ Air, Energy and Mining Division Administrator Sonja Nowakowski.

The plaintiffs testified over five days last week that climate change was marring their lives, with smoke from worsening wildfires choking the air they breathe. Drought is drying up rivers that sustain agriculture, fish, wildlife and recreation.

Olivia Vesovich, 20, a student at the University of Montana who grew up in Missoula, said she suffers from breathing problems that make wildfire smoke nearly unbearable.

As her respiratory reactions grew worse during smoke events that have shrouded Missoula, Vesovich said her mother in recent years started taking them on trips during fires in search of cleaner air — to Washington state, Idaho and elsewhere in Montana.

“It feels like it's suffocating me, like if I'm outside for minutes,” Vesovich said. “Climate change is wreaking so much havoc on our world right now and I know that will only be getting worse.”

Attorneys for the state did not closely question any of the plaintiffs' claims about the physical and psychological harms they've suffered.

An expert for the state who was expected to downplay the severity of climate change — Judith Curry with the Climate Forecast Applications Network — was not called to testify.

The plaintiffs alleged Curry has cherry-picked scientific data to minimize global warming. Emily Flower, a spokewoman for Attorney General Austin Knudsen, said the decision not to put Curry on the stand was due to “strategy changes."

In prior rulings, State District Judge Kathy Seeley significantly narrowed the scope of the case. Even if the plaintiffs prevail, Seeley has said she would not order officials to formulate a new approach to address climate change.

Instead, the judge could issue what’s called a “declaratory judgment,” saying officials violated the state constitution. That would set a new legal precedent of courts weighing in on cases typically left to the government’s legislative and executive branches.

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys for Our Children's Trust, an Oregon environmental group that's filed similar lawsuits in every state since 2011. None had previously reached trial. A climate case filed by the group in Montana a decade ago was rejected by the state Supreme Court.

Carbon dioxide, which is released when fossil fuels are burned, traps heat in the atmosphere and is largely responsible for the warming of the climate. Carbon dioxide levels in the air this spring reached the highest they’ve been in over 4 million years, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration said this month. Greenhouse gas emissions also reached a record last year, according to the International Energy Agency.

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Brown reported from Billings, Mont.

At least one person in Oklahoma died due to the prolonged outages, officials said.

The bulk of outages were in Oklahoma, where heavy storms Saturday night carried winds as strong as 80 mph around Tulsa, according to the National Weather Service. About 165,000 customers around the city still had no power Monday as crews scrambled to repair more than 700 broken poles and downed wires, said Amy Brown, a spokeswoman for Public Service Company of Oklahoma.

One person who used a respirator died because of the power outage, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said at a city news conference.

Power providers warned that some outages may not be fixed until the end of the week, and Bynum urged residents to keep in mind family and neighbors who are reliant on electronic medical equipment.

“Please check on them,” he said.

In all, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana had more than 300,000 customers without electricity as of Monday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us.

In Louisiana, officials closed nearly two dozen state offices Monday because of the risks of severe weather. On top of the outages, a heat wave continued bringing dangerous triple-digit temperatures to Texas, and some parts of the state were under excessive heat warnings that were set to continue through at least Wednesday.

“It’s been unbearable,” Leigh Johnson, a resident of Mount Vernon, Texas, told Dallas television station KXAS. She had not had power for about three days.

“It’s been horrible because it’s like, the heat index has been so bad that literally, we’re having to sit in the cold baths to cool ourselves down. Our animals as well, we’re having to stick them in the bathtub just to keep them from having a heat stroke, it’s been that bad," she said.

About 4,000 customers were also still waiting for electricity to come back in the Texas town of Perryton after a devastating tornado ripped through last week.

Power outages also extended to Mississippi, where some people had trouble obtaining medication after power forced pharmacies and grocery stores to close, according to WLBT-TV. As crews were working to restore power in Mississippi, multiple tornadoes swept through the state overnight into Monday, killing one and injuring nearly two dozen.

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Associated Press writer Michael Goldberg in Jackson, Mississippi contributed to this report.

She had been diagnosed with Wolf Parkinson White Syndrome, a congenital heart defect that causes episodes of rapid heartbeat, chest pain, and difficulty breathing. She spent months at the Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis, undergoing successful heart ablation procedures to correct the electrical pathways in her heart.

More than a decade later, she is now back at Riley, but not as a patient. Instead, she is there as a doctor after majoring in neuroscience at the University of Evansville and pursuing medical school at Marian University.

Given her diagnosis, Dr. Dodson said she knows firsthand what many patients are going through.

"Our health is something a lot of us take for granted," Dodson told Nexstar's WXIN. "Being here made me realize how good I have it. You see a lot of people sick."

Dr. Dodson said her goal is to eventually be a primary physician in underserved areas, such as rural Central Indiana. She pointed to the gap in pediatric primary care as being one area where she can make a difference.

“I want to be someone you can lean on to show empathy and compassion," she said. 

Dodson said she plans to continue giving back to the hospital that gave her a second chance at life.

Tweto’s family-run rural aviation business in Unalakleet was featured in three seasons of the television series a decade ago. He and passenger Shane Reynolds of Orofino, Idaho, died Friday near the coastal village of Shaktoolik, roughly 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of Nome, the statement said.

The plane “was witnessed taking off but not climbing and then crashing,” their report said. Troopers were notified of an SOS activation around 11:48 a.m. Friday, followed by a report that a Cessna 180 had crashed 35 miles northeast of Shaktoolik.

Troopers responding from Nome recovered both bodies. The National Transportation Safety Board said it is investigating.

The Anchorage Daily News reported that Tweto was a co-owner of Hageland Aviation Services and then Era Alaska, which would later become Ravn Air Group; Reynolds operated Northwest Fishing Expeditions, guiding clients in Alaska and across the Pacific Northwest for years.

Tweto, 68, died doing what he loved, his daughter Ariel posted on Instagram. She called Reynolds, 45, “a wonderful hunting guide and friend of our family.”

Born in Kansas and raised in Minnesota, Tweto came to Alaska to play hockey at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and settled in Unalakleet, where he met his wife Ferno. The couple and their three daughters were featured in the Discovery series, which aired in 2011-2012.

Within the last week, three residents groups sued New Jersey over a key approval of its first planned wind farm; the research arm of Congress agreed to investigate the impact of offshore wind on the environment and other areas; and lawmakers in two counties most heavily impacted by wind farms stepped up their efforts to block the projects.

Save Long Beach Island, Defend Brigantine Beach, and Protect Our Coast NJ filed an appeal Friday in state Superior Court of New Jersey's determination that the Ocean Wind I project is consistent with state coastal management rules.

The project is New Jersey's first, and a U.S. subsidiary of Danish wind developer Orsted could begin construction this year if remaining approvals are obtained.

The appeal follows a decision by the investigative arm of Congress, the Congressional Accountability Office, to study the impact of offshore wind on the environment and other areas — something opponents have long wanted.

Bruce Afran, an attorney for the groups, said the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection “has acknowledged the wind turbines will destroy marine habitat, compress the seafloor, severely damage marine communities, compromise migration corridors for endangered marine mammals, cause commercial fishing stocks to decline, and injure the beach economy."

“Yet, the state persists in the bizarre belief that this massive engineering project will not injure our state’s coastal zone, one of the most important marine communities on the East Coast and the core of New Jersey’s $47 billion tourist industry,” he added.

The DEP declined and the state attorney general’s office declined comment.

Jeanne Fox, former head of the DEP, the state Board of Public Utilities and former regional head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, called the lawsuit “a delay tactic.”

“Numerous environmental studies have been done regarding offshore wind, for this specific Ocean Wind project and in general,” she said. “The greatest threat to the ocean habitat, sea mammals and fish is the climate crisis. Offshore wind will lessen the need to burn more fossil fuels."

The project would build 98 wind turbines about 15 miles (24 kilometers) off the coast of Ocean City and Atlantic City. It is the first of three offshore wind projects to receive approval in New Jersey so far, with several more expected in years to come.

Afran cited numerous sections of the DEP's April decision on Ocean Wind I acknowledging potential negative impacts on the surf clam industry; changes to the ocean floor from wind turbine foundations and equipment; and the regular use of the area as a migratory channel by five species of whales, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

He also cited a finding by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that major impacts on commercial and recreational fisheries could occur, even with mitigation measures proposed by Orsted.

Liz Thomas, a spokeswoman for Ocean Wind I, said the project has been undergoing regulatory scrutiny for 12 years from nine federal agencies, three state agencies, and over 100 consulting parties, including local towns, tribes, and community organizations.

The lawsuit comes as lawmakers in Atlantic County, which includes Atlantic City, prepare to vote Tuesday on a measure supporting calls for a moratorium on offshore wind preparation work until an investigation can be completed into a spate of whale deaths along the East Coast. Three federal scientific agencies and one on the state level say there is no evidence linking the deaths of 50 whales since December to site preparation work for offshore wind projects.

Also, lawmakers in Cape May County, which includes Ocean City, last week hired two additional law firms to help them fight offshore wind projects.

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Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

The 60-year-old was the subject of the popular Netflix documentary "Tiger King," which was released in 2020.

Maldonado is currently serving a 21-year sentence in federal prison after being convicted in a murder-for-hire plot. Because he's not set to be released until years after the 2024 election ends, he will run his campaign from prison.

According to Maldonado, only two other people have done so before him.

Nothing in the law prevents a person from running for president from prison or as a convicted felon. This is because, constitutionally, the only requirements for office are that someone is 35 years or older, is a natural-born citizen, and has been a resident for 14 years.

In 2024, Maldonado is running as a Democrat, according to federal election filings.

To get on the ballot for a major party presidential primary in Colorado, a candidate can send a notarized statement of intent and a nonrefundable $500 filing fee at least 85 days before the election.

Maldonado says he chose Colorado as "the first target" in his journey to get on the ballot in all 50 states. According to his release, his next goal is New Hampshire.

Maldonado said his platform includes things like federal marijuana decriminalization and Bureau of Land Management reform. He also criticized the "corrupt federal prison and justice system," as well as former President Donald Trump for not fixing the system.

Additionally, he criticized Trump for pardoning rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black as a "facelift to get votes, as usual," the release said.

Maldonado applied for a pardon by Trump but did not receive one.

"Put aside that I am gay, that I am in prison for now, that I used drugs in the past, that I had more then [sic] one boyfriend at once and that Carole hates my guts," Maldonado said on his campaign website. "This all has not a thing to do with me being able to be your voice."

Nexstar's KDVR reached out to the Colorado Secretary of State's office Monday for confirmation that Maldonado will be on the ballot but the office was closed for Juneteenth.

Video Above: Previous coverage of Taqueria Garibaldi labor concerns

The Labor Department said the owners of two locations of the northern California Mexican food chain Taqueria Garibaldi also "paid managers from the employee tip pool illegally, threatened employees with retaliation and adverse immigration consequences for cooperating with the department, and fired one worker who they believed had complained to the department."

Che Garibaldi Inc., which operates two Taqueria Garibaldi locations in Sacramento and Roseville, agreed to pay $70,000 in back wages and $70,000 in damages to 35 employees.

The company will also pay $5,000 in civil penalties.

Under oath, an employee of Taqueria Garibaldi explained how the restaurant offered a supposed priest to hear their workplace "sins" while other employees reported that a manager falsely claimed that immigration issues would be raised by the department’s investigation,” said Regional Solicitor of Labor Marc Pilotin in San Francisco.

The employee testified that the person identified as a priest urged the staff to "get the sins out" and asked workers if they had stolen from the employer, been late for work, had done anything to harm their employer, or if they had bad intentions toward their employer.

“This employer’s despicable attempts to retaliate against employees were intended to silence workers, obstruct an investigation and prevent the recovery of unpaid wages,” Pilotin added.

The Clearwater Police Department shared the video, which shows the waterspout picking up several beach umbrellas and debris near Tower 2 on the south part of Clearwater Beach.

Several people were seen running as umbrellas and chairs went flying in the air.

Police said two beachgoers from Kansas, a 70-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man, were taken to a hospital with minor injuries after they were struck by flying debris.

On Friday, red flags flew at Clearwater Beach, warning swimmers of rough seas and hazardous swimming conditions.

On Sunday, rangers with CPW responded to a call about a moose at the Steamboat Ski Resort, located about 160 miles northwest of Boulder.

When they arrived, rangers discovered that a moose had apparently jumped off the second-story deck of a building, broken its neck and died from the injuries.

CPW said they could not confirm if the moose was agitated or how close it was to people when the incident happen.

Rangers removed the moose from the resort and donated its body. Additional details weren't immediately available.

Last week, CPW found a dead mother moose near Steamboat Springs. A cause of death had not been determined, and the district wildlife manager told the Steamboat Pilot there were no obvious signs of trauma.

"How we found it does indicate it found a place to lay down before it died, so probably something internal, but no real clear idea other than that," David Rehak Suma said.

What to do if you come near a moose

Living among wildlife is very common in Colorado and it's important to respect their space when you come in contact.

Moose are Colorado's largest big game animal, and the adults can weigh between 800 to 1,200 pounds.

CPW said moose are very protective of their territory and young, and the presence of dogs is often the biggest cause of conflict.

If a moose charges you, here’s what CPW said you should do:

• Run away as fast as possible
• Get behind a large tree, rock or other object
• If you are knocked down, get up quickly
• If injured, seek immediate medical attention
• Report the incident to CPW as soon as possible

Moose encounters with humans are common and seeing a moose in the wild can be an exciting experience. CPW asks that you observe the moose from a distance and with common sense. The animal must be given command and respect in order to keep you and the moose safe.

Rexha, 33, was performing at The Rooftop at Pier 17 in Manhattan Sunday night when the phone-throwing incident occurred. Video shows the moment Rexha was unexpectedly hit in the face by the cellphone while on stage. The singer collapsed to her knees before eventually being helped off stage.

The audience member who allegedly tossed the cell phone was arrested at the scene. Nicolas Malvagna, a 27-year-old from Manalapan, New Jersey, was charged with assault, NYPD officials told Nexstar's WPIX.

"Absolutely great show ruined by a fan throwing their phone at [Bebe Rexha]," said New York City-area resident Alex Chavez, who shared video of the incident on Twitter. "Hopefully she is OK after that."

Rexha posted two photos of her bruised eye on Instagram Monday. She appears to have also suffered a laceration near her eyebrow.

"I'm good," Rexha said in the Instagram post to her 10 million followers, giving a thumbs up in one of the photos.

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), select 10-ounce Tostitos Avocado Salsa Jar Dips were mislabeled with another product's nutritional information and declarations.

Because of this, there is no warning of the allergen on the label.

The potentially tainted salsas were distributed to retailers nationwide and were also sold online.

Consumers would have been able to purchase jars as early as April 5, 2023, according to the FDA.

The FDA states that no other Tostitos products, flavors sizes, or dip variety packs have been recalled.

Anyone with questions is encouraged to call Frito-Lay Consumer Relations at (800) 352-4477.

The pup can be seen wiggling onto the boards of surfers in drone footage obtained by KSWB Saturday.

SeaWorld, who was notified by the surfers after the seal first surfaced, sent a crew out to evaluate the pup. According to the theme park, the seal appeared healthy and was in the water when their team arrived.

"There was no need to intervene as the pup also appeared to be old enough to care for itself," SeaWorld said in a statement to KSWB.

The pup's mother was not found by SeaWorld's rescue team. Surfers in Pacific Beach said they believed the mom had been killed, however, the theme park said they have not received a report of a deceased seal in the area.

SeaWorld says that if a deceased animal is found along the beach, Southwest Fisheries Science Center or the San Diego Environment Services Dead Animal Removal offices can be contacted to pick up the animal.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), 2,717 pounds of frozen dinners from Marie Callender's were recalled after the firm received several complaints from consumers.

Products affected by the recall were made on March 1, 2023, with time stamps ranging between 17:45-17:56 hours. Those products will also have the following information:

• 4.31 lbs. cases of “MC Beef Shepherd’s Pie” with lot code 5006306020, BEST BY FEB 24 2024 and case code 2113100032, containing six 11.5 oz. carton packages of "Marie Callender’s BEEF SHEPHERD’S PIE” with lot code 5006306020 and BEST BY FEB 24 2024 on the side panel, with time stamps ranging between 17:45-17:56

Next to the USDA mark of inspection, affected products will have the establishment number "EST 233." Officials say the products were shipped to various retailers across the country.

While no injuries or negative reactions have happened, the FSIS encourages anyone who has the products in their possession not to eat them, but instead throw them away or return them from where they were bought.

Anyone with questions about the recall can contact Conagra’s Consumer Care Hotline at 877-469-3783 or send an email here.

Consumers with food safety questions can call the toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-MPHotline (888-674-6854) or live chat via Ask USDA from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Eastern Time) Monday through Friday. You can also browse food safety messages at Ask USDA or send a question by email here.

The vessel was reported overdue Sunday night about 435 miles (700 kilometres) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, according to Canada's Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Lt. Cmdr. Len Hickey said a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and military aircraft were assisting the search effort, which was being led by the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston.

Rear Adm. John Mauger, a commander for the U.S. Coast Guard, said additional resources would arrive in the coming days.

“It is a remote area — and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area," he said. "But we are deploying all available assets to make sure we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board.”

According to the Coast Guard, the craft submerged Sunday morning, and its support vessel lost contact with it about an hour and 45 minutes later.

The submersible was operated by OceanGate Expeditions, which said its focus was on those aboard and their families.

“We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible,” said a written statement from the company.

David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate, said the submersible had an 96-hour oxygen supply starting at roughly 6 a.m. Sunday. In an email to The Associated Press, Concannon said he was supposed to be on the dive but could not go due to another client matter. He said officials were working to get a remotely operated vehicle that can reach a depth of 6,000 meters (about 20,000 feet) to the site as soon as possible.

OceanGate's expeditions to the Titanic wreck site include archaeologists and marine biologists. The company also brings people who pay to come along. Known as “missions specialists,” they take turns operating sonar equipment and performing other tasks in the five-person submersible. The Coast Guard said Monday that there was one pilot and four "mission specialists” aboard.

U.K. businessman Hamish Harding was one of the mission specialists, according to Action Aviation, a company for which Harding serves as chairman. The company’s managing director, Mark Butler, told the AP that the crew set out on Friday.

“There is still plenty of time to facilitate a rescue mission, there is equipment on board for survival in this event,” Butler said. “We’re all hoping and praying he comes back safe and sound.”

Harding is an adventurer who holds three Guinness World Records, including longest duration at full ocean depth by a crewed vessel. In March 2021, he and ocean explorer Victor Vescovo dived to the lowest depth of the Mariana Trench. In June 2022, he went into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

The expedition was OceanGate’s third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of Titanic, which struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew. Since the wreckage’s discovery in 1985, it has been slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria. Some have predicted the ship could vanish in a matter of decades as holes yawn in the hull and sections disintegrate.

The initial group of tourists in 2021 paid $100,000 to $150,000 apiece to go on the trip.

Unlike submarines that leave and return to port under their own power, submersibles require a ship to launch and recover them. OceanGate hired the Canadian vessel Polar Prince, a medium duty icebreaker that was formerly operated by the Canadian Coast Guard, to ferry dozens of people and the submersible craft to the North Atlantic wreck site. The submersible would make multiple dives in one expedition.

The expedition was scheduled to depart from St. John’s, Newfoundland, in early May and finish up at the end of June, according to documents filed by the company in April with a U.S. District Court in Virginia that oversees Titanic matters.

The submersible, named Titan, is capable of diving 4,000 meters or 13,120 feet “with a comfortable safety margin,” OceanGate said in its court filing.

It weighs 20,000 pounds (9,072 kilograms) in the air, but is ballasted to be neutrally buoyant once it reaches the seafloor, the company said.

The Titan is made of “titanium and filament wound carbon fiber” and has proven to “withstand the enormous pressures of the deep ocean,” OceanGate stated. OceanGate told the court that Titan’s viewport is “the largest of any deep diving submersible” and that its technology provides an “unrivaled view” of the deep ocean.

In a May 2021 court filing, OceanGate said the Titan had an “unparalleled safety feature” that assesses the integrity of the hull throughout every dive.

At the time of the filing, Titan had undergone more than 50 test dives, including to the equivalent depth of the Titanic, in deep waters off the Bahamas and in a pressure chamber, the company said.

During its expedition in 2022, OceanGate reported that the submersible had a battery issue on its first dive, and had to be manually attached to its lifting platform, according to a November court filing.

“In the high sea state, the submersible sustained modest damage to its external components and OceanGate decided to cancel the second mission for repairs and operational enhancements,” the filing stated.

More missions, however, followed. The company reported that 28 people visited the wreck site last year.

Experts said Monday that rescuers face steep challenges.

Alistair Greig, a professor of marine engineering at University College London, said submersibles typically have a drop weight, which is “a mass they can release in the case of an emergency to bring them up to the surface using buoyancy.”

“If there was a power failure and/or communication failure, this might have happened, and the submersible would then be bobbing about on the surface waiting to be found,” Greig said.

Another scenario is a leak in the pressure hull, in which case the prognosis is not good, he said.

“If it has gone down to the seabed and can’t get back up under its own power, options are very limited," Greig said. “While the submersible might still be intact, if it is beyond the continental shelf, there are very few vessels that can get that deep, and certainly not divers.”

Even if they could go that deep, he doubts they could attach to the hatch of OceanGate's submersible.

Chris Parry, a retired navy rear admiral from the U.K., told Sky News the rescue was “a very difficult operation.”

“The actual nature of the seabed is very undulating. Titanic herself lies in a trench. There’s lots of debris around. So trying to differentiate with sonar in particular and trying to target the area you want to search in with another submersible is going to be very difficult indeed.”

They’ll hold a virtual meeting at 11 a.m., Monday to discuss two proposed temporary rules that detail how election officials can verify the legitimacy of photo IDs for both in-person and absentee voters.

In December, a Democratic-controlled North Carolina Supreme Court upheld a decision that blocked the voter ID requirement, citing the rule was racially discriminatory. But in April, the new Republican-controlled Court revisited the decision, ultimately overturning it and reenacting the ID requirements as early as this year’s municipal elections.

“To quote Coretta Scott King, ‘You have to win freedom in every generation,’” said Yvette Townsend-Ingram of Mecklenburg County Democratic Party’s African American Caucus.

Townsend-Ingram and her colleagues were out at the 2023 Juneteenth Festival of the Carolinas to help people register to vote and learn about the new requirements. They said it was part of their efforts to fight the new voting restrictions.

“We want to remove, or at least eliminate as many barriers as possible to voting,” said Townsend-Ingram.

In addition to requiring IDs, the justices also ruled that convicted felons who are currently on probation or parole may no longer vote. State Democrats are outspoken in their belief that this rule largely discriminates against minority populations.

“Who is most incarcerated? Black males,” said Townsend-Ingram. “The system continues to roll on. But we’re fighting it at every turn.”

On the other side of the aisle sit Republicans, who believe these new restrictions strengthen the legitimacy of elections and address wavering confidence in the election process.

“The last liberal court that was there before [was] more concerned with the rights of felons than the rights of voters who went to the polls and demanded these changes,” said Republican House Speaker Tim Moore.

In late May, Republican lawmakers filed Senate Bill 747, which would change the voting process even further. The bill eliminates the three-day grace period for mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day, requires signature matching and “two-factor authentication” for mail-in votes, expands who can challenge a voter’s eligibility, and requires provisional ballots for those who register during the early voting period. For information on how to attend Monday’s virtual comment session or submit an online comment, click here.

Virginia State Police said Daniel Barmak, 23, of Towson, Maryland, is charged with capital murder, two felony counts of malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony in the killing of Officer Mark Christopher Wagner II Friday night in Nelson County's Wintergreen community. Barmak is being held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.

The shooting happened after an emergency call came into the Wintergreen Police Department about Barmak assaulting two other men at a home where they were all staying, state police said in a news release. After calling police, the two injured men, both 23, ran away.

Wagner, 31, was the first to arrive and encountered Barmak in the woods. During a struggle over Wagner’s department-issued handgun, Barmak shot and killed the officer, police said. Barmak was also shot during the encounter.

Wintergreen Police and the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office took Barmak into custody. He and the two men he allegedly assaulted were all taken to UVA Medical Center to be treated for non-life threatening injuries.

Wintergreen Police Chief Chief Dennis Russell said in a Facebook post that Wagner had been with the force since August 2020. He said Wagner enjoyed hiking and photographing nature in his spare time.

“Chris was dedicated to his job and whenever called for extra duty he was ready, willing and able. His love for the badge was evident and his commitment to the community was undeniable,” Russell said.

Wintergreen is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Richmond.

The 22-year-old woman had tried to stop a 30-year-old Michigan man from allegedly assaulting her friend after luring them onto a trail leading to a viewpoint overlooking the famous castle, which draws more than a million tourists every year.

The older woman fell nearly 50 meters (165 feet) down a steep slope but was able to leave the hospital Friday, police spokesperson Holger Stabik said.

Both women were recovered by mountain rescuers shortly after the attack Wednesday, but the younger victim later died of her injuries in the hospital.

The suspect, whose name like those of the victims wasn't released due to German privacy rules, was arrested shortly after the incident. He is being held on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and attempted sexual assault.

Stabik said police have received about two dozen photos and videos on a specially created website and are appealing for anyone with additional images of the suspect and victims to come forward.

Prosecutors said the women did not know the man until the incident.

A spokesperson for the prosecutors' office in Kempten, Thomas Hörmann, said the investigation into the incident is continuing but it may be three or four months before authorities decide on an indictment.

In 2010, the then-five-year-old child ran onto the field at the West Point graduation ceremony as cadets tossed their caps into the air. As is tradition, the children who catch a hat get to keep it, along with any money or messages left inside.

"I remember feeling so encouraged, surrounded by the cadets, even at that young age I could see myself - this is something I want to do," Miller told WAVY.

Her whole life has been connected to the military.

Her Mom and Dad met in the Army. Dad, Col. Jake Miller, graduated West Point and taught there when Kathryn was in preschool.

"I was three years old telling people that in 2040 I'm running for president," she said.

She started running toward her goals early, which isn't easy when the Army moves your family every couple of years. Jamestown High School was her eighth school and the one she attended the longest. In three years there, she lettered in four varsity sports, including track, cross country swim and soccer. She also served as president of several clubs and built a strong academic resume.

"If I look at what I've done working really hard, what she's done has managed to crush anything that I ever achieved," said her dad, Jake Miller.

Kathryn's hard work paid off Saturday when she walked across the stage to receive her diploma.

She was also offered a full ROTC scholarship. She applied to and was accepted at all of the military academies.

Of course she chose her dream school, which made Dad happy.

"It means that I won't have to cheer against her for the next four years," he said.

Kathryn now looks toward the future with a nod to the past, and that hat she picked up all those years ago with a note from a cadet named Brittany who she never met, but who is still inspiring Kathryn to believe and achieve.

In two weeks Miller will report to cadet training and begin her college career, and what she plans to be a life of service.

"Serving your country," she said, "is just the best thing ever."

It wasn’t health food either, but its original recipe boasted more natural ingredients than the current one, including a somewhat surprising fruit.

The inspiration for the Twinkie came about in 1930, when an employee of the Continental Baking Company (the then-owner of the Hostess brand) was seeking a way to boost productivity at a Chicago-area plant. At the time, the company’s signature product was a long sponge cake filled with strawberries and cream, but strawberries — being seasonal — weren’t readily available year-round, meaning some of the bakery’s equipment was going unused for months, Hostess once explained.

Bakery manager James Dewar, seeing an opportunity to introduce a new item during less-fruitful times, reportedly turned his attention to the banana, which was plentiful year-round.

Dewar oversaw the first batches of the new banana-cream-filled cakes. He called them Twinkies, settling on the name after seeing a billboard for Twinkle Toe Shoes.

''I shortened it to make it a little zippier for the kids,” Dewar once explained, according to a 1985 obituary published in the Chicago Tribune.

The spongey cakes were priced at a nickel (for a two-pack) and soon became a hit.

The recipe remained unchanged for a little over a decade. But in the 1940s, Hostess says it was forced to swap bananas for vanilla-flavored crème due to WWII rationing efforts. (It’s likely that wartime rationing impacted the transportation of certain foods due to limitations on gas or shipping materials, rather than limitations on fresh fruit itself, the National World War II Museum explained.)

Thanks to the new recipe, Twinkies remained on shelves and carved out a following. Banana-flavored Twinkies eventually returned to add additional variety to the Twinkie lineup from time to time — albeit made with different, less-pronounceable ingredients than the original recipe, as CBS News noted.

Upon the release of the “King Kong” remake in 2005, a promotional run of banana-flavored Twinkies proved so popular that sales spiked 20%, according to The New York Times, prompting Hostess to make them a permanent offering — at least until the company declared bankruptcy in 2012 and operations were suspended at all Hostess bakeries.

The Hostess brand eventually changed hands, but Twinkies are still a staple in the snack-cake aisle. The banana-flavor is currently also a permanent offering at the official Hostess site.

The ingredients of today’s banana-flavored Twinkies, however, don’t share much of a resemblance with those from the original recipe. Over the years, much of the dairy-based ingredients were swapped out to increase shelf-life, and other ingredients were added for color, texture or taste, according to Steve Ettlinger, the author of “Twinkies, Deconstructed,” whose work has been cited by MIT and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Banana Twinkies, meanwhile, still contain a small percentage of banana.

But whether they’re made with real bananas, real dairy, or only a tiny bit of either, the Twinkie's changing recipes and flavors seemingly had no effect on its creator’s affections.

"Twinkies were the best darn tootin’ idea I ever had," James Dewar once said of the Twinkie in a 1980 interview, as reported by the Chicago Tribune. "I still eat at least three of them a day."

Driving without sleep is dangerous, but does it compare to driving drunk?

In 2017, drowsy driving was the reason behind at least 91,000 car crashes, 50,000 injuries and 795 deaths, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports. That's compared with 9,949 fatal alcohol-related crashes during the same time.

While not exactly the same, drowsy driving and drunk driving have similarities, including a decrease in reaction time, according to Sleepfoundation.org.

After being awake for 18 hours, reaction time, multi-tasking and hand-eye coordination are comparable to someone who has a blood alcohol content of .05%, which increases to .08% after being awake for 20 hours.

After 24 hours of sleeplessness, impairment jumps to being comparable to having a blood alcohol content of 0.1%. The legal limit in most states is .08%.

According to the Sleep Foundation report, drowsy driving is most likely to happen overnight --between midnight and 6 a.m. It can also be common to see drowsy drivers during the late afternoon hours.

People who are at the highest risk for driving while drowsy are young drivers, professional drivers, shift workers and those who sleep for less than six hours daily or suffer from sleep apnea.

The Sleep Foundation suggests being aware of the warning signs:

• Heavy eyelids or frequent blinking
• Yawning
• Trouble focusing
• Forgetting the last few miles
• Drifting between lanes
• Driving over rumble strips
• Head-drooping
• Tailgating
• Missed signs or exits
• Restlessness, irritability and aggressiveness

Short-term fixes such as caffeine, open windows or loud music can lead to microsleep, which is when your brain flips rapidly between a few seconds of sleep and wakefulness.

If you are tired while driving, especially while driving long distances, you should take frequent breaks or even pull over in a safe place and take a 20-minute power nap.

Bret, the second named storm of the season, currently has maximum sustained wind speeds near 40 mph and is expected to become a Category 1 hurricane by Wednesday night. It is currently moving west across the Atlantic.

Spaghetti models show a wide variety of potential tracks for Bret, however, NHC predicts the tropical storm could pose a hurricane threat to the Lesser Antilles by Thursday and the Dominican Republic and Haiti by the weekend.

There is a possibility the storm could turn north or continue west into the Caribbean and threaten the Dominican Republic, Haiti and other islands.

“As it continues to get better organized, the models will get a better handle on the system. However, right now, it is too early to say whether it will move into the Caribbean or re-curve out to sea, but there is plenty of time to watch it," WFLA Meteorologist Amanda Holly said.

She added the storm is feeding off the “extremely warm waters” in the Atlantic. “We’re talking record warm water temperatures for this time of year, and that’s why we’re seeing this type of development right now — a couple different factors, but that’s one of them.”

A second wave is being monitored off the coast of Africa and has a 30% chance of formation in the next 48 hours, and a 40% chance of development in the next seven days.

According to the Clearwater Police Department, 43-year-old Lindsay Rodewald was stopped while riding her bicycle, which did not have lights on at night.

While speaking with police, she gave them verbal consent to search her backpack. Officers found a broken glass pipe with crystal residue. A field test indicated the presence of methamphetamine.

Rodewald told the police department she forgot the pipe was in her bag and that she used meth a few days prior.

Upon further investigation, the baby raccoon was found in the woman's backpack. Police said it was around a week old.

The critter was taken to the Veterinary Emergency Group in Tampa. It will be cared for alongside other young raccoons before being released into the wild.

The answer goes beyond the temperature you see on the thermometer. It’s also about humidity. Our research shows the combination of the two can get dangerous faster than scientists previously believed.

Scientists and other observers have become alarmed about the increasing frequency of extreme heat paired with high humidity, measured as “wet-bulb temperature.” During the heat waves that overtook South Asia in May and June 2022, Jacobabad, Pakistan, recorded a maximum wet-bulb temperature of 33.6 C (92.5 F) and Delhi topped that – close to the theorized upper limit of human adaptability to humid heat.

People often point to a study published in 2010 that estimated that a wet-bulb temperature of 35 C – equal to 95 F at 100% humidity, or 115 F at 50% humidity – would be the upper limit of safety, beyond which the human body can no longer cool itself by evaporating sweat from the surface of the body to maintain a stable body core temperature.

It was not until recently that this limit was tested on humans in laboratory settings. The results of these tests show an even greater cause for concern.

The PSU H.E.A.T. Project

To answer the question of “how hot is too hot?” we brought young, healthy men and women into the Noll Laboratory at Penn State University to experience heat stress in a controlled environment.

These experiments provide insight into which combinations of temperature and humidity begin to become harmful for even the healthiest humans.

Each participant swallowed a small telemetry pill, which monitored their deep body or core temperature. They then sat in an environmental chamber, moving just enough to simulate the minimal activities of daily living, such as cooking and eating. Researchers slowly increased either the temperature in the chamber or the humidity and monitored when the subject’s core temperature started to rise.

That combination of temperature and humidity whereby the person’s core temperature starts to rise is called the “critical environmental limit.” Below those limits, the body is able to maintain a relatively stable core temperature over time. Above those limits, core temperature rises continuously and risk of heat-related illnesses with prolonged exposures is increased.

When the body overheats, the heart has to work harder to pump blood flow to the skin to dissipate the heat, and when you’re also sweating, that decreases body fluids. In the direst case, prolonged exposure can result in heat stroke, a life-threatening problem that requires immediate and rapid cooling and medical treatment.

Our studies on young healthy men and women show that this upper environmental limit is even lower than the theorized 35 C. It’s more like a wet-bulb temperature of 31 C (88 F). That would equal 31 C at 100% humidity or 38 C (100 F) at 60% humidity.

Dry vs. humid environments

Current heat waves around the globe are approaching, if not exceeding, these limits.

In hot, dry environments the critical environmental limits aren’t defined by wet-bulb temperatures, because almost all the sweat the body produces evaporates, which cools the body. However, the amount humans can sweat is limited, and we also gain more heat from the higher air temperatures.

Keep in mind that these cutoffs are based solely on keeping your body temperature from rising excessively. Even lower temperatures and humidity can place stress on the heart and other body systems. And while eclipsing these limits does not necessarily present a worst-case scenario, prolonged exposure may become dire for vulnerable populations such as the elderly and those with chronic diseases.

Our experimental focus has now turned to testing older men and women, since even healthy aging makes people less heat tolerant. Adding on the increased prevalence of heart disease, respiratory problems and other health problems, as well as certain medications, can put them at even higher risk of harm. People over the age of 65 comprise some 80%-90% of heat wave casualties.

How to stay safe

Staying well hydrated and seeking areas in which to cool down – even for short periods – are important in high heat.

While more cities in the United States are expanding cooling centers to help people escape the heat, there will still be many people who will experience these dangerous conditions with no way to cool themselves.The lead author of this article, W. Larry Kenney, discusses the impact of heat stress on human health with PBS NewsHour.

Even those with access to air conditioning might not turn it on because of the high cost of energy – a common occurrence in Phoenix, Arizona – or because of large-scale power outages during heat waves or wildfires, as is becoming more common in the western U.S.

A recent study focusing on heat stress in Africa found that future climates will not be conducive to the use of even low-cost cooling systems such as “swamp coolers” as the tropical and coastal parts of Africa become more humid. These devices, which require far less energy than air conditioners, use a fan to recirculate the air across a cool, wet pad to lower the air temperature, but they become ineffective at high wet-bulb temperatures above 21 C (70 F).

All told, the evidence continues to mount that climate change is not just a problem for the future. It is one that humanity is currently facing and must tackle head-on.

Officers received a 911 call about an agitated mother duck dangerously walking into traffic on Old Sunrise Highway because her four baby ducklings had fallen into the sewer.

Upon arrival, officers could hear the ducklings in distress below ground, about 8 feet down. 

Police were unable to see them and they were unable to remove the sewer grate to retrieve the ducklings, sources said.

It took four patrol officers and two Emergency Service Unit officers working together to retrieve the ducklings. Together they traced the paths of the sewer systems to a nearby reservoir where they could hear the ducklings in distress.

The officers then utilized the YouTube app on their phones to play a series of mother duck calls to lure the ducklings to the opening. All four ducklings responded to the sounds and waddled their way to safety.

Officers cleaned them up and reunited the ducklings with their mother in a nearby creek.

We asked five money experts to share their best personal finance strategies to help this year’s college grads successfully launch their financial lives. Here’s what they said.

Find your budgeting style

To figure out how to allocate your money toward needs, wants and everything else, Erin Lowry, author of the “Broke Millennial Workbook,” says that instead of following the latest budgeting trend on TikTok, it’s helpful to just sit down with a pen and paper. “Write down what your big expenses are,” she says.

After accounting for large items like rent, car payments and food, you can then see what nonessentials also fit. “You might want to go out to dinner with friends, build up new work attire or adopt a dog,” Lowry says. Writing out the budget helps you figure out what you can afford and when, she adds.

“We conceive of budgets as restrictive things that keep us from having fun, but you should be thinking of it as a way of controlling how your money is spent. If you don’t know, you’ve sacrificed all control,” Lowry says.

Factor in taxes

Melissa Jean-Baptiste, a financial educator and the author of the book “So… This Is Why I’m Broke,” says it’s easy to forget to account for taxes, so you might have less take-home pay than you anticipated. Retirement contributions and other deductions can further lower that amount.

Jean-Baptiste suggests setting aside some time to really understand your first paycheck and all those deductions. “Take yourself on a money date so you understand how much you’re bringing home and how much you have left to save and invest,” she says.

Save smartly

Even if they’re paying off debt, Alex Rezzo, a certified financial planner and the founder of Andante Financial in the Los Angeles area, urges new grads to start saving for retirement right away. “There will always be a more immediate excuse to delay saving for retirement,” he says, but he urges people to find a way to save at least 1% of each paycheck and to increase that amount over time.

He also suggests parking your direct-deposited paycheck funds in an online bank that offers a competitive high-yield account and is backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. That way, the money likely will earn more than it would sitting in a traditional bank’s checking or savings account.

Protect your credit

As you build your independent financial life, making at least the minimum payments on your student loan and credit card accounts can help protect your credit. Missing a payment, Lowry says, could damage your credit score. She suggests focusing on paying down any high-interest debt first to reduce the total amount going to interest.

Lowry also suggests freezing or locking your credit, which makes it much harder for identity thieves to apply for new credit in your name. Just remember that if you freeze your credit, you’ll also have to thaw it if you want to apply for credit yourself, she says, adding, “you might want to wait until you’re through a period of time when you’re applying for new accounts.”

Make mistakes and learn from them

Kennedy Reynolds, chief education officer at Acorns, a financial services company, says mistakes are part of the learning process, whether it’s overspending or accruing credit card debt, but the key is to learn from the experience. “If you have debt to pay down, take that paycheck and split it up” toward those bills until they are paid off, she says.

“Try to picture yourself later and know that the choices you’re making now will have a long-term impact,” she adds.

Look beyond your paycheck

Linda Whiteman, a personal finance teacher at Outschool, an online learning platform for kids, teaches her students to think entrepreneurially. After all, she tells them, most millionaires are business owners.

“You don’t have to work for someone,” she says. She asks her students to consider what they can teach others, whether offering piano lessons online or creating digital art. Pursuing additional income streams outside of a paycheck can help grow wealth, she adds.

Jean-Baptiste found success doing exactly that: She used her experience as a teacher to create and sell lesson plans online. “I was bringing in $10,000 a year that I could put toward debt,” she says. Her lesson plans eventually turned into the financial literacy business that she operates today.

Earning additional income outside of a paycheck, she says, “can be a game-changer” — financial wisdom that applies at any age.

The seriously injured dog was transported to a local animal clinic, where he was euthanized after the stabbing Saturday evening, police said.

According to the New York Daily News, an argument broke out between the man and the woman when the assailant's unleashed dog began biting at the woman's pit bull. As she tried to separate the dogs, the man pulled out a switchblade and stabbed the pit bull mix.

“The German Shepherd Pit Bull-mix gets along with my dogs great,” said Rodney Mendoza, who says his two dogs were very friendly with the dog that was stabbed. “They play together, they run together, every day.”

“It made me start to cry when I heard about it this morning,” said dog owner Madison Ritter. “Just because I think about how much I love my dog and if somebody did that to him, I don’t know what I’d even do. I feel so horrible for them.”

No arrests were made as of Sunday. An investigation was ongoing.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Pell Grants are a type of need-based financial aid from the federal government that gives recipients up to $7,395 per academic year to cover college costs like tuition, books and other fees. Unlike a loan, the grants never need to be repaid; students qualify based on financial need.

Incarcerated people — those in juvenile justice facilities and local, state and federal correctional facilities — will be able to use these Pell awards to pay for prison education programs (PEPs), which can lead to credentials like a professional certificate, an associate degree or a bachelor’s degree from a partner university.

Though the change is effective July 1, students may not be able to enroll in a PEP using Pell Grants immediately, says Ruth Delaney, associate initiative director at the Vera Institute of Justice focused on education reform in prisons. Some programs may start this fall, she says, but even then, enrollment won’t begin until later in the summer.

Here’s what you need to know about the Pell Grant expansion for prison education programs and how incarcerated students can access these funds.

Impact of Pell expansion for incarcerated students

Without access to Pell Grants, higher education has been virtually out of reach for most incarcerated people, who earn an average minimum wage of 86 cents per hour in typical prison jobs, according to a 2017 analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit public policy think tank. There were nearly 800 PEPs in the early 1990s, but after a 1994 crime bill blocked incarcerated students from receiving Pell Grants, the number of PEPs shrank to eight by 1997, according to the Vera Institute, a nonprofit that supports criminal justice reform.

Obtaining a higher education degree or certificate can help incarcerated students find stable careers and better pay when they reenter the workplace. People who participate in correctional education are also 43% less likely to return to prison within three years than those who don’t participate, according to a 2018 report by the Rand Corp., a public policy research organization.

Some incarcerated students have been able to access Pell Grants for years as part of an experimental program called Second Chance Pell established by President Barack Obama in 2015. As of 2022, incarcerated students had earned more than 7,000 credentials through the program. For example, Georgetown University launched its Prison Scholars Program in 2018 to bring higher education to incarcerated students in Washington, D.C., and Maryland.

“Financial aid is one piece of this puzzle,” says Rachel Rotunda, director of government relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “This is a big change for students, but it's also a big change for institutions and really the whole higher ed prison education community.”

Submit FAFSA to qualify for a Pell Grant

To be considered for a Pell Grant, incarcerated students must fill out and submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

Because correctional facilities may offer limited or no internet access, students may need to submit a paper copy of their FAFSA application to partner college representatives at their facility. Then the partner college will submit the FAFSA on the student's behalf to the office of Federal Student Aid, which will evaluate the application and determine the student's eligibility and grant amount.

“A lot gets facilitated through the college, which means that the prospective student likely already knows what college they're going to be applying to,” Delaney says. “The other side to that is that it's rare to see more than one college program at a single prison.”

Though incarcerated students can legally submit the FAFSA as early as July 1, they may need to wait until their facility’s education staff is ready to accept applications and a PEP course is slated to begin.

Incarcerated students shouldn’t worry about filing the FAFSA months ahead of time; they’ll likely need to submit the FAFSA around the time they’re slated to enroll in a PEP, Delaney says. Deadlines will vary by program.

“There tends to be a bit more of a condensed timeline for enrollment [in prisons] compared to the more community-based timeline,” Delaney adds.

Other grants and scholarships to pay for prison education programs

Incarcerated students are blocked from receiving federal student loans, which can provide undergraduates with up to $12,500 in funds each year that must eventually be paid back.

But if a Pell Grant award is not enough to cover the cost of a prison education program, students may turn to other funding sources. This may also be necessary if a student embarks on multiple degrees or takes extra time to finish a program because Pell Grants can be used for no more than six years.

States like New Jersey and California offer additional grants to incarcerated students, and nonprofits like the Prison Education Foundation and the Transcending Through Education Foundation offer scholarships. Similar to a grant, scholarships typically do not need to be repaid.

And in many cases, the colleges running PEPs are putting their own resources into making them affordable, Rotunda says, “to ensure that they're able to offer high-quality programming and to provide students the same level of support that they would be providing for any other student.”

Where to get answers to your questions

If you’re incarcerated and have questions about the FAFSA, Pell Grants or PEPs, you can reach out to the following resources:

A financial aid administrator or other education representative at your correctional facility:

Varies by correctional facility.

Send questions to the Education Department by mail. Address letters to:

U.S. Department of Education

c/o Prison Education Programs

400 Maryland Ave SW

Washington, DC 20202

If you have internet access, send questions to the Education Department by email:

Send your email to: pep@ed.gov.

Incarcerated students with defaulted student loans

If you’ve defaulted on student loans in the past, you can sign up for a temporary government program called Fresh Start. This program will return your loans to good standing, allowing you to submit the FAFSA and receive a Pell Grant while incarcerated.

If you now have a loan in default, you’ll need to send a letter to:

P.O. Box 5609

Greenville, TX 75403

In your letter, include your full name, Social Security number, date of birth and the following statement: “I am a confined or incarcerated individual. I would like to use Fresh Start to bring my loans back into good standing.”

According to the Asheville Police Department, officers responded to reports of shots fired at a downtown festival in the area of Court Plaza around 8:15 p.m.

Upon arrival, officers found two juveniles suffering from gunshot wounds.

Both were taken to a nearby hospital for their injuries. One has been released, and the other remains in critical but stable condition.

Officers located two suspects nearby and took them into custody. Detectives were able to clear one of the suspects and identify the other as the principal offender.

Officers and Forensic Technicians also recovered a 9mm pistol and physical evidence around the park.

With the assistance of the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Buncombe County District Attorney's Office, the juvenile was charged with two counts of felonious assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury.

Detectives and Forensic Technicians with the Criminal Investigations Division are continuing to investigate the incident.  If you have information related to this or any other crime, you can anonymously share information by texting TIP2APD to 847411 or use the TIP2APD smartphone app. You can also share information by calling 828-252-1110. 

The Martin Luther King Association of Asheville and Buncombe County planners of this year's Juneteenth Celebration shared that the event was canceled due to a shooting that happened Saturday evening at the conclusion of the event.

"We regret to inform you that the second day of the Juneteenth Festival, Sunday, June 18, has been canceled due to a shooting that occurred this evening at the conclusion of the Festival. Individuals that need to pick up items left behind at Pack Square Park can do so starting at 10 a.m. on Sunday. We are terribly sorry and sad for the inconvenience after having had such a wonderful day of bringing communities together."

The Martin Luther King Association of Asheville and Buncombe County planners

Most got dropped for not filling out paperwork.

Though the eligibility review is required by the federal government, President’s Joe Biden’s administration isn’t too pleased at how efficiently some other states are accomplishing the task.

“Pushing through things and rushing it will lead to eligible people — kids and families — losing coverage for some period of time,” Daniel Tsai, a top federal Medicaid official recently told reporters.

Already, about 1.5 million people have been removed from Medicaid in more than two dozen states that started the process in April or May, according to publicly available reports and data obtained by The Associated Press.

Florida has dropped several hundred thousand people, by far the most among states. The drop rate also has been particularly high in other states. For people whose cases were decided in May, around half or more got dropped in Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia.

By its own count, Arkansas has dropped more than 140,000 people from Medicaid.

The eligibility redeterminations have created headaches for Jennifer Mojica, 28, who was told in April that she no longer qualified for Medicaid because Arkansas had incorrectly determined her income was above the limit.

She got that resolved, but was then told her 5-year-old son was being dropped from Medicaid because she had requested his cancellation — something that never happened, she said. Her son’s coverage has been restored, but now Mojica says she’s been told her husband no longer qualifies. The uncertainty has been frustrating, she said.

“It was like fixing one thing and then another problem came up, and they fixed it and then something else came up,” Mojica said.

Arkansas officials said they have tried to renew coverage automatically for as many people as possible and placed a special emphasis on reaching families with children. But a 2021 state law requires the post-pandemic eligibility redeterminations to be completed in six months, and the state will continue “to swiftly disenroll individuals who are no longer eligible,” the Department of Human Services said in statement.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has dismissed criticism of the state’s process.

“Those who do not qualify for Medicaid are taking resources from those who need them,” Sanders said on Twitter last month. “But the pandemic is over — and we are leading the way back to normalcy.”

More than 93 million people nationwide were enrolled in Medicaid as of the most recent available data in February — up nearly one-third from the pre-pandemic total in January 2020. The rolls swelled because federal law prohibited states from removing people from Medicaid during the health emergency in exchange for providing states with increased funding.

Now that eligibility reviews have resumed, states have begun plowing through a backlog of cases to determine whether people's income or life circumstances have changed. States have a year to complete the process. But tracking down responses from everyone has proved difficult, because some people have moved, changed contact information or disregarded mailings about the renewal process.

Before dropping people from Medicaid, the Florida Department of Children and Families said it makes between five and 13 contact attempts, including texts, emails and phone calls. Yet the department said 152,600 people have been non-responsive.

Their coverage could be restored retroactively, if people submit information showing their eligibility up to 90 days after their deadline.

Unlike some states, Idaho continued to evaluate people's Medicaid eligibility during the pandemic even though it didn't remove anyone. When the enrollment freeze ended in April, Idaho started processing those cases — dropping nearly 67,000 of the 92,000 people whose cases have been decided so far.

“I think there’s still a lot of confusion among families on what’s happening,” said Hillarie Hagen, a health policy associate at the nonprofit Idaho Voices for Children.

She added, “We’re likely to see people showing up at a doctor’s office in the coming months not knowing they’ve lost Medicaid.”

Advocates fear that many households losing coverage may include children who are actually still eligible, because Medicaid covers children at higher income levels than their parents or guardians. A report last year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services forecast that children would be disproportionately impacted, with more than half of those disenrolled still actually eligible.

That's difficult to confirm, however, because the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services doesn't require states to report a demographic breakdown of those dropped. In fact, CMS has yet to release any state-by-state data. The AP obtained data directly from states and from other groups that have been collecting it.

Medicaid recipients in numerous states have described the eligibility redetermination process as frustrating.

Julie Talamo, of Port Richey, Florida, said she called state officials every day for weeks, spending hours on hold, when she was trying to ensure her 19-year-old special-needs son, Thomas, was going to stay on Medicaid.

She knew her own coverage would end but was shocked to hear Thomas’ coverage would be whittled down to a different program that could force her family to pay $2,000 per month. Eventually, an activist put Talamo in contact with a senior state healthcare official who confirmed her son would stay on Medicaid.

“This system was designed to fail people,” Talamo said of the haphazard process.

Some states haven't been able to complete all the eligibility determinations that are due each month. Pennsylvania reported more than 100,000 incomplete cases in both April and May. Tens of thousands of cases also remained incomplete in April or May in Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico and Ohio.

“If states are already behind in processing renewals, that’s going to snowball over time," said Tricia Brooks, a research professor at the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. "Once they get piles of stuff that haven’t been processed, I don’t see how they catch up easily.”

Among those still hanging in the balance is Gary Rush, 67, who said he was notified in April that he would lose Medicaid coverage. The Pittsburgh resident said he was told that his retirement accounts make him ineligible, even though he said he doesn’t draw from them. Rush appealed with the help of an advocacy group and, at a hearing this past week, was told he has until July to get rid of about $60,000 in savings.

Still, Rush said he doesn’t know what he will do if he loses coverage for his diabetes medication, which costs about $700 a month. Rush said he gets $1,100 a month from Social Security.

In Indiana, Samantha Richards, 35, said she has been on Medicaid her whole life and currently works two part-time jobs as a custodian. Richards recalled receiving a letter earlier this year indicating that the pandemic-era Medicaid protection was ending. She said a local advocacy group helped her navigate the renewal process. But she remains uneasy.

“Medicaid can be a little unpredictable,” Richards said. “There is still that concern that just out of nowhere, I will either get a letter saying that we have to reapply because we missed some paperwork, or I missed a deadline, or I’m going to show up at the doctor’s office or the pharmacy and they’re going to say, ‘Your insurance didn’t go through.’”

Schools and library systems across the country have been hit by pressure from parents and conservative lawmakers to ban books that contain certain themes, including LGBTQ and African American history and literature.

In an interview on MSNBC, host Jen Psaki asked Moore for his thoughts on the recent book bans some have implemented. 

“I continue hearing people making the argument that we're doing it because we want to we want to prevent our students from having discomfort or guilt,” Moore told Psaki. “Because we don't want our students to be able to really wrestle with these really difficult things in times when they are maturing as individuals and difficult historical points. But the thing I realized and I wanted to speak out about is that's actually not true. It's a guise.” 

“It's not about making kids feel uncomfortable. It's about telling other kids that they shouldn't understand their own power,” Moore added. “It's castrating them.”

Moore’s remarks come a month after a Miami-Dade County elementary school banned the poem that American poet Amanda Gorman recited during President Biden’s inauguration in 2021, issuing restrictions on Gorman’s poem and three other books after a parent objected to them, claiming that the titles included topics that were inappropriate for students and should be removed.

Florida has been at the epicenter of educational controversies as its state legislature, along with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), has pushed legislation to limit material and curriculum taught in schools. In January, DeSantis’s administration rejected an Advanced Placement African American Studies course, saying the content “significantly lacks educational value.” 

The NAACP issued a formal travel advisory for Florida, saying the state has become “hostile to Black Americans” under DeSantis’s leadership.

The shootings follow a surge in homicides and other violence over the past several years that experts say accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic. They happened in suburban Chicago, Washington state, central Pennsylvania, St. Louis, Southern California and Baltimore.

“There’s no question there’s been a spike in violence,” said Daniel Nagin, a professor of public policy and statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. “Some of these cases seem to be just disputes, often among adolescents, and those disputes are played out with firearms, not with fists.”

Researchers disagree over the cause of the increase. Theories include the possibility that violence is driven by the prevalence of guns in America, or by less aggressive police tactics or a decline in prosecutions for misdemeanor weapon offenses, Nagin said.

As of Sunday evening, none of the weekend events fit the definition of a mass killing, because fewer than four people died at each location. The figure does not include the shooter. However, the number of injured in most of the cases matches the widely accepted definition for mass shootings.

Here's a look at the shootings this weekend:

WILLOWBROOK, ILLINOIS

At least 23 people were shot, one fatally, early Sunday in a suburban Chicago parking lot where hundreds of people had gathered to celebrate Juneteenth, authorities said.

The DuPage County sheriff’s office described a “peaceful gathering” that suddenly turned violent as a number of people fired multiple shots into the crowd in Willowbrook, Illinois, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of Chicago.

A motive for the attack wasn’t immediately known. Sheriff’s spokesman Robert Carroll said authorities were interviewing “persons of interest” in the shooting, the Daily Herald reported.

A witness, Markeshia Avery, said the celebration was meant to mark Juneteenth, Monday's federal holiday commemorating the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

“We just started hearing shooting, so we dropped down until they stopped,” Avery told WLS-TV.

The White House issued a statement calling the violence a tragedy and saying the president was thinking of those killed and injured. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement that he was monitoring the investigation.

“Gathering for a holiday gathering should be a joyful occasion, not a time where gunfire erupts and families are forced to run for safety,” Pritzker said.

WASHINGTON STATE

Two people were killed and two others were injured when a shooter began firing “randomly” into a crowd at a Washington state campground where many people were staying to attend a nearby music festival on Saturday night, police said.

The suspect was shot in a confrontation with law enforcement officers and taken into custody, several hundred yards from the Beyond Wonderland electronic dance music festival.

A public alert advised people of an active shooter in the area and advised them to “run, hide or fight."

The festival carried on until early Sunday morning, Grant County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Kyle Foreman said. Organizers then posted a tweet saying Sunday’s concert was canceled.

CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA

One state trooper was killed and a second critically wounded just hours apart in central Pennsylvania on Saturday after a gunman attacked a state police barracks.

The suspect drove his truck into the parking lot of the Lewistown barracks about 11 a.m. Saturday and opened fire with a large-caliber rifle on marked patrol cars before fleeing, authorities said Sunday.

Lt. James Wagner, 45, was critically wounded when he was shot after encountering the suspect several miles away in Mifflintown. Later, Trooper Jacques Rougeau Jr., 29, was ambushed and killed by a gunshot through the windshield of his patrol car as he drove down a road in nearby Walker Township, authorities said.

The suspect was shot and killed after a fierce gunbattle, said Lt. Col. George Bivens, who went up in a helicopter to coordinate the search for the 38-year-old suspect.

“What I witnessed ... was one of the most intense, unbelievable gunfights I have ever witnessed,” Bivens said, lauding troopers for launching an aggressive search despite facing a weapon that “would defeat any of the body armor that they had available to them.”

A motive was not immediately known.

ST. LOUIS

An early Sunday shooting in a downtown St. Louis office building killed a 17-year-old and wounded nine other teenagers, the city’s police commissioner said.

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Commissioner Robert Tracy identified the victim who was killed as 17-year-old Makao Moore. A spokesman said a minor who had a handgun was in police custody as a person of interest.

Teenagers were having a party in an office space when the shooting broke out around 1 a.m. Sunday.

The victims ranged from 15 to 19 years old and had injuries including multiple gunshot wounds. A 17-year-old girl was trampled as she fled, seriously injuring her spine, Tracy said.

Shell casings from AR-style rifles and other firearms were scattered on the ground.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

A shooting at a pool party at a Southern California home left eight people wounded, authorities said Saturday.

Authorities were dispatched shortly after midnight in Carson, California, south of Los Angeles, KABC-TV reported.

The victims range in age from 16 to 24, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. They were taken to hospitals and two were listed in critical condition, the statement said.

Authorities said they found another 16-year-old boy with a gunshot wound when they responded to a call about a vehicle that crashed into a wall nearby.

BALTIMORE

Six people were injured in a Friday night shooting in Baltimore. All were expected to survive.

Officers heard gunshots in the north of the city just before 9 p.m. and found three men with numerous gunshot wounds. Medics took them to area hospitals for treatment.

Police later learned of three additional victims who walked into area hospitals with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.

The wounded ranged in age from 17 to 26, Baltimore Police Department spokesperson Lindsey Eldridge said.

Those are the first words you hear at the beginning of this month’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” an otherworldly meditation on multiple realities and how our lives might unfold. The message is clear from the get-go: We have choices. Things could be malleable. You are you, sure. But wait — you might also be you and you and you.

The world is a stressful, sometimes lonely place — and more so at a moment when “It wasn’t supposed to be this way” has become a not-uncommon mantra. But what if things could turn out another way? What if, somewhere, they had? Enter the realm of the multiverse and alternate realities, one of the most glorified canvases in popular culture's recent years — and a repository for the ache and longing of living in an era of uncertainty.

Alternate universes are everywhere these days, as the long-delayed opening weekend of “The Flash” attests with its regret-streaked, history-changing storyline (and its multiple variations of Batman). There is a deep hunger, it seems, for exploring possibilities — for seeing what might have been if just one thing had unfolded differently.

“The cultural assumption used to be that the world we live in is the way it is, and that’s the only way it could be,” says Douglas Wolk, who read 27,000 Marvel comics from across the decades for his book, “All of the Marvels.”

“What has happened in culture,” Wolk says, “is that people are saying, ‘Well, no. This consensus reality is not how things have to be.’”

The notion of exploring life’s twists and turns through alternate timelines has been around for a while, albeit in varying guises.

“It’s a Wonderful Life,” the quintessential Christmas movie from 1946, sent the affable George Bailey tumbling into a timeline where he’d never been born to reveal his true impact. “You’ve been given a great gift, George — a chance to see what the world would be like without you,” he’s told by his wannabe guardian angel, Clarence.

In the decades since, that notion has accelerated — a rise in stories that consider events both fictional and real, extrapolating different choices.

What if the South had won the Civil War (“CSA: The Confederate States of America”)? What if Germany and Japan had won World War II ( “The Man in the High Castle” )? What if John F. Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated ( “11/22/63” )? What if the Soviets had beaten the Americans to the moon (“For All Mankind”)? What if 9/11 had played out very differently (“The Mirage”)?

Fictional worlds are more malleable, though, and can yield more content. So it is that imaginary characters — particularly beloved ones with established stories — are toyed with in books, TV shows and movies that airlift them out of one life and into another. It's a concept that cuts across genres, from rom-com (1998’s “Sliding Doors,” where missing a train splits a young woman’s life into diverging paths) to near-musical (2019’s “Yesterday,” where a budding musician tumbles into a universe where the Beatles never existed).

You have the reality where Spider-Man never married Mary Jane Watson (Marvel Comics’ “Brand New Day”); the universe where one variant of Doctor Strange has gone insane ( “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness” ); the universe where a Ben Affleck Batman never existed but the Michael Keaton Batman stuck around and got old ( “The Flash,” which we’re not spoiling since this was in the trailers).

And you have the “mirror universe” of “Star Trek,” whose dark and aggressive Terran Empire reveals the baser instincts of beloved characters. Not to mention the recent spate of “Trek” movies, which unfold in yet another reality, splintered when an aging Spock went back in time.

“It’s a way to explore a problem that’s never actually happened in the main story,” sums up Nic Lemire, 13, a California teenager who co-hosts an occasional podcast called “Marvel Mondays” with his mother, former Associated Press film critic Christy Lemire.

One crowning example of multiverse success: Last year’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which showed all the different lives that Michelle Yeoh’s main character might have lived — with the point being that across the multiverse, her family remains a family. It won seven Academy Awards, including best picture.

Whatever the subject matter, these works are united by one theme: There are always possibilities, for better and for worse, and exploring them is entertaining, enlightening and escapist. That’s no small thing in a post-COVID world facing the ravages of extreme climate events, persistent racism, the rancor of political polarization and the rise of artificial intelligence — a planet where convulsive change can seem the only constant.

“Fictions have implicitly done what alternate universes seem to be doing more lately: letting us explore some reality that’s not actual, for the purpose of learning about the actual world,” says Hannah Kim, an assistant professor of philosophy at Macalester College who has researched why the multiverse resonates.

“We’re bombarded with things that seem arbitrary, random,” she says. “The number of difficult developments the past few years — the pandemic, political upheaval, effects of climate change, etc. — leave the anxiety-riddled person with the nagging feeling that this all could have been otherwise.”

Exploring the question of “what if” continues to be lucrative — to the point where there's an entire Marvel show exploring alternate realities called “What If...?” And while multiple universes are starting to feel spread thin as a plot device, the trope isn't going away any time soon in our single world, where reality is constantly called into question.

After all, if you can remix popular characters in multiple properties while retaining the potential for a reset in a “prime universe,” what is there to lose? Well, there's one thing: If everything is reversible, unlike real life as we know it, how high can the stakes really be?

“It narratively lets you have your cake and eat it, too — you can kill off the character, have an emotional death scene and then bring the character back from another universe,” says Matt Ruff, whose 9/11 novel, “The Mirage,” posits an alternate universe that flips aggressors, victims and prejudices. In its reality, it was Christian extremists who attacked the Twin Towers of the “United Arab States” in Baghdad.

“If everything’s possible, the choices are less interesting. The consequences don’t matter all that much,” Ruff says. “Part of engaging in the real world is engaging with the fact that there’s no magical solution.”

That, though, may be precisely why the notion resonates. Human beings have always wanted to try on other outfits, other outcomes, maybe even other lives. That’s what stories are about. Could we be hurtling toward a narrative era — the immersive equivalent of choose-your-own-adventure stories — where all possibilities are on the table?

Technology has enabled people to obtain most anything — customized, to boot — from the world’s bounty within 48 hours. Who in the network television days of the 1980s could have imagined that streaming would bring thousands of television shows and movies to our eyeballs with the push of a button? So why not thousands of stories with thousands of possible endings for characters and plotlines? What does that do to our relationship with our stories?

“You are looking at a piece of a bigger cultural picture that provides a constant barrage of cultural images that reinforce this idea that we can be better versions of ourselves,” says David Newman, a sociologist at Colgate University who has written a book on second chances. “People want to believe that when we have a problem, the problem is fixable.”

There’s one Marvel Comics offshoot, something called “Marvel 1602,” which chronicles a universe in which Earth’s mightiest superheroes existed at the beginning of the 17th century. In it, Reed Richards, the leader of the Fantastic Four, proposes something.

“I posit we are in a universe which favors stories,” he says. “A universe in which no story can ever truly end; in which there can only be continuances.”

However it might play out, that’s a universe full of possibilities. And judging from the past two decades in the popular culture of human beings, it’s good business as well to keep on asking: What if?

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Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation for The Associated Press, has been writing about American culture since 1990. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/anthonyted

The zoo said Kamau was euthanized Saturday, a day after the big cat was pulled off an exhibit because of declining health due to his advanced age.

The lion was considered elderly with worsening gastrointestinal problems, "and the difficult decision to proceed with humane euthanasia was made when medical treatment options failed to provide sufficient relief from his condition," the zoo said in a statement.

The statement called Kamau one of the zoo's “most charismatic and iconic animals.”

He came to Sacramento from the San Diego Zoo in 2008 and in the years since attracted crowds who hoped to hear his impressive roar.

In 2014, the lion sired a litter of cubs. A few years later, his habitat doubled in size, and a glass viewing wall allowed guests to get “nose-to-nose” with both Kamau and his mate, Cleo, the zoo said.

Cleo, now 18, is in good health. African lions typically live 10 to 15 years, the zoo said, but they can live up to 25 years in captivity.