Thomas Wells ran a half-marathon at age 60 and played recreational volleyball until he was 63. At 65 years old, doctors diagnosed him with mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive lung cancer linked to asbestos exposure.

"I'm in great pain and alls I see is this getting worse," the retired middle school teacher from Oregon said in a video deposition recorded in March 2020, four months after his cancer diagnosis. He died a day later.

Portions of Wells' deposition were replayed Monday in a federal courtroom for a jury hearing a wrongful death case against Warren Buffett's BNSF Railway.

The estates of Wells and a second mesothelioma victim accuse the railroad and its corporate predecessors in a lawsuit of polluting Libby, Montana, with asbestos-contaminated vermiculite from a nearby mine that was transported through the remote town's rail yard in boxcars for much of last century.

BNSF attorneys have denied the claims and are scheduled to lay out their defense beginning Tuesday. They've said that railroad officials were unaware the shipments were hazardous.

A cleanup of the contaminated rail yard in downtown Libby was largely completed in 2022.

The trial is the first alleging BNSF exposed community members in Libby to asbestos fibers that can cause lung scarring and mesothelioma. It comes almost 25 years after federal authorities arrived in the community not far from the U.S.-Canada border following news reports about toxic asbestos dust causing widespread deaths and illnesses among mine workers and their families.

Numerous other lawsuits from asbestos victims have been filed against BNSF.

The W.R. Grace & Co. mine that operated on a mountaintop outside Libby produced contaminated vermiculite that health officials say has sickened more than 3,000 people and led to several hundred deaths.

SEE MORE: EPA bans asbestos, which was still in use decades after partial ban

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2009 declared the first-ever public health emergency during a Superfund cleanup in Libby. It's one of the deadliest sites under the federal pollution program. The agency banned remaining industrial uses of asbestos last month.

Wells said in the 2020 deposition that he believed he was sickened while working for the U.S. Forest Service in the Libby area for about six months each in 1976-78 and again in 1981. He never went to the vermiculite mine, he said, but described wind kicking up dust along the railroad tracks at the rail yard.

"It was dusty. You know, you'd wash the car and pretty soon you have to wash the car again," Wells said.

The second plaintiff, Joyce Walder, played in the same area in her youth before dying of mesothelioma at 66.

Mine operator W.R. Grace repeatedly told the railroad's corporate predecessors that the product it was shipping through Libby was safe, according to BNSF attorney Chad Knight. Local officials also believed the vermiculite was safe, and the railroad couldn't legally reject the loads, he said.

"You have to go back and look at what the information was at the time," Knight told jurors during opening statements last week. "The materials coming from the mine were being used all over town. No one suspected there was anything unsafe about the products."

Knight has also sought to cast doubt on whether the BNSF rail yard was the source of the plaintiffs' medical problems, since asbestos dust was prevalent in the Libby area when the mine was operating.

Tainted vermiculite was used in Libby's high school track, a baseball field next to the rail yard, as a soil amendment in home gardens and as insulating material in homes across the U.S.

The plaintiffs' attorneys showed jurors several insurance claims for tons of asbestos that leaked out of rail cars in the 1970s and did not make it to its destination, and an example of a placard that was put on a rail car in the late 1970s saying it contained asbestos fibers and to avoid creating dust.

Residents of Libby have described encountering vermiculite along BNSF tracks where children in the community often played.

When kicked up by wind or passing trains, asbestos fibers from that vermiculite "can remain airborne for hours if not days depending on conditions," said plaintiffs expert Steven Compton, who directs the private laboratory MVA Scientific Consultants in Georgia.

Thomas Wells' son Sean Wells described his father during Friday testimony as a "wonderful teacher" and "just the best dad," who he could talk to about anything and coached their sports teams.

"There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about my dad and wish I could pick up the phone and call him," Sean Wells said. "He wasn't only our dad. ... He was our best friend. We did everything together."

Walder died in October 2020 — less than a month after her diagnosis.

She grew up in Libby and could have been exposed to the microscopic, needle-shaped asbestos fibers while fishing and floating on a river that traveled past a spot where a conveyor belt loaded vermiculite onto train cars, according to court records. Additional exposure may have also come from playing around a baseball field near the rail yard, walking along the railroad tracks and spending time at the home of a friend who lived near the rail yard. She also returned to Libby to visit family.

After her diagnosis Walder underwent chemotherapy and surgery. In a follow-up appointment Walder's family was told the cancer had come back even worse.

"I hope no one has to see the light of hope pass from a parent's or loved one's eyes, because that is something you will never forget," Walder's daughter, Chandra Zechmeister, testified Monday.

Nike has come under fire after unveiling its uniforms for a U.S. women's Olympic team, with many claiming the outfits are too revealing and sexist.

The designs were made public last week as part of a kit launch for the Paris Olympics in July. The outfit being criticized — for women's track and field — was shown on a mannequin next to the uniform for men.

The women's uniform resembles a one-piece bathing suit cut high in the front crotch area. The men's design featured far longer biker-style shorts.

Citius Mag, which reports on track and field news, posted an image of the outfits on Instagram — and comments poured in slamming the women's suit.

"If the labia are hanging out on a still mannequin, what do we expect to happen to a moving person?" wrote an Instagram user named Alison in the comments.

Another Instagram user, Jessa Hanson, wrote, "tell me it was male designers without telling me it was male designers." 

Commenters also questioned how the outfit would suit a woman with unshaved pubic hair or on her period.

Even a former track and field athlete, Lauren Fleshman, spoke out against the suits in an Instagram post of her own.

"Professional athletes should be able to compete without dedicating brain space to constant pube vigilance or the mental gymnastics of having every vulnerable piece of your body on display," Fleshman wrote.

"Women's kits should be in service to performance, mentally and physically. If this outfit was truly beneficial to physical performance, men would wear it. This is not an elite athletic kit for track and field. This is a costume born of patriarchal forces that are no longer welcome or needed to get eyes on women's sports," she continued.

Responding to the backlash, a spokesperson for Nike told Scripps News that "in addition to offering athletes a range of styles to choose from, we will also have tailoring options available for Olympic and Paralympic athletes at the games."

The Nike spokesperson also pointed out that the outlets were developed in collaboration with athletes, who were the driving forces behind the designs.

In a press release last week, Nike Chief Innovation Officer John Hoke said "working directly with athletes throughout every stage of the design process, Nike designed garments to ensure fit across a range of body types and style preferences and infused real-time feedback throughout the entire product-development cycle."

Hurdler Anna Cockrel was one of the athletes who provided input to Nike.

"I've had the opportunity to share feedback and insights that helped inform the new USATF Kit," Cockrell said in a press release. "During testing, this fit allowed me to move freely and without distraction, and I love how the look represents Team USA."

The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris take place from July 26 to Aug. 11.

SEE MORE: Paris Olympics flame is lit at the Greek cradle of ancient games

Police in New York say the search for a missing 12-year-old boy has come to a tragic end. At a news conference Monday afternoon, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia announced the body of Jaylen Griffin has been found and identified.

Authorities say Griffin, who has been missing since August 2020, was found dead inside a home Friday morning. Gramaglia called the discovery "an absolute tragedy" during the news conference.

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Griffin was last seen on August 4, 2020, when he told his family he was walking to a store. But he never returned home. In the years since, an aged-progressed photo of him was distributed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The Buffalo Police Department’s Special Victims Unit assigned two detectives to the case. Detective Joelle Bence and Detective Jon Weber spent the past seven months tracking down every lead that has come in since Griffin went missing.

Word of his death Monday marks the latest chapter in a story of heartbreak for his family. Three months after he disappeared, his 18-year-old brother Jawaan was shot and killed across the street from the family’s house. Then last fall, Griffin’s mother, Joanne Ponzo, died unexpectedly, never knowing what happened to her son.

“I think she died of a broken heart,” family advocate Kareema Morris told Scripps News Buffalo last month. Morris is the founder of the organization Bury the Violence. “Everyone’s talking but no one’s coming forth and that’s a problem. They know something and they need to just give this family, you know, peace.”

Crime Stoppers — which was offering a $7,500 reward for information leading to the whereabouts or recovery of Griffin — remains involved in this case. Anyone with information can call 716-867-6161, or call or text the Buffalo Police confidential tip line at 716-857-2255.

This story was originally published by DJ Hromowyk at Scripps News Buffalo.

Book bans appear to be on the rise across American public schools.

There were 4,349 book bans during the first half of this school year, according to July 2023 to December 2023 statistics from PEN America that were released Tuesday.

During the entire 2022-2023 school year, the group recorded 3,362 book bans. These occurred in both red and blue districts.

PEN American is a nonprofit focused on the protection of free expression and keeps track of book bans in 42 states.

The organization has been monitoring book bans for the last two and a half academic years and documented more than 10,000 bans since July 2021.

@scrippsnews Book bans in schools reached a record high in the first half of this school year, according to a new report from PEN America. Here are the states that saw the most bans. #bannedbooks #booktok #educationtiktok ♬ original sound - Scripps News

The most targeted books include topics about sex, sexual violence, abortion, LGBTQ+ and race.

So which states saw the most book bans?

Florida topped the list with 3,135 bans across 11 school districts.

Next was Wisconsin with 481, Iowa with 142, and Texas with 141. Kentucky and Virginia also saw at least 100 bans each.

The American Library Association, which also keeps track of book challenges, found 1,247 demands to censor library books in 2023, a 65% surge compared to 2022.

The association also found that patrons and parents are the two most likely groups to initiate challenges.

SEE MORE: Libraries get insight on how censorship, library access impacts teens

If you’re thinking about selling your home, Realtor.com said this is the week to do it.

Median home prices during the third week of April are about 1.1% higher than the typical week, and homes cost 10.4% more than they did at the beginning of the year, according to the real estate website’s data. 

Those numbers translate to about $7,400 more in a seller’s pocket if they put their home on the market between April 14 and April 20. 

The real estate site’s data showed homes that are listed for sale during this week are taken off the market 17% faster than the average week. 

Realtor.com said listings on its site rack up 18.4% more views compared to the rest of the year. More competition on the market could also mean more bidding wars that could drive up prices. 

To determine the best week for selling a home, Realtor.com said it looked at competition from other sellers, how long a home spent on the market, views per property, list prices, and the likelihood of price reductions. But it did not factor in mortgage rates. 

Real estate experts have said 2024 should be a better year than 2023 for home buyers, with mortgage rates hovering around 7%. Some experts believe they could dip closer to 5.5% by the end of the year.

According to Zillow, home shoppers need to make more than $106,000 a year to comfortably afford an average home in the U.S.

SEE MORE: These 10 cities are the best for first-time home buyers, data finds

The Department of Justice is about to file an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, parent company of Ticketmaster, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

The WSJ said DOJ's lawsuit will allege that Ticketmaster "has leveraged its dominance in a way that undermined competition for ticketing live events, according to people familiar with the matter."

Live Nation has drawn scrutiny for charging exorbitant fees and surcharges for ticket sales, with ticket prices often far exceeding face value. Live Nation has faced congressional scrutiny for its practices. 

The two companies merged in 2010 after the DOJ decided to not to block the merger as long as Ticketmaster would license its ticket software and divest ticketing assets to two different companies — Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) and either Comcast-Spectacor or another suitable buyer. The DOJ said that these measures would create some competition in the ticketing market and help keep prices reasonable for consumers. 

But in the years since, there has been growing frustration over Ticketmaster's ticket-selling policies by both fans and promoters. Those frustrations exploded in late 2022 when thousands of Taylor Swift fans struggled to buy tickets for her 2023 The Eras Tour concerts. 

SEE MORE: 'Taylor Swift Act' would target ticket scalpers

Live Nation Executive Vice President Dan Wall recently authored a blog defending Live Nation's ticket pricing policies. His post came as federal officials have discussed implementing new rules eliminating so-called "junk fees," making companies post their "all-in" price. 

"The argument that Ticketmaster is responsible for high prices is really about service charges. The practice in the U.S. for decades has been to break down the cost of admission into a 'face value' sum and one or more fees added to face value. There is a common perception that service charges are 'junk fees' and that Ticketmaster sets the fees and pockets the money," he wrote. "Again, that’s not true.

"Service charges are added to the face value of concert tickets because two important players in the concert ecosystem — venues and primary ticketing companies — get little or nothing out of the revenues derived from the ticket’s face value. That money goes mostly to the performers, secondarily to cover certain show costs, and if anything is left over to the promoters. So, the practice developed to add a percentage service charge to a ticket’s face value to pay the venue for hosting the event and the primary ticketing company for servicing venues and distributing tickets."

Wall said that supply and demand largely dictates ticket prices, and that the demand for tickets to see an artist like Swift far exceeds the supply, which drives up ticket prices. 

West Virginia's transgender sports ban violates the rights of a teen athlete under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the law cannot be applied to a 13-year-old who has been taking puberty-blocking medication and publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade.

In February 2023, the court blocked the state's bid to kick Becky Pepper Jackson off her middle school cross country and track and field teams if the law were enforced.

Judge Toby Heytens wrote that offering her a "choice" between not participating in sports and participating only on boys teams "is no real choice at all."

"The defendants cannot expect that B.P.J. will countermand her social transition, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her schools, teachers, and coaches for nearly half her life by introducing herself to teammates, coaches, and even opponents as a boy," Heytens wrote.

The court ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, its West Virginia chapter and LGBTQ interest group Lambda Legal. They sued the state, county boards of education and their superintendents in 2021 after Republican Gov. Jim Justice signed the bill into law.

"This is a tremendous victory for our client, transgender West Virginians, and the freedom of all youth to play as who they are," ACLU West Virginia attorney Joshua Block said in a statement.

The court noted that Jackson has been living as a girl for over five years and changed her name, and the state of West Virginia has issued her a birth certificate listing her as female. The court said she takes puberty-blocking medication and estrogen hormone therapy. Starting in elementary school, she has participated only on girls' athletic teams.

"B.P.J. has shown that applying the act to her would treat her worse than people to whom she is similarly situated, deprive her of any meaningful athletic opportunities, and do so on the basis of sex. That is all Title IX requires," Heytens wrote.

While the ruling makes clear that the law is discriminatory, ACLU-West Virginia spokesperson Billy Wolfe said in a statement, "as far as we know, our client is the only child currently impacted by this law. If others find themselves in this situation, we encourage them to contact the ACLU-WV legal team."

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey was "deeply disappointed" in the decision, the Republican said. His office said except for the specific case decided Tuesday, the ban remains in place.

"I will keep fighting to safeguard Title IX. We must keep working to protect women's sports so that women's safety is secured and girls have a truly fair playing field," Morrisey said. "We know the law is correct and will use every available tool to defend it."

SEE MORE: NAIA bans transgender athletes from women's sports

In January 2023, a federal judge dissolved a preliminary injunction that was granted in July 2021. The judge also ruled the state's transgender law did not violate Title IX.

The appeals court noted it did not find that government officials are barred from establishing separate sports teams for boys and girls or that they lacked authority to police the line drawn between those teams.

"We also do not hold that Title IX requires schools to allow every transgender girl to play on girls teams, regardless of whether they have gone through puberty and experienced elevated levels of circulating testosterone," the court wrote. "We hold only that the district court erred in granting these defendants' motions for summary judgment in this particular case and in failing to grant summary judgment to B.P.J. on her specific Title IX claim."

Dissenting Judge G. Steven Agee wrote that the state can separate teams by gender assigned at birth "without running afoul of either the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX."

Sports participation is one of the main fronts in legislative and legal battles in recent years over the role of transgender people in U.S. public life. Most Republican-controlled states have passed restrictions on participation, as well as bans on gender-affirming health care for minors. Several have also restricted which bathrooms and locker rooms transgender people can use, particularly in schools.

West Virginia is one of at least 24 states with a law on the books barring transgender women and girls from competing in certain women's or girls' sports competitions.

The bans are in effect in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

In addition to West Virginia, judges have temporarily put enforcement of the bans on hold in Arizona, Idaho and Utah. But the 2nd Circuit revived a challenge last year to Connecticut's policy of letting transgender girls compete in girls' sports, sending it back to a lower court without ruling on its merits.

A ban in Ohio is to take effect later this month.

The Biden administration originally planned to release a new federal Title IX rule addressing both campus sexual assault and transgender athletes. Earlier this year, the department decided to split them into separate rules, and the athletics rule now remains in limbo.

This story has been corrected to show that the court found the ban discriminated against a teen athlete, but did not overturn it.

Even if you have outstanding fees, that text message about unpaid tolls may be a scam. 

The FBI issued a public service announcement warning people to be careful handling those messages. 

Since just last month, the FBI said its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has received almost 2,000 complaints about smishing texts representing road toll collection services from at least three states. “Smishing” is a fake message that tricks people into clicking links to download malware, share sensitive information, or send money to criminals. 

The texts circulating claim recipients owe a specific balance and are prompted to click a link to pay and avoid a late fee. 

The FBI said the texts received are almost identical in language, with similar payment amounts, and appear as such: “(State Toll Service Name): We've noticed an outstanding toll amount of $12.51 on your record. To avoid a late fee of $50.00, visit https://myturnpiketollservices.com to settle your balance.”

The phone numbers the texts are sent from vary by state.

The FBI urges anyone who has clicked a link from such a text to secure their personal information and financial accounts, and dispute any unknown charges.

Text recipients should check their account from their state’s legitimate toll service website or customer service phone number. They should delete any smishing texts received.

The FBI said people who have received a scam text should file a complaint with the IC3 and include the number the text was sent from and the website listed in the text. 

The deadline to file federal income tax returns has come and gone. But if you missed the April 15 deadline, there are still some options available to get them filed and mitigate any potential penalties.

Stay calm and act quickly

Missing the tax day deadline isn't the end of the world. For some, there is no penalty for filing a late return — but only if you know you'll be getting a refund this year. If you didn't file in time and owe taxes, that's when penalties and interest come into play.

If you think you may owe, then it's important to file as soon as possible. You can get an accurate estimate of whether you owe by quickly looking over last year's return and seeing if anything changed. 

If not, and you owed, then you probably do again this year. But the longer you delay, the more penalties and interest you may incur.

The worst of those is the failure-to-file penalty. It's typically 5% of the total amount you owe each month your tax return is late, up to 25%. But if your return is more than 60 days late, then the minimum penalty spikes to $435 — unless your balance due is less than that amount.

Fortunately, the IRS provides electronic tax filing options that can streamline the process and get your return processed as quickly as possible. 

SEE MORE: IRS launches new tax filing pilot program in 12 states

Should I file an extension?

If you know you'll be getting a refund this year and just need more time to gather your tax documents, then filing  an extension is probably your best option. Requesting an extension with the IRS is rather simple and will give you an extra six months to get your return filed.

You can request an extension by filing Form 4868 through a tax professional, tax software or by using IRS.gov/freefile. But again, it's important to remember that it's not an extension to pay any taxes you owe.

What if I owe and still need more time to pay?

If you know you have a tax balance that's due and still need more time to pay, there's no need to panic. But you should still pay as much of the amount due as you can to reduce the overall amount subject to penalties and interest charges.

The IRS will also work with you if you can't cover the full amount owed. Most people can apply for a payment plan, which will still charge you interest, but it's much less than if you don't pay at all. 

The IRS offers a short-term payment plan that allows you to pay off the balance in 180 days or less, plus accrued interest and penalties. Or you can apply for a long-term payment plan — also called an installment agreement — which gives you more than 180 days to settle your tax bill, but comes with higher fees and penalties.

SEE MORE: It's time to spring-clean your finances after tax season

While missing the tax deadline can be stressful, taking prompt action is an important first step to avoid making the situation worse. Remember to just stay organized, utilize the resources the IRS has available, and seek professional assistance if you need more help navigating through the process effectively.

The Department of Justice said a Canadian man has been given a 10-year prison sentence after a court found that he defrauded 1.3 million Americans by operating a psychic mass-mailing fraud scheme.

The DOJ says Patrice Runner was convicted in 2023 of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and multiple counts of mail fraud and wire fraud. The DOJ said he operated the scheme for nearly 20 years, from 1994 to 2014. 

The DOJ said Runner sent mailings to millions of Americans, mainly older people, that "promised that the recipient had the opportunity to achieve great wealth and happiness with the assistance of the 'psychics' in exchange for payment of a fee." The DOJ said the letters purported to be individualized from well-known self-proclaimed psychics Maria Duval and Patrick Guerin. In reality, Duval and Guerin were not involved in the scheme. 

In total, the scheme cost Americans $175 million.

SEE MORE: Teen arrested for Facebook Marketplace scam. Here's how to stay safe

Runner's mailings were largely identical and not personalized, officials said. 

There were some victims of the scheme who made multiple payments to Runner, each losing thousands of dollars, the DOJ said. 

Authorities said Runner lived in multiple foreign countries, including Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Costa Rica and Spain. Co-conspirators Maria Thanos, Philip Lett, Sherry Gore and Daniel Arnold all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud in connection to the scheme, the DOJ said. 

“Patrice Runner’s extravagant lifestyle, born on the backs of millions of older and vulnerable Americans, has come to an end,” said Inspector in Charge Chris Nielsen of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service Philadelphia Division. “The conviction and federal sentencing of Patrice Runner is the appropriate punishment for someone who routinely preyed on vulnerable and elderly Americans. Postal Inspectors will continue to work tirelessly to ensure you can trust that the U.S. Mail is free of these types of predatory schemes.”

Rene Remund and his wife spent three weeks touring Switzerland last September. But when the Florida couple got home, their cell phone bill had jumped higher than the Swiss Alps.

Remund and his wife said they travel frequently and always notify their cell phone carrier before they leave the United States. In this case,  Remund said he visited a T-Mobile store to share his travel plan. He's also been a T-Mobile customer for nearly 30 years.

“They said, 'You’re covered,' whatever that meant. 'You're covered,'”  Remund said.

The couple took a trip that they described as magical. As they toured the countryside and spent time with family and friends, Remund said he never gave a second thought to the pictures and messages he was sending during their time away.

Shortly after returning home, Remund said he received his T-Mobile bill. He looked at it and thought it said $143. It wasn't until days later that he discovered the actual amount he owed.

T-Mobile charged him over $143,000 for using 9.5 gigabytes of data while overseas. Five to 10 gigabytes is considered average for one month. But in this case, it was all roaming data, which cost thousands of dollars each day of his trip.

Remund said he immediately called T-Mobile and waited on hold while a representative reviewed the charges.

“She gets back. 'No, this is a good bill,'" the representative told Remund.

"What do you mean it's a good bill?" Remund asked.

"Well, this is what you owe," the representative said, to which Remund replied, "You’re kidding me.”

Remund then hired an attorney who wrote letters to the president of T-Mobile but got no response. That’s when the attorney called Scripps News Tampa for help.

We contacted T-Mobile’s corporate offices. Days later, someone from the carrier called Remund and offered to credit his account for the entire amount.

T-Mobile told Scripps News Tampa in an email:

We recommend our customers check the travel features of their plan, such as international data roaming, before departing ... if a customer is on an older plan that doesn’t include international roaming for data and calling, they’ll need to make sure they’re using airplane mode and wi-fi when using data to be certain the device doesn’t connect to an international network.

Remund told Scripps News Tampa it was an absolute relief to no longer have to worry about a six-figure phone bill.

Before your next vacation, always check your plan. International plans differ by carrier. The terms are posted on their websites.

This story was originally published by Jackie Callaway at Scripps News Tampa.

Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice is being sued for over $1 million after last month's high-speed multi-vehicle injury collision in Dallas.

Rice, 23, also faces eight criminal charges related to the crash — one count of aggravated assault, one count of collision involving serious injury and six counts of a collision involving injury. Theodore Knox, 21, the driver in the second car, faces the same charges.

The suit was filed on April 11 by Edvard Petrovskiy and Irina Gromova. It claims negligence of Rice, who was driving a Lamborghini Urus, and Knox, who was allegedly driving a Chevrolet Corvette Stingray that was leased to Rice.

SEE MORE: Lawyer: Chiefs' Rashee Rice was driving Lamborghini involved in crash

When Rice and Knox lost control of their vehicles, causing the multi-vehicle collision, Petrovskiy and Gromova said their 2022 white Lexus 350 SUV rotated into the middle of the road at a high speed before it crashed to a standstill.

Petrovskiy and Gromova seek damages for injuries incurred in the crash including brain trauma, stitches for face lacerations, multiple contusions, internal bleeding, disfigurement, multiple contusions and other injuries that “may only be fully revealed over the course of medical treatment,” per the suit.

The Plaintiffs also noted the likelihood of future loss of earnings and mental anguish in addition to the property damage they sustained, which the suit concluded was equal to $71,122.69.

In the suit, Petrovskiy and Gromova claim Rice and Knox fleeing the crash made it “abundantly evident that no goodwill was displayed at the scene" after the pair raced "at extreme speeds well over the speed limit."

SEE MORE: Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice surrenders to authorities after car crash

Despite Rice later apologizing on social media, which the lawsuit referred to as a “moral awakening,” the plaintiffs said by leaving the scene “the opportunity to gather evidence about Rice’s and Knox’s mental state and level of intoxication from any intoxicating substances would be forever diminished or lost.”

“The Defendants’ flight from the scene creates circumstances that could only be motivated by collusion to conceal the whole truth and evade full accountability," per the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs are demanding a trial by jury.

Monday, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said he’s been in contact with Rice and is monitoring how the law enforcement aspect of the case plays out.

This story was originally published by Addi Weakley at Scripps News Kansas City.

Nearly three weeks after Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed under the impact of a wayward cargo ship, crews are using the largest crane on the Eastern Seaboard to haul the wreckage to a nearby salvage yard.

The heaviest section so far weighed about 450 tons. In the salvage yard Monday morning, workers disassembled the metal trusses by attacking them with propane torches and a pair of giant shears that sliced them into more manageable pieces. Rising from the water nearby was the Chesapeake 1000, a floating crane with a storied history that includes helping the CIA retrieve part of a sunken Soviet submarine.

The Key Bridge took five years to construct in the 1970s. Now, it's a race against the clock to dismantle the remnants of a fallen Baltimore landmark.

On March 26, six construction workers plunged to their deaths in the collapse. Four bodies have since been recovered.

Salvage crews are hoping to recover the two remaining bodies once more of the debris has been removed. They're also working toward their goal of opening a temporary channel later this month that would allow more commercial traffic to resume through the Port of Baltimore, which has remained largely closed since the March 26 collapse. Officials plan to reopen the port's main channel by the end of May.

SEE MORE: Body of 4th construction worker recovered from Key Bridge collapse

So far, over 1,000 tons of steel have been removed from the waterway. But the work is tedious, dangerous and incredibly complex, leaders of the operation said Monday during a visit to the salvage yard at Tradepoint Atlantic, the only maritime shipping terminal currently operating in the Port of Baltimore.

The facility, which occupies the site of a former Bethlehem Steel plant northeast of Baltimore, has ramped up operations to accommodate some of the ships originally scheduled to dock at the port's other terminals.

Before removing any pieces of the bridge, divers are tasked with surveying the murky underwater wreckage and assessing how to safely extract the various parts. Coming up with a roadmap is among the biggest challenges, said Robyn Bianchi, an assistant salvage master on the project.

"There's a lot of debris, there's rebar, there's concrete," she said. "We don't know what dangers are down there, so we have to be very methodical and slow with that."

At the same time, crews are working to remove some containers from the cargo ship Dali before lifting steel spans off its bow and refloating the vessel.

"It presents a dynamic hazard," said Joseph Farrell, CEO of Resolve Marine, which is working on refloating the ship. He said once that happens, the Dali will return to the Port of Baltimore. "Getting it out of there is a priority."

The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned whether federal prosecutors went too far in bringing obstruction charges against hundreds of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Former President Donald Trump faces the same charge for his efforts to overturn his election loss in 2020.

The justices heard arguments over the charge of obstruction of an official proceeding in the case of Joseph Fischer, a former Pennsylvania police officer who has been indicted for his role in disrupting Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump. Fischer is one of 330 people facing that charge, which stems from a law passed in the aftermath of the Enron financial scandal more than two decades ago.

It was not clear after more than 90 minutes of arguments precisely where the court would land, although conservative justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch appeared most likely to side with Fischer, while liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor seemed more favorable to the Justice Department's position.

The former president and presumptive nominee for the 2024 Republican nomination is facing two charges in a separate case brought by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington that could be knocked out with a favorable ruling from the nation’s highest court. Next week, the justices will hear arguments over whether Trump has “absolute immunity” from prosecution in that case, a proposition that has so far been rejected by two lower courts.

Smith has argued separately in the immunity case that the obstruction charges against Trump are valid no matter how the court decides Fischer's case. The first former U.S. president under indictment, Trump is on trial on hush money charges in New York and also has been charged with election interference in Georgia and with mishandling classified documents in Florida.

SEE MORE: Trump pledges to free Jan. 6 'hostages' if elected

On Tuesday, some of the conservative justices said the law was so broad that it could be used against even peaceful protests and also questioned why the Justice Department has not brought charges under the provision in other violent protests.

Gorsuch appeared to be drawing on actual events when he asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar whether people could be charged with obstructing an official proceeding if they rose in protest inside the courtroom, heckled the president at the State of the Union or pulled a fire alarm in the Capitol complex to delay a vote in Congress.

Alito, suggesting the government's reading of the law is too broad, asked whether the charge could be applied to people who disrupted the day's court session by shouting “Keep the January 6 insurrectionists in jail or ”Free the January 6 patriots."

He hastened to add, “What happened on Jan. 6 was very, very serious and I'm not equating this with that.”

The high court case focuses on whether the anti-obstruction provision of a law that was enacted in 2002 in response to the financial scandal that brought down Enron Corp. can be used against Jan. 6 defendants.

Lawyers for Fischer, the former North Cornwall Township police officer, argue that the provision was meant to close a loophole in criminal law and discourage the destruction of records in response to an investigation. Until the Capitol riot, lawyer Jeffrey Green told the court on Fischer's behalf, the provision “had never been used to prosecute anything other than evidence tampering.”

But Prelogar, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, said the other side is reading the law too narrowly, arguing it serves as a “classic catchall” designed to deal with the obstruction of an official proceeding. She said Fischer joined a “violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent the peaceful transition of power.”

The obstruction charge is among the most widely used felony charges brought in the massive federal prosecution following the violent insurrection. It carries a maximum prison term of 20 years, but Prelogar said the average term imposed so far is about two years.

SEE MORE: Viewer Spotlight: How we continue to cover the Capitol insurrection

Roughly 170 Jan. 6 defendants have been convicted of obstructing or conspiring to obstruct the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, including the leaders of two far-right extremist groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. A number of defendants have had their sentencings delayed until after the justices rule on the matter.

Some rioters have even won early release from prison while the appeal is pending over concerns that they might end up serving longer than they should have if the Supreme Court rules against the Justice Department. They include Kevin Seefried, a Delaware man who threatened a Black police officer with a pole attached to a Confederate battle flag as he stormed the Capitol. Seefried was sentenced last year to three years behind bars, but a judge recently ordered that he be released one year into his prison term while awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Most lower court judges who have weighed in have allowed the charge to stand. Among them, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, wrote that “statutes often reach beyond the principal evil that animated them.”

But U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, another Trump appointee, dismissed the charge against Fischer and two other defendants, writing that prosecutors went too far. A divided panel of the federal appeals court in Washington reinstated the charge before the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case.

While it’s not important to the Supreme Court case, the two sides present starkly differing accounts of Fischer’s actions on Jan. 6. Fischer's lawyers say he “was not part of the mob” that forced lawmakers to flee the House and Senate chambers, noting that he entered the Capitol after Congress had recessed. The weight of the crowd pushed Fischer into a line of police inside, they said in a court filing.

Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia are among 23 Republican members of Congress who say the administration's use of the obstruction charge “presents an intolerable risk of politicized prosecutions. Only a clear rebuke from this Court will stop the madness.”

The Justice Department says Fischer can be heard on a video yelling “Charge!” before he pushed through a crowd and “crashed into the police line.” Prosecutors also cite text messages Fischer sent before Jan. 6 saying things might turn violent and social media posts after the riot in which he wrote, “we pushed police back about 25 feet.”

More than 1,350 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Approximately 1,000 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury or judge after a trial.

SEE MORE: Capitol riot defendants face incentives for pleas in Jan. 6 probe

Severe storms and possible tornadoes are forecast to affect millions of people across the U.S. Midwest this week.

The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center said Monday thunderstorms could start in Kansas and Nebraska, which could see hail and flash floods and the possibility of strong tornadoes.

Conditions are right to "favor very large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes," the agency said in its Monday evening report.

Supercells are expected over the Plains states, which the Storm Prediction Center says will increase the risk of tornadoes and hail.

Tornado watches were in effect until 3 a.m. Central Time for portions of Western and central Kansas, South central Nebraska, Northwest Oklahoma and the eastern Oklahoma Panhandle and the northeast Texas Panhandle.

By Tuesday the storms will have reached the Mississippi Valley, Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, where forecasters warn significant hail could fall. Tornadoes may also be a risk. The regions at greatest risk will be Southern Iowa, Northern Missouri and Central Illinois.

SEE MORE: Are you prepared for a natural disaster? Do these things now

Unified Command announced Monday evening that it has recovered the body of a fourth missing construction worker.

The name of the victim has not been released at the request of the family.

In a release, Unified Command wrote that the body was discovered on Sunday, trapped inside a vehicle.

The victim was positively identified as one of the missing construction workers earlier on Monday.

"As we mourn the lives lost and continue the recovery operation, we recognize each missing individual is someone's beloved family member," said Superintendent of the Maryland State Police Col. Roland Butler Jr.

This story was originally published by Amanda Engel at Scripps News Baltimore.

The beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons said Monday it will close a women's prison in California known as the “rape club” despite attempts to reform the troubled facility after an Associated Press investigation exposed rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse.

Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters said in a statement to the AP that the agency had “taken unprecedented steps and provided a tremendous amount of resources to address culture, recruitment and retention, aging infrastructure — and most critical — employee misconduct.”

“Despite these steps and resources, we have determined that FCI Dublin is not meeting expected standards and that the best course of action is to close the facility,” Peters said. “This decision is being made after ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of those unprecedented steps and additional resources.”

The announcement of Dublin's closure represents an extraordinary acknowledgment by the Bureau of Prisons that its much-promised efforts to improve the culture and environment there have not worked. Many attempts to stem the problems at Dublin have come after the AP investigation revealed a pattern of abuse and mismanagement that crossed years, even decades.

Just 10 days before the closure announcement, a federal judge took the unprecedented step of appointing a special master to oversee the prison.

Avocates want prisoners freed

FCI Dublin, about 21 miles east of Oakland, is one of six women-only federal prisons and the only one west of the Rocky Mountains. It currently houses 605 inmates — 504 inmates in its main prison and another 101 at an adjacent minimum-security camp. That figure is down from a total of 760 prisoners in February 2022.

The women currently housed at the prison will be transferred to other facilities, Peters said, and no employees will lose their jobs.

Advocates have called for inmates to be freed from FCI Dublin, which they say is not only plagued by sexual abuse but also has hazardous mold, asbestos and inadequate health care.

Last August, eight FCI Dublin inmates sued the Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, alleging the agency had failed to root out sexual abuse. Amaris Montes, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, had said inmates continued to face retaliation for reporting abuse, including being put in solitary confinement and having belongings confiscated.

Montes said she and her clients had suspected closure might be a possibility, but the suddenness of the decision so quickly after the special master appointment came as a shock. 

“It's a signal that the prison knows that they are not meeting constitutional standards to keep people safe from sexual assault and sexual harassment,” Montes said Monday.

Montes said timing on the closure and transfer of inmates was still being worked out, but she hoped it would be done in a measured way.

“I think that the BOP is quick to try to transfer accountability and move accountability elsewhere as the way to remedy the issue. And that would mean, you know, moving people quickly without addressing people’s needs right now.” 

Many of the incarcerated women have physical and mental health issues that need to be dealt with, she said, while other inmates might be considered for release.

On Monday, two buses moved around the parking lot of FCI Dublin. Prison staff moved baggage and carts of supplies between the buildings and buses. An AP reporter did not see any inmates leaving the facility.

A history of abuse allegations — and convictions

Last month, the FBI again searched the prison and the Bureau of Prisons again shook up its leadership after a warden sent to help rehabilitate the facility was accused of retaliating against a whistleblower inmate. Days later, a federal judge overseeing lawsuits against the prison said she would appoint a special master to oversee the facility’s operations.

An AP investigation in 2021 found a culture of abuse and cover-ups that had persisted for years at the prison. That reporting led to increased scrutiny from Congress and pledges from the Bureau of Prisons that it would fix problems and change the culture at the prison.

Since 2021, at least eight FCI Dublin employees have been charged with sexually abusing inmates. Five have pleaded guilty. Two were convicted at trial, including the former warden, Ray Garcia. Another case is pending.

All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal. Correctional employees have substantial power over inmates, controlling every aspect of their lives from mealtime to lights out, and there is no scenario in which an inmate can give consent.

Inmate advocates worry that some of the safety concerns at FCI Dublin could persist at the other women's prisons. Montes said the civil litigation will continue despite the imminent closure.

“The BOP is the defendant in the case. It's not FCI Dublin," she said. “And so we are in the mindset that this did not end our case — that they still have a responsibility to our clients to keep them safe.”

Trigger Warning: This story includes details of alleged sexual abuse, rape and eating disorders.

Two former members of the University of Kentucky swim team have accused former head coach Lars Jorgensen of emotional and sexual abuse, harassment and repeated rape and claimed the school “purposefully disregarded multiple credible reports” of his alleged sexual assaults and “aggressively discouraged students and employees from filing reports with the Title IX Office,” according to a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court. 

The plaintiffs in the case are both former collegiate swimmers and assistant coaches who worked under Jorgensen at Kentucky, including a woman identified as Jane Doe II and Briggs Alexander, previously known as Bridgette Alexander and who, according to the lawsuit, now identifies as male. 

The lawsuit states Kentucky allowed Jorgensen to “foster a toxic, sexually hostile environment within the swim program and to prey on, sexually harass and commit horrific sexual assaults and violent rapes against young female coaches and collegiate athletes who were reliant on him” for a decade as head coach before he resigned last year. 

Before taking over the program at Kentucky in 2012, Jorgensen was a competitive swimmer who represented the United States in the 1988 Summer Olympics and coached at his alma mater, the University of Tennessee, Louisiana State University and the University of Toledo in Ohio. 

According to the lawsuit, Kentucky was warned about Jorgensen’s alleged sexual misconduct in an email from a former assistant swim team coach at Toledo, Mark Howard, right after it was announced that Kentucky had hired him to their coaching staff. 

Howard had reportedly discovered a video captured on a university camera that allegedly showed Jorgensen having intercourse with a swimmer, who appeared to be incapacitated, while he was a coach at Toledo. 

The same day the news broke about Kentucky hiring Jorgensen, Howard sent an email to then-head swim coach at Kentucky, Gary Conelly, about Jorgensen’s alleged inappropriate sexual behavior stating in part, “I wish you the best and hope he does not bring down your university. This is no joke at all and I cannot stomach the fact that he will be coaching women again.”

Conelly replied to Howard’s email saying they would look into the “disturbing allegation” and asked if he could provide more information. The lawsuit said despite Howard providing his phone number for Conelly to reach out, he never heard from him again. 

Howard claimed to have forwarded his email with the allegations and concerns about Jorgensen to Kentucky’s athletic director, Mitch Barnhart, and the swim team’s associate head coach at the time, Derek Perkins, the lawsuit stated. But neither Barnhart nor Perkins replied. 

The lawsuit, which additionally names Conelly and Barnhart as defendants, said Conelly obtained the contact information for the Toledo swimmer seen in the video with Jorgensen so he could confirm if their sexual relationship was consensual — even though most institutions prohibited sexual relationships between students and coaches — and “intentionally concealed the allegations.” 

The lawsuit alleged the university prioritized the potential success of its swimming program by hiring Jorgensen, given his track record at previous jobs, instead of taking action to investigate the reports of inappropriate sexual behavior or to protect its team and staff.

The next year, Jorgensen was promoted to head coach of Kentucky’s swim and diving program following Conelly’s retirement. 

According to the university’s website, Jorgensen was named Coach of the Year by the athletic department in 2017 and guided the swim team to eight Top 25 team finishes at the NCAA Championships and the women’s team to its first SEC Championship title, after which he was named 2021 SEC Women’s Swimming Coach of the Year. 

Jorgensen recruited a 22-year-old recent graduate, Jane Doe II, for the assistant coach position not long after he was promoted to head coach in 2013, according to the lawsuit. 

In December of the same year, Jorgensen hosted the coaching staff at his home for a Christmas party. The lawsuit said he isolated Jane Doe II by asking her to stay back and help clean up, then he allegedly dragged her to his bedroom and raped her. 

The lawsuit claimed an almost identical series of events resulted in Alexander allegedly being raped by Jorgensen following Christmas parties at his home in 2019 and again in 2021. 

Throughout his tenure at Kentucky, Jorgensen allegedly sexually assaulted and harassed Jane Doe II and Alexander relentlessly. The lawsuit details numerous occasions in which other staff members allegedly witnessed the assaults and either ignored them or were ignored when they voiced concerns. 

The lawsuit claimed that whenever Jorgensen heard of concerns about his behavior, he would then threaten Jane Doe II or Alexander, telling them he’d ruin their careers if they reported him and that no one would believe them. 

“Throughout his tenure at the University of Kentucky, Jorgensen exploited his position of power, fostering an unhealthy, sexualized environment for the women’s swim team, grooming female athletes with the intention of committing future sexual abuse and sexually assaulting and violently raping members of his female coaching staff that he directly supervised,” the lawsuit stated. 

In addition to the sexual abuse, Alexander and a third victim in the lawsuit, identified as Jane Doe, claimed Jorgensen kept tabs on the team’s menstrual cycles, routinely asking swimmers about their periods and controlling the swimmers' weight and diets by asking them to keep detailed food logs for him to review. The lawsuit stated this behavior resulted in many team members developing eating disorders. 

Jorgensen was placed on a leave of absence in May 2023 after a swimmer’s parent contacted the NCAA and Kentucky about his “inhumane coaching tactics,” the lawsuit stated. 

It was around this same time Alexander and Jane Doe II contacted the university’s Title IX office separately about the alleged abuse and assaults. However, according to the lawsuit, former Title IX Officer Meredith Reeves discouraged them from formally reporting their abuse and “suggested they probably didn’t want to tell their story.”

Jane Doe was also allegedly discouraged by the Title IX office from reporting her alleged abuse in October 2023. 

According to the lawsuit, the Title IX office staff told the victims their complaints could not be investigated if Jorgensen no longer worked for the university. 

Jorgensen resigned from Kentucky on June 28, 2023. 

In a statement provided to Scripps News, a spokesperson for the University of Kentucky said, “We take concerns that are raised about the conduct of an employee or potential employee very seriously. We review any such concerns before a hire is made or an employee is retained.”

The statement continued, “When issues between employees (or any members of our community) involve concerns over allegations of harassment or misconduct it is the policy and expectation of the institution that such activity be immediately reported to the appropriate officials for review, such as our Office for Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity.”

“Our Athletics Department takes those issues and those policies very seriously as the welfare and well-being of all of our employees and students is a priority,” the statement said.

“In such cases, a victim or complainant is reached out to a number of times during the course of a review. It is entirely up to the victim or complainant to decide whether they want to participate in such a review or not. Part of ensuring the well-being of our people is giving them the opportunity to decide whether they want to participate in an investigation of this kind.”

The Supreme Court is allowing Idaho to enforce its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth while lawsuits over the law proceed, reversing lower courts.

The justices' order Monday allows the state to put in place a 2023 law that subjects physicians to up to 10 years in prison if they provide hormones, puberty blockers or other gender-affirming care to people under age 18. Under the court’s order, the two transgender teens who sued to challenge the law still will be able to obtain care.

The court's three liberal justices would have kept the law on hold. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that it would have been better to let the case proceed “unfettered by our intervention.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch of the conservative majority wrote that it is “a welcome development” that the court is reining in an overly broad lower court order.

A federal judge in Idaho had blocked the law in its entirety after determining that it was necessary to do so to protect the teens, who are identified under pseudonyms in court papers.

Lawyers for the teens wrote in court papers that the teens' “gender dysphoria has been dramatically alleviated as a result of puberty blockers and estrogen therapy.”

SEE MORE: Vatican condemns gender-affirming surgery, surrogacy and gender theory

Opponents of the law have said it will likely increase suicide rates among teens. The law’s backers have said it is necessary to “protect children” from medical or surgical treatments for gender dysphoria, though there’s little indication that gender-affirming surgeries are being performed on transgender youth in Idaho.

Gender-affirming care for youth is supported by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.

Medical professionals define gender dysphoria as severe psychological distress experienced by those whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth.

The action comes as the justices also may soon consider whether to take up bans in Kentucky and Tennessee that an appeals court allowed to be enforced in the midst of legal fights.

At least 23 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and most of those states face lawsuits. A federal judge struck down Arkansas’ ban as unconstitutional. Montana’s ban also is temporarily on hold.

The states that have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

April 15 is the last day to submit a claim for the $100 million Verizon class action settlement. Customers could be entitled to up to $100.

So who should apply?

Those who used Verizon between January 2016 and November 2023 are potentially eligible.

According to the lawsuit website, the settlement applies to, "All current and former individual consumer account holders in the United States (based on account holders’ last known billing address) who received postpaid wireless or data services from Verizon and who were charged and paid an Administrative Charge and/or an Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge between January 1, 2016 and November 8, 2023."

Each person will be given an initial minimum amount of $15 for their account plus $1 for each month their account was charged a specific fee in the mentioned time frame, according to the site.

Verizon deceptively charged a monthly administrative fee that was not adequately disclosed, the lawsuit stated.

The company denied these claims, but agreed to the settlement.

To apply, you have to fill out a form on the settlement website.

The form requires your Verizon account number, last name, and other details. The money will be sent by check or electronic payment.

If you accept the payout, you do lose the right to sue Verizon over the issues mentioned in the lawsuit moving forward.

SEE MORE: AT&T says widespread outage was not caused by cyberattack

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was absent from the court Monday with no explanation.

Thomas, 75, also was not participating remotely in arguments, as justices sometimes do when they are ill or otherwise can't be there in person.

Chief Justice John Roberts announced Thomas' absence, saying that his colleague would still participate in the day's cases, based on the briefs and transcripts of the arguments. The court sometimes, but not always, does this when a justice is out sick.

Thomas was hospitalized two years ago with an infection, causing him to miss several court sessions. He took part in the cases then, too.

He is the longest serving of the current justices, joining the Supreme Court in 1991.

SEE MORE: Justice Clarence Thomas confirms getting lavish trips from billionaire

Google on Friday began removing California news websites from some people's search results, a test that acted as a threat should the state Legislature pass a law requiring the search giant to pay media companies for linking to their content.

Google announced the move in a blog post on Friday, calling it a "short-term test for a small percentage of users ... to measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience.” The company said it also would pause new investments in the California news industry, including the partnership initiative with news organizations and its product licensing program.

“By helping people find news stories, we help publishers of all sizes grow their audiences at no cost to them. (This bill) would up-end that model,” Jaffer Zaidi, Google's vice president for global news partnerships, wrote in the blog post.

The California Legislature is considering a bill that would require tech giants like Google, Facebook and Microsoft to pay a certain percentage of advertising revenue to media companies for linking to their content. How much the companies would have to pay would be decided by a panel of three judges through an arbitration process.

The bill aims to stop the loss of journalism jobs, which have been disappearing rapidly as legacy media companies have struggled to profit in the digital age. More than 2,500 newspapers have closed in the U.S. since 2005, according to Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. California has lost more than 100 news organizations in the past decade, according to Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, the bill’s author.

SEE MORE: Meta threatens to block news content in California if bill passes

"This is a bill about basic fairness — it’s about ensuring that platforms pay for the content they repurpose,” Wicks said. “We are committed to continuing negotiations with Google and all other stakeholders to secure a brighter future for California journalists and ensure that the lights of democracy stay on.”

The state Assembly passed the bill last year with bipartisan support despite fierce opposition and lobbying efforts from big tech companies. The California Senate would have to pass it later this year for it to become law.

Supporters said the legislation would help level the playing field between news publishers and large digital platforms and provide a “lifeline” to local news organizations, which rely heavily on Google's search engine to distribute its content in the digital era. While Google's search engine has become the hub of a digital advertisement empire that generates more than $200 billion annually, news publishers saw their advertising revenues nosedive significantly in the last few decades.

But opponents, including Google, Meta and some independent newsrooms, call the legislation a “link tax” that would primarily benefit out-of-state newspaper chains and hedge funds and further decimate local news organizations. Richard Gingras, Google's vice president of news, also told state lawmakers, in a hearing last December, that Google already made significant contributions to support local journalism, pointing to the tech giant's financial grants and training to nearly 1,000 local publications in 2023, among other programs.

Google's search engine should be seen as “the largest newsstand on Earth,” Gingras said, where it helps connect users to news websites more than 24 billion times per month. Google's search engine holds an estimated 90% share of the market.

“This traffic in turn helps publishers make money by showing ads or attracting new subscribers,” he said, adding that it's estimated that each click on a link from Google is worth 5 cents to 7 cents to a news website.

SEE MORE: Where Gen Z gets its news: Social media

Google's decision to temporarily remove links to news websites is not a new tactic for tech giants to use when pushing back on unwanted legislation. When Canada and Australia passed similar laws to promote journalism, Meta — the company that owns Facebook and Instagram — responded by blocking content from Canadian publishers on its sites in Canada. The company made similar threats to U.S. Congress and California lawmakers last year. Google had threatened to do the same in Canada. But in November, Google agreed to pay 100 million Canadian dollars ($74 million U.S. dollars) to the news industry.

News publishers would suffer and could lay off more journalists if Google completely blocks content from its search, but experts say Google also would take a financial hit without news content.

“Google would be damaging itself enormously if it decided to stop using newspaper content,” Brandon Kressin, an antitrust attorney representing News Media Alliance and other news publishers, told lawmakers in a December hearing. “They would be cutting off their nose to spite their own face.”

The political wrangling over Google’s dominant search engine can throttle access to various news sources comes against the backdrop of legal trouble that could culminate in decisions that undercut the company’s internet empire.

After presenting evidence to support its allegations that Google has been abusing its power to stifle competition and innovation during the biggest antitrust trial in a quarter century, lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department will present its closing arguments next month to a federal judge who is expected to issue a decision in the case later this year.

Following another antitrust trial that ended in December, a federal jury concluded Google had turned its app store for smartphones running on its Android software into an illegal monopoly that limited consumer choices while enriching the company through unfairly high commissions charged for in-app purchases. A hearing on the changes that Google will have to make resulting from that verdict is also scheduled to occur next month.

California has attempted to boost local journalism through various initiatives, including a $25 million multiyear, state-funded program in partnership with UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism to place 40 early-career journalists in local newsrooms annually. Lawmakers are also considering another proposal that would expand tax credits for local news organizations this year.

The armorer on the movie set for "Rust" was sentenced to 18 months in prison Monday. 

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted in March of involuntary manslaughter for the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. 

Gutierrez-Reed sat through hours of emotional victim impact statements during Monday's hearing, appearing downcast and tearful at times. 

In a recorded video from Ukraine, Hutchins' mother talked about how difficult this time has been for her, according to a translation provided by the court. 

Gutierrez-Reed offered a brief apology during the hearing, but New Mexico District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said she lacked remorse. 

"The word remorse, a deep regret coming from a sense of guilt for passed wrongs, that is not you," she said. 

Gutierrez-Reed was in charge of weapons on the New Mexico set of the Western movie starring Alec Baldwin. The actor was holding the gun that went off, striking Hutchins and director Joel Souza, who survived. 

Baldwin is also charged with involuntary manslaughter. He has pleaded not guilty. In an interview following the shooting, Baldwin has maintained that he cocked the hammer of the gun but did not pull the trigger, claiming the gun malfunctioned. Baldwin is set to go on trial in July. 

Two visitors to Lake Mead National Recreation Area could face federal charges after a video circulating online shows them destroying ancient rock formations, park rangers said. 

The incident happened on the evening of April 7 off the Redstone Dunes Trail in the Nevada park, officials said in a social media post. 

The two suspects, who appear to be men, are seen in the video scaling rock formations and pushing slabs of the iconic red sandstone to the ground. 

The National Park Service said the men may face federal charges that could result in hefty fines or jail time. National parks, forests and recreation areas are protected under federal regulations. 

Anyone who may have information that could help investigators is encouraged to submit a tip by phone at (888) 653-0009, online or via email to nps_isb@nps.gov. 

Lake Mead is the first and largest national recreation area, with 1.5 million acres of mountains, canyons and two lakes. It’s located about 30 miles east of Las Vegas and is a popular spot for tourists to take in views of the Hoover Dam or hike around the Mojave Desert. 

The body of O.J. Simpson, who died last week at the age of 76, will reportedly be cremated this week and there are no plans to have his brain donated for research.

Malcolm LaVergne, a longtime Simpson attorney and executor of the former NFL star's estate, said he has signed off for his body to be cremated Tuesday, according to NBC News. Despite requests, LaVergne said the family did not approve of having Simpson's brain examined for CTE — a degenerative neurological disease mainly affecting athletes who have suffered repeated concussions and brain injuries.

SEE MORE: Executor of O.J. Simpson's estate plans to fight payout

Simpson rose to fame in the late 1960s because of his skills on the football field, and he captured the attention of the nation again after the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994. Simpson was charged with their murders just days after the two were found dead, but was ultimately acquitted in what was dubbed the "trial of the century."

The jury's 1995 decision after the lengthy publicized trial was and still is considered controversial, particularly after Simpson was found liable for the deaths three years later in a civil suit from the victims' families, after which Simpson paid little of the $33.5 million judgment.

Police in Oklahoma recovered two bodies one day after charging four people with murder and kidnapping in the case of two Kansas women — a preacher’s wife and her friend — who disappeared in March. 

The Texas County Sheriff’s Office in Oklahoma said Sunday night that the bodies are being taken to a medical examiner’s office for identification and to determine a cause and manner of death.

The FBI took part in recovering the bodies.

Veronica Butler, 27, and Jillian Kelley, 39, were driving in Oklahoma on March 30 to pick up Butler’s children from a birthday party when the two failed to show up. The vehicle they had been traveling in was found abandoned near Highway 95 and Road L in Texas County. Police said there was evidence to indicate foul play.

Two men and two women — 43-year-old Tad Bert Cullum, 54-year-old Tifany Machel Adams, 50-year-old Cole Earl Twombly and 44-year-old Cora Twombly — were arrested Saturday and charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree.

The two unidentified bodies were recovered Sunday. 

An investigation remains ongoing. 

Colorado's Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has passed a bill that would ban the sale and transfer of semiautomatic firearms.

House Bill 1292 was passed Sunday with a 35-27 vote along party lines. It now heads to the state Senate, where it is expected to face challenges.

The bill would allow lawmakers to define the term "assault weapon" and ban such weapons from being manufactured, sold, imported, purchased or transferred in the state of Colorado. It would also prohibit people from possessing rapid-fire trigger activators, which increase the speed at which a gun fires. 

Those in violation of the ban could be fined $250,000 for the first offense and $500,000 for any subsequent violations.

SEE MORE: Colorado lawmaker leaves loaded pistol in state Capitol bathroom

However, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis — a Democrat — has already expressed skepticism about the ban. A similar bill was rejected by Democrats last year after lawmakers feared breaking promises they'd already made to constituents about gun rights and government overreach. 

Republican state Rep. Matt Soper opposes the bill and told Scripps News Denver that it violates Coloradans' Second Amendment rights. 

“I can tell you from rural Colorado, the one thing that people hold most dear would be their property, and firearms are right there with it,” Soper said. “Firearms are very symbolic of our way of life, of who we are.” 

State Rep. Richard Holtorf, also a Republican, said he doesn't imagine many sheriff's offices in the state will acknowledge or enforce the bill if it is passed into law. The County Sheriffs of Colorado has already expressed opposition to the bill. 

“You need to understand that in the 64 counties, I would opine that about 47 of them will never, ever because of those to the Constitution enforce this statute,” Holtorf said. 

If  HB1292 does gain approval from the state Senate, Colorado could become the 11th state to pass prohibitions on semiautomatic guns.

Airbnb wants more renters to be able to share their homes. In a statement posted on the company's site Friday, it said it is advocating for communities around the U.S. to adopt short-term rental policies that apply to renters and not just homeowners. 

Airbnb said not allowing renters to list their homes on the app and website is preventing a large part of the population from earning supplemental income. 

“Homeownership should not be a barrier to entry when it comes to sharing your home,” said Airbnb’s North America Policy Director Mike Signer in a statement. “The vast majority of hosts in the U.S. share their space to help cover the rising cost of living, and we want to partner with cities to develop sensible short-term rental policies that grant renters the opportunity to do the same.”

The company plans to work with cities and states to encourage them to adopt “renter-friendly short-term rental policies.” 

Cities like San Diego and Raleigh, North Carolina, have already passed these types of policies, Airbnb said. 

Most apartments and rental homes have stipulations in their lease agreements that forbid tenants from listing their homes, or part of their homes, on short-rental sites like Airbnb and Vrbo. For landlords, there are concerns about short-term guests not being responsible or respectful while staying at their properties, which could lead to an insurance nightmare. 

Although Airbnb has its AirCover protection policy that is designed to help hosts with damage protection and liability insurance, it's not an insurance policy. 

There have also been short-term rental horror stories, like a woman in Los Angeles who was notoriously dubbed the “tenant from hell” after allegedly living rent-free at an Airbnb home for 575 days because of loopholes in the local rental laws. 

Even if landlords allow their tenants to host short-term guests, the individual cities and counties they’re in might not. Popular destination cities like Charleston, South Carolina, restrict short-term rentals exclusively to homeowners and have implemented strict regulations for them.

In some cases, renters who want to host on Airbnb might have to apply for a special license or pay additional fees and taxes to their local government. 

But Airbnb said home-sharing shouldn’t just be for homeowners — especially when renters are more likely to need the supplemental income, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. 

The company has also pledged a $100,000 donation to the Flagstone Initiative, a nonprofit that helps prevent renters who are struggling financially from getting evicted. 

SEE MORE: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras in listings across the world

Chazan Page, a 20-year-old football player at Tennessee State University, died in a hit-and-run accident around 1:30 a.m. Sunday.

Police say Page was walking when he was struck by a car traveling at a very high speed. He was transported to Skyline Medical Center, where he died.

Page attended Lipscomb Academy in high school and was a Nashville native. He played football all four years of high school, and in college was one of two offensive linemen to play and start in all 11 games, according to TSU's website. He played alongside his brother, Chandon, a defensive lineman, in all four of his seasons.

In a post from TSU, Director of Athletics Mikki Allen shared condolences.

"He helped bring out the best in others with his outstanding leadership on and off the field, positive attitude, and genuine care for the people around him. It is extremely difficult to lose a member of our athletics family, and we mourn the loss of Chazan," Allen said.

Police are working to identify the car that struck Page — they say it is either a red sedan or a small SUV, and it will have significant front-end damage.

Anyone who may have information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463, and can remain anonymous.

This story was originally published by Hannah Urban at Scripps News Nashville.

Former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban revealed on the social media platform X he plans to transfer $288 million to the Internal Revenue Service on Monday, the final day to file a 2023 tax return. 

It's unclear whether Cuban's $288 million transfer was to pay all of his 2023 taxes, or whether it is a quarterly payment. Taxes for non W-2 income earners are generally due quarterly to avoid penalties. 

With a top tax rate of 37%, it would take about $775 million in income to owe $288 million. 

"This country has done so much for me, I’m proud to pay my taxes every single year," Cuban said. 

Cuban made the revelation as he was responding to criticism on social media about the latest round of student loans forgiven by the Biden administration. Late last week, the White House announced that it had forgiven over $7 billion worth of student loans for some groups of borrowers. 

"It should be illegal for a president to buy votes by transferring funds from certain citizens to others he believes are more likely to support him in an election," said Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square. 

SEE MORE: It's time to file your federal taxes ... or an extension

Cuban responded to Ackman's post on X. 

"Like Trump has used Tax Cuts for folks like you and me," Cuban wrote. 

After a social media user said that tax cuts benefited all taxpayers, Cuban said that the cuts mostly benefited corporations. 

"Biden is far from perfect. This isn’t about that," Cuban wrote. "This is the hypocrisy of the point that Trump was not trying to buy votes any way he could, like Biden is now. 

"Biden is just smarter about how he is doing it."

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 signed by then-President Donald Trump reduced the top tax rate paid by the wealthiest Americans from 39.6% to 37%. 

The tax changes also changed the standard deduction from $6,500 to $12,000 for individuals and from $13,000 to $24,000 for those filing jointly. 

The Congressional Budget Office projected that the tax reforms would increase the U.S. deficit from 2018 through 2028 by about $1.9 trillion.

A police officer and a sheriff's deputy in upstate New York were shot and killed Sunday night in an exchange of gunfire with a suspect, who also was killed, police said.

The shooting took place shortly after 8 p.m. in Liverpool, about 6 miles north of Syracuse.

The Syracuse Police Department and Onondaga County Sheriff's Office were tracking a vehicle that had eluded police earlier, Syracuse Police Chief Joseph Cecile said during a news conference.

Two Syracuse police officers unsuccessfully attempted to stop a suspicious vehicle but got the license plate and tracked it to an address on Darien Drive in Liverpool. They requested assistance from the sheriff's office after learning the suspect might be armed, Cecile said.

The officers found the vehicle at the home and saw what appeared to be guns inside the auto. They then "heard what sounded like someone manipulating a firearm from inside the residence," Cecile said.

At least one suspect exchanged gunfire with the officers. The Syracuse officer, sheriff's deputy and the suspect were shot and brought to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse.

All three were pronounced dead at the hospital, Cecile said. Their names were not immediately released.

"We lost two heroes tonight," Cecile said.

The Post-Standard of Syracuse reports the officers were the first law enforcement officers to be killed in the line of duty in Onondaga County since Officer Wallie Howard Jr. was shot to death during an undercover drug operation in October 1990.

Cecile said the Syracuse officer who was killed had been with the department for three years and was ambitious and hard-working.

Onondaga County Sheriff Toby Shelley said the deputy had been with the department for a longer period of time and "was just a great guy."

Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh said, "This is a dark day for Syracuse. This is our worst nightmare come true."

Shelley said police planned to search the house as part of the ongoing investigation.

The FBI is conducting a criminal investigation into the deadly collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge that is focused on the circumstances leading up to it and whether all federal laws were followed, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The person was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.

The FBI was present aboard the cargo ship Dali conducting court authorized law enforcement activity, the agency said in a statement Monday.

The investigation was first reported by the Washington Post.

SEE MORE: Scripps News Reports: Baltimore's Bridge

The container ship Dali left Baltimore’s port in the early hours of March 26, laden with cargo and headed for Sri Lanka, when it struck one of the bridge’s supporting columns, causing the span to collapse into the Patapsco River and sending six members of a roadwork crew plunging to their deaths.

Divers have recovered three bodies from the underwater wreckage, while the remaining three victims are still unaccounted for.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said last week that investigators are focusing on the electrical power system of the massive container ship that veered off course. The ship experienced power issues moments before the crash, as evidenced in videos showing its lights going out and coming back on.

Homendy said information gleaned from the vessel’s voyage data recorder is relatively basic, “so that information in the engine room will help us tremendously.”

Separately, an anonymous source with knowledge of the situation told the Associated Press the ship may have experienced problems with its electrical systems hours before it set sail.

The source, who was not authorized to make public comment, said there had been indications from the ship's refrigerated containers that suggested their supply of power was not reliable. 

The Biden administration announced billions of dollars in new funding for Samsung Electronics to boost U.S. computer chip production.

The White House announced Monday that it has reached an agreement with the South Korea-based company to provide $6.4 billion in direct federal funding to develop a semiconductor manufacturing cluster in central Texas. The grant is part of President Joe Biden's CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law in 2022 to boost domestic development of chip manufacturing facilities.

SEE MORE: Program helps students become semiconductor technicians in 10 days

The Commerce Department said the new funding, paired with private money, is expected to exceed $40 billion of investment in the region that will be split across several projects in Taylor, Texas, and Austin, Texas. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the investment will also help create tens of thousands of "good-paying" jobs.

"Proposed CHIPS investments like the ones we are announcing today will be a catalyst for continued private sector investments to help secure the long-term stability we need to put America at the beginning of our semiconductor supply chain and to safeguard a strong resilient ecosystem here at home," Raimondo said in a statement. "The chips that Samsung will be making in Texas are important components to our most advanced technologies, from artificial intelligence to high-performance computing and 5G communications."

Right now, more than 90% of advanced chips come from Taiwan, which officials have framed as an economic and national security risk for the U.S. The chips are used in everything from consumer goods and vehicles to military applications. 

Monday marks the deadline for individuals to file their 2023 federal taxes without facing penalties and late fees. 

If you need more time to file, the Internal Revenue Service says there are options, but utilizing those options could be costly. The IRS said filers can seek an extension that gives them until Oct. 15 to file. Extensions must be requested by tax deadline day. 

The IRS said penalties and interest will increase until the tax balance is paid in full. The IRS also says it can set up payment plans for those struggling to pay back taxes, but again, penalties and interest will apply in those cases. 

The IRS estimates that 19 million Americans will file for extensions this year. As of earlier this month, 101.8 million Americans had filed a tax return, of which 66.8 million garnered a refund. 

The IRS says the average refund check this year has been $3,011, which is up from $2,878 this time a year ago. 

Last year, the IRS said 162 million Americans filed a tax return. 

SEE MORE: Tax day is Monday. Here's how to reduce stress and get your taxes done

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is touting improvements made to the IRS via the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided a boost to the agency's funding. Officials said on Monday that the average wait time this year to reach someone with the IRS has been three minutes, which is down from an average of 28 minutes in 2022. 

The White House said call volume is up 17% to the IRS this year compared to 2023. 

The IRS has been working to hire 87,000 new employees after the agency struggled to answer customer service questions during the pandemic. This comes as the IRS garnered $80 billion in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress in 2022. Of that amount, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that $60 billion will be spent on enforcement.

The additional IRS funding has drawn scrutiny from Republicans who fear the added staff will increase the number of audits on middle-class Americans. The IRS said it intends to keep the audit rate the same for those earning over $400,000 a year.

Eleven people standing outside a family gathering Saturday night were shot including a young girl who was killed in what Chicago police believe was gang-related violence on the city's South Side, police said Sunday.

Four victims were children. An 8-year-old girl was shot in the head and died, while a 1-year-old boy and an 8-year-old boy were each shot multiple times and listed in critical condition. A 9-year-old boy was also injured with a graze wound to his finger and hospitalized, police said Sunday.

The department's Sunday statement updated the number of shooting victims to 11 from 8 and gave new ages for the victims compared with a news conference late Saturday.

No one was in custody Sunday.

Department Deputy Chief Don Jerome told reporters Saturday that the shooting happened when shots were fired at a crowd standing outside a family gathering around 9 p.m.

"This was not a random act of violence. It was likely gang-related," Jerome said. "The offenders' actions, make no mistake, are horrific and unacceptable in our city."

Police responding to a gunfire alert applied tourniquets and chest seals to victims, who also included adults between the ages of 19 and 40, Jerome said.

A 36-year-old man who was shot in the arms and back was listed in critical condition. The other adults were listed in good condition, police said Sunday.

The investigation was still in the preliminary stages but witnesses told police that a black sedan approached and someone fired shots into the crowd before fleeing, police said Sunday. Jerome also told reporters Saturday that witness accounts described two possible shooters on foot.

The wife of a former Harvard Medical School morgue manager has pleaded guilty to a federal charge after investigators said she shipped stolen human body parts — including hands, feet and heads — to buyers.

Denise Lodge, 64, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania to a charge of interstate transportation of stolen goods, according to court records.

Federal prosecutors last year announced charges against Lodge, her husband Cedric and five other people in an alleged scheme in which a nationwide network of people bought and sold human remains stolen from Harvard and a mortuary in Arkansas.

Prosecutors allege that Denise Lodge negotiated online sales of a number of items between 2028 and March 2020 including two dozen hands, two feet, nine spines, portions of skulls, five dissected human faces and two dissected heads, PennLive.com reported.

Authorities said dissected portions of cadavers donated to the school were taken between 2018 and early 2023 without the school's knowledge or permission. A Pennsylvania man, Jeremy Pauley of Thompson, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last year to conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property.

Denise Lodge's attorney, Hope Lefeber, told WBUR in an interview in February that her client's husband "was doing this and she just kind of went along with it." She said "what happened here is wrong" but no one lost money and the matter was "more of a moral and ethical dilemma ... than a criminal case."

Bodies donated to Harvard Medical School are used for education, teaching or research purposes. Once they are no longer needed, the cadavers are usually cremated and the ashes are returned to the donor's family or buried in a cemetery.

SEE MORE: Harvard removes human skin binding from a book in its library

A small earthquake shook the Southern California desert Saturday near Coachella, where the famous music festival is being held this weekend. No damage or injuries were reported.

The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 3.8, hit at 9:08 a.m. about 8 miles northeast of Borrego Springs in Riverside County, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The epicenter was about 20 miles southeast of Coachella. It struck at a depth of about 7 miles, the USGS said.

A dispatcher with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said there were no calls reporting any problems from the quake.

President Joe Biden has won both the Wyoming and Alaska primaries moving him further towards claiming the Democratic party nomination in the race for reelection to the White House, state election officials announced on Saturday. 

DDHQ reported that both the Alaska Democratic Party and the Wyoming Democratic county parties said President Biden won those state primaries based on results election officials provided. 

SEE MORE: Trump challenges Biden to debate after dodging GOP rivals

President Biden had essentially nabbed the Democratic nomination with his Georgia primary win on March 12, the Associated Press reported. It is very likely that the current president will face former President Donald Trump, a Republican, in November. 

As Scripps News reported, the Supreme Court ruled that states can't disqualify former President Donald Trump from the ballot. President Biden, 81, has sought support as he prepares to face former President Trump once again in the 2024 race for the White House. 

The primary wins in Alaska and Wyoming — two very sparsely populated U.S. states — will play a very small role in general election voting.

The world's oldest living conjoined twins — Lori and George Schappell — have died. They were from the United States, and died at 62. 

The twins were listed — and their story followed — by Guinness World Records. They died on April 7 at a hospital in Pennsylvania. They were born on Sept. 18, 1961, West Reading, Pennsylvania and both graduated from high school and took college classes. 

SEE MORE: Formerly conjoined twins head home after risky procedure

Their obituaries were published by a funeral home who named them as Lori L. Schappell and Dori A. Schappel, the children of Franklin G. Schappell, Perry Twp., and the late Ruth G. (Reppert) Schappell.

The twins died at exactly the age of 62 years and 202 days old, Guinness said. 

The two had partially fused skulls and shared 30% of their brains along with vital blood vessels. 

George had spina bifida, while Lori lived as an able-bodied adult. The siblings lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Pennsylvania and each had their own room and would alternate spending nights in each to work and preserve as much of their independence as possible, Guinness wrote. 

In their obituary, the funeral home wrote that they tried to live as independently as possible with one of the siblings performing as a country singer at various gigs across the United States. 

Lori was a trophy-winning bowler. 

A large group of river barges broke loose and floated down the Ohio River in Pittsburgh, damaging a marina and prompting at least one bridge closure before the boats were pinned to the riverbank or went over a dam downstream, officials said.

Pittsburgh police, fire and emergency medical services responded around 11:25 p.m. Friday to reports of the barges "floating uncontrolled" down the river, Pittsburgh Public Safety said in a statement. The area had been hit by flooding after heavy rains Thursday.

Cmdr. Justin Jolley of the Coast Guard marine safety unit in Pittsburgh said that 26 barges broke free from moorings near a bridge and that 11 were quickly contained to one side by another towing vessel just downstream. Nine others were collected at the Emsworth lock and dam downstream.

Five or six barges went through the dam. Four ended up just downstream at a lock and dam, while another ended up on the bank of the river and was stabilized. Marine safety units were searching for one barge unaccounted for, Jolley said.

No injuries were reported, and there were no reports of damage to bridges or to Army Corps locks and dams, Jolley said. Pittsburgh public safety officials reported damage to Peggy's Harbor, a marina on the river. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the McKees Rocks Bridge was closed as a precaution but later reopened following inspection.

Twenty-three of the barges were carrying dry cargo, mostly coal, and at least one was loaded with fertilizer, according to the owner, Jolley said. Three were empty. There were no hazardous materials on any of the vessels, the city said.

The Coast Guard put out a broadcast notice to mariners to inform them about the potential hazard, but high water conditions were preventing traffic on the river, Jolley said.

The barges were owned or operated by Campbell Transportation Co., the city's statement said. Jolley said Coast Guard officials were working with the owner on a salvage plan. Pennsylvania State Police and other agencies were also alerted.

SEE MORE: 'Foolishness': How Baltimore bridge conspiracy theories obscured facts

President Joe Biden returned to Washington on Saturday to consult with his national security team about events in the Middle East as tensions in the region elevate even further amid threats from Iran. 

On Saturday Israel's military said Iran had launched drones toward Israel that were expected to arrive within hours of their launch. 

Earlier this week Israel's foreign minister made strong statements warning that his country would strike Iran directly if the Islamic Republic attacked its territory. 

President Biden was on a weekend trip to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware when he returned to the White House Saturday afternoon. 

The White House later released a statement acknowledging "airborne strikes" against Israel were started, and said the president's national security team members were in constant contact with Israeli officials. 

The White House said Saturday afternoon "this attack is likely to unfold over a number of hours." 

The statement said, "President Biden has been clear: our support for Israel's security is ironclad. The United States will stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran."

The president was seen boarding Marine One after leaving Gordons Pond in Rehoboth Beach, headed back to Washington. His motorcade was seen later arriving in Washington to head back to the White House. 

SEE MORE: Hunter Biden's bid to dismiss gun case rejected by judge

Israel Katz said in a post on X in both Farsi and Hebrew, "If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack in Iran."

Gallant said, "we are determined to take any measures required to defend the citizens of the State of Israel."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "We appreciate the U.S. standing alongside Israel, as well as the support of Britain, France and many other countries. We have determined a clear principle: Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We will defend ourselves against any threat and will do so level-headedly and with determination."

The statement said Israel has "added new capabilities — on land, in the air, at sea" in its "intelligence directorate, within the State of Israel and together with" partners "led by the United States."

On Saturday commandos from Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard were seen in video boarding a ship from a helicopter. The vessel was an Israeli-affiliated container ship near the Strait of Hormuz. Commandos seized the vessel Saturday, the Associated Press reported. 

Iran vowed to retaliate after Israel attacked its embassy compound in Damascus, Syria last week. 

President Biden told reporters on Friday he expected a possible attack on Israel to happen "sooner rather than later." 

Tensions have been high in the Middle East since the conflict between Israel and Hamas flared up after the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel. 

In late January President Biden vowed to respond after three American troops were killed and dozens were injured in a drone strike in Jordan near the Syrian border. 

A bird flu outbreak in U.S. dairy cows has grown to affect more than two dozen herds in eight states, just weeks after the nation's largest egg producer found the virus in its chickens.

Health officials stress that the risk to the public is low and that the U.S. food supply remains safe and stable.

"At this time, there continues to be no concern that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health, or that it affects the safety of the interstate commercial milk supply," the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a statement.

Here's what you need to know about bird flu and food:

Which states have found bird flu in dairy cows? 

As of Friday, the strain of bird flu that has killed millions of wild birds in recent years has been found in at least 26 dairy herds in eight U.S. states: Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and South Dakota.

The virus, known as Type A H5N1, has been detected in a range of mammals over the last few years, but this is the first time it has been found in cattle, according to federal health and animal agencies. Genetic analysis of the virus does not show that it has changed to spread more easily in people, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

How is bird flu affecting food production? 

Agriculture officials in at least 17 states have restricted imports of dairy cattle from states where the virus has been detected, but, so far, government agencies say it's had little effect on commercial milk production. Officials believe cows likely have been infected by exposure to wild birds, but said cow-to-cow spread "cannot be ruled out."

Farmers are testing cows that show symptoms of infection, including sharply reduced milk supply and lethargy. Animals that show signs or test positive for illness are being separated from other animals on the farms. The animals appear to recover within two weeks.

U.S. egg producers are watching the situation closely after bird flu was detected in chickens in Texas and Michigan. Millions of birds have been killed, but the FDA said the risk of affected eggs getting into the retail market or causing infections in humans is low because of federal inspections and other safeguards.

Does pasteurization kill bird flu? 

Scientists say there's no evidence to suggest that people can contract the virus by consuming food that's been pasteurized, or heat-treated — or properly cooked."It's not a food safety concern," said Lee-Ann Jaykus, an emeritus food microbiologist and virologist at North Carolina State University.Two people in U.S. have been infected with bird flu to date. 

A Texas dairy worker who was in close contact with an infected cow recently developed a mild eye infection and has recovered. In 2022, a prison inmate in a work program caught it while killing infected birds at a Colorado poultry farm. His only symptom was fatigue, and he recovered.

Is grocery store milk safe from bird flu? 

Yes, according to food safety experts and government officials.

U.S. producers are barred from selling milk from sick cows and must divert and destroy it. In addition, milk sold across state lines is required to be pasteurized, or heat-treated using a process that kills bacteria and viruses, including influenza.

"We firmly believe that pasteurization provides a safe milk supply," Tracey Forfa, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine told a webinar audience this week.

Is raw milk safe from bird flu? 

The FDA and the CDC are less certain about unpasteurized, or raw, milk sold in many states, saying there's limited information about the possible transmission of the H5N1 virus in such products.

So far, no herds linked to raw milk providers have reported cows infected with bird flu, but the agencies recommend that the industry not make or sell raw milk or raw milk cheese products made with milk from cows that show symptoms — or are exposed to infected cows.

U.S. health officials have long warned against the risk of foodborne illness tied to raw milk, which the CDC said caused more than 200 outbreaks that sickened more than 2,600 people between 1998 and 2018.

Still, raw milk proponents like Mark McAfee, owner of Raw Farm USA in Fresno, Calif., said the outbreak of H5N1 in commercial cows appears to have spurred higher sales of the products, despite federal warnings.

Can you catch bird flu from eggs or meat? 

Only dairy cows, not beef cattle, have been infected or shown signs of illness to date, agriculture officials said.

The largest egg producer in the U.S. temporarily halted operations on April 2 after finding bird flu in its chickens. Cal-Maine Foods culled about 1.6 million laying hens and another 337,000 pullets, or young hens, after the detection.

The company said there was no risk to eggs in the market and that no eggs had been recalled.

Eggs that are handled properly and cooked thoroughly are safe to eat, said Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Center for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University.

"A lot of people like runny eggs. Personally, if I eat an egg, it's very well cooked," she said.

Still, Kowalcyk and others cautioned that the situation could change.

"This is an emerging issue and clearly this pathogen is evolving and there's a lot that we don't know," she said. "I do think that everybody is trying to figure it out as quickly as possible."

The executor of O.J. Simpson's estate says he will work to prevent a payout of a $33.5 million judgment awarded by a California civil jury nearly three decades ago in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the families of Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

Simpson's will was filed Friday in a Clark County court in Nevada, naming his longtime lawyer, Malcolm LaVergne, as the executor. The document shows Simpson’s property was placed into a trust that was created this year.

LaVergne told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the entirety of Simpson's estate has not been tallied. Under Nevada law, an estate must go through the courts if its assets exceed $20,000.

Simpson died Wednesday without having paid the lion’s share of the civil judgment that was awarded in 1997 after jurors found him liable. With his assets set to go through the court probate process, the Goldman and Brown families could be in line to get paid a piece of whatever Simpson left behind.

LaVergne, who had represented Simpson since 2009, said he specifically didn't want the Goldman family seeing any money from Simpson's estate.

SEE MORE: Some of O.J. Simpson's assets could go to Goldman, Brown families

"It's my hope that the Goldmans get zero, nothing," he told the Review-Journal. "Them specifically. And I will do everything in my capacity as the executor or personal representative to try and ensure that they get nothing."

LaVergne did not immediately return phone and email messages left by The Associated Press on Saturday.

Although the Brown and Goldman families have pushed for payment, LaVergne said there was never a court order forcing Simpson to pay the civil judgment. The attorney told the Review-Journal that his particular ire at the Goldman family stemmed in part from the events surrounding Simpson’s planned book, titled "If I Did It." Goldman's family won control of the manuscript and retitled the book "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer."

Simpson earned fame and fortune through football and show business, but his legacy was forever changed by the June 1994 knife slayings of his ex-wife and her friend in Los Angeles. He was acquitted of criminal charges in 1995 in a trial that mesmerized the public.

Goldman's father Fred Goldman, the lead plaintiff, always said the issue was never the money, it was only about holding Simpson responsible. And he said in a statement Thursday that with Simpson's death, "the hope for true accountability has ended."

The Goldman and Brown families will be on at least equal footing with other creditors and will probably have an even stronger claim, as Simpson's estate is settled under terms established by the trust created in January. The will lists his four children and notes that any beneficiary who seeks to challenge provisions of the will "shall receive, free of trust, one dollar ($1.00) and no more in lieu of any claimed interest in this will or its assets."

Simpson said he lived only on his NFL and private pensions. Hundreds of valuable possessions had been seized as part of the jury award, and Simpson was forced to auction his Heisman Trophy, fetching $230,000.

In a new survey of 85 colleges by the Anti-Defamation League, some of the most recognizable academic institutions, including Harvard, were seen as not doing enough to prevent antisemitism on their campuses. 

The colleges represented campuses with some of the highest Jewish student populations in top schools, the ADL said. 

In the latest findings, institutions, including Harvard — along with at least 12 other schools — received an F grade, with just two schools receiving an A. 

SEE MORE: Germany redesigning soccer jerseys with 44 because of Nazi symbolism

The ADL said letter grades will help students, guidance councilors and parents better understand how these schools are performing. 

The ADL said just because a school has an A or B grade doesn't mean antisemitism doesn't exist on its campus. 

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement, "school leadership must make serious changes to support Jewish communities on their campus; we expect nothing less. Along with the report card, we're providing guidelines and resources for how schools can improve campus climate and therefore improve their grades, and we look forward to working with them and other partners to achieve that reasonable goal."

Jewish and Jewish Heritage Greek organizations said the tool would help raise awareness. 

In November, the Biden Education Department said it would take action to aggressively address "the alarming nationwide rise in reports of antisemitism, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and other forms of discrimination and harassment on college campuses" since the Oct. 7 Israel-Hamas conflict began.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said, "Hate has no place in our schools, period. When students are targeted because they are—or are perceived to be—Jewish, Muslim, Arab, Sikh, or any other ethnicity or shared ancestry, schools must act to ensure safe and inclusive educational environments where everyone is free to learn."

ADL said its approach positions it to better assess in future years more universities attended by Jewish students. 

One person died and multiple people were injured when a shuttle bus collided with pedestrians and concrete barriers at a Honolulu cruise ship terminal, authorities said Friday.

The crash occurred when the shuttle bus driver mistook the gas pedal for the brake, Honolulu police said in statement.

The driver had dropped off customers at Pier 2 when bystanders noticed the bus was moving forward, police said. The driver jumped in the driver's seat and attempted to stop the vehicle when he stepped on the gas, police said.

One pedestrian, a 68-year-old woman, died. Paramedics took four others in their 50s and 60s to the hospital in serious condition. They also took a man in his 70s to the hospital in stable condition.

Paramedics evaluated and bandaged six others who declined transportation to the hospital, said Honolulu Emergency Medical Services spokesperson Shayne Enright.

Police said speed does not appear to be a factor in the crash. It's unknown if drugs or alcohol were involved, police said.

A significant number of educators in the U.S. — about 1 in 4 — said they have experienced their school going on a gun-related lockdown in the last year, according to data published online by the Pew Research Center this week. 

School shootings are at record levels. Education Week said the overall number of school shooting incidents in 2023 was the second-highest for any year since the organization began tracking them in 2018. 

According to the CNN school shootings database — which Pew used in its published findings — by early March, 2024 had seen at least 16 school shootings. 2023 saw 82 shootings, and 79 were recorded for 2022. There were 73 in 2021, and during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 there were still 22 shootings. Just 7% of teachers surveyed by Pew in the latest study data said they were not worried at all about a shooting happening at their school, even with statistical data at such a high level in recent years. 

Meanwhile, 31% of teachers said they were not "too worried" about a shooting occurring at their school, Pew said. 

SEE MORE: Pandemic changed older adults' fears, social lives, data finds

The findings showed that around a quarter of teachers — around 23% — said they had experienced a lockdown during the 2022-2023 school year, either because of an actual firearm on campus or because of the suspicion that a firearm was present and presenting some danger. 

Pew found that high school teachers were most likely to report having experienced a gun-related lockdown, while 22% of middle school teachers and 16% of elementary school teachers reported the same situation for their grade levels. The survey data found that around 4 in 10 teachers — just around 39% — reported believing their school had done a fair to poor job in terms of providing training and resources needed to handle a possible active shooter. 

Just 30% of those surveyed said their school performed at an excellent level when it came to providing resources and knowledge to deal with an active shooter. 

Just around 13% of teachers said they believed allowing educators and administrators to be armed in schools would be "extremely or very effective at preventing school shootings." Around 7 in 10 teachers reported believing carrying a gun would be "not too or not at all effective" in preventing school shootings. 

Pew found that most parents — 63% — believed that improving mental health screenings and mental health treatment would be the only strategy that would turn out to be "extremely or very effective at preventing" a shooting at their child's school. 

Downwinders

If you're a movie enthusiast, you've heard of "Oppenheimer" — the Hollywood epic that dominated this year's Oscars about the first test of a nuclear bomb during World War II. But for many in New Mexico living near that test site, the film doesn't tell the full story. 

They're known as downwinders, and they've been trying to convince the U.S. government for years that toxic fallout from that first blast poisoned their land and made generations of people sick.

Now a scientist is on the hunt for evidence of the problem in the New Mexico desert.

Stolen mail

For more than a century, the unofficial U.S. Post Office motto has pledged that neither rain nor snow nor heat would prevent letter carriers from delivering the mail. But now the Postal Service is facing a more urgent threat: crime.

Thieves are targeting mail carriers at an increasing rate. They're after the carriers' keys, which they use to open mailboxes and steal mail.

East Palestine's diaspora

Most Americans probably hadn't heard of East Palestine, Ohio, until a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed there last year, unleashing an environmental disaster and upending thousands of lives.

From the beginning, Scripps News Cleveland investigative reporter Tara Morgan has been following the story from the very beginning.

She's stayed in touch with residents who have called the town home since childhood, but who may now never return.

A federal judge in Delaware refused Friday to throw out a federal gun case against Hunter Biden, rejecting the president's son's claim that he is being prosecuted for political purposes as well as other arguments.

U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika's ruling increases the prospect that Biden could face trial in the case as early as June, in the midst of his father’s reelection campaign. His efforts to scuttle the other criminal case he faces in California involving tax allegations have also failed.

Norieka denied several defense requests to dismiss the case that charges Biden with lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days.

His lawyers had argued the case was politically motivated and asserted that an immunity provision from an original plea deal that fell apart still holds. They had also challenged the appointment of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel to lead the prosecution.

Noreika, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump, has not yet ruled on a challenge to the constitutionality of the gun charges.

Biden has pleaded not guilty. A representative for his legal team didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The president's son has acknowledged struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine during that period in 2018, but his lawyers have said he didn't break the law and another nonviolent, first-time offender would not have been charged.

SEE MORE: In visit to Arizona, VP Harris rebukes Trump on abortion

The yearslong investigation had looked ready to wrap up with a plea deal last year, but the agreement imploded after a judge raised questions about it. Biden was subsequently indicted.

Under the deal, he would have gotten a plea deal in which he would have gotten two years’ probation after pleading guilty to misdemeanor tax charges. He also would have avoided prosecution on the gun charge if he stayed out of trouble. He was subsequently indicted.

Hunter Biden's attorneys have argued that prosecutors bowed to political pressure to indict the president’s son amid heavy criticism of the plea deal from Trump and other Republicans.

Prosecutors countered the evidence against him was "overwhelming," including cocaine residue found in the pouch where he stored his gun, and noted that charges had been filed during the presidency of his father, Joe Biden.

Norieka said in her ruling that Biden's team provided "nothing concrete" to support a conclusion that anyone actually influenced the special counsel's team.

"The pressure campaign from Congressional Republicans may have occurred around the time that Special Counsel decided to move forward with indictment instead of pretrial diversion, but the Court has been given nothing credible to suggest that the conduct of those lawmakers (or anyone else) had any impact on Special Counsel," the judge wrote. "It is all speculation."

Hunter Biden faces separate tax counts in Los Angeles alleging he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over three years while living an “extravagant lifestyle” during his days of using drugs. The judge overseeing that case knocked down eight motions to dismiss those charges earlier this month. That trial is scheduled to begin in June.

The Brooklyn and Seattle public libraries asked a simple question to those signing up for free digital access to their libraries: Why do you want this library card?

What they received was hundreds of personal stories from young people about not just the state of book and library access across the country, but stories that gave a unique look at how limited access to some books impacts young people.

Amy Mikel, who helped design the program, didn't expect to be opened up to so many personal stories of what access to books meant to these young people.

"What's even more shocking and frankly very hard emotionally for me to begin to process was that so many of these young people were simply telling us, begging us for a library card because they had such limited access to books and reading material," said Mikel. 

Last year, Scripps News learned about the initiative called Books Unbanned, started by the Brooklyn Public library in 2022. The library said it was aiming to combat book censorship in some parts of the country. The initiative makes their entire collection available digitally to any young person in the country under 18. Four other libraries have followed suit, including libraries in the Seattle area, with similar programs.

This week, the Brooklyn and Seattle Public Libraries released the findings from asking that simple question. 

A total of 14,050 young people have signed up for the Books Unbanned card from the libraries and they have checked out more than 360,000 items according to program leaders.

SEE MORE: Pink to give away thousands of banned books at Florida concerts

From the 855 stories analyzed in the report, they found that young people living in areas where certain titles have been censored were seeking a card, but others said that they wanted access because they don't have a library nearby that they can access for free, or their local libraries are underfunded and don't carry many books to begin with.

"Say the young person didn't have access to a school library at all, or maybe they're homeschooled, or there's other reasons why they don't have ready access to that school library collection, or the school library collections of books are being pulled off the shelf or is severely limited in other ways," she said. 

They've also received stories from teens who liked accessing digital books because of a disability they have, or they just liked the fact they could check out books without judgment from others.

"Over and over again, we heard people say how important the privacy was to them, that they were afraid of being seen reading certain books, especially those who identified as LGBTQIA," said Mikel. 

The issue of book censorship and limiting young people's access to books has become a growing and contentious issue.

Many across the country believe that elected school district boards of directors or parents should have a say in what titles belong on a school or public library shelf.

In 2022, an Oklahoma teacher resigned after backlash from providing the QR code to the Brooklyn Public Library's Books Unbanned program to students.

Mikel and her team say their findings are important to understand why people seek access through the programs these libraries offer.

Researchers say the effects that the months and years of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns had on us can still be felt in society, particularly with the population of older adults in the U.S., new study data found. 

Research from the University of Colorado Boulder found that today, more than half of older adults spend more time at home and less time out socializing in public compared to how they lived their lives before the pandemic began. 

"We found that the pandemic fundamentally altered neighborhoods, communities and everyday routines among aging Americans," Jessica Finlay, an assistant professor of geography said. 

Finlay and other researchers who worked on the study said older adults appear to be more fearful of infections and find that they're more uncomfortable in certain social environments. 

SEE MORE: Are dating apps bad for your mental health?

Last year, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy made his alarm known when he released a report on the "devastating impact of the epidemic of loneliness and isolation in the United States." The notice, released just days before the U.S. Centers for Disease Control announced the official end of the COVID-19  public health emergency on May 11, 2023, said the crisis of loneliness in the United States had become a major matter of public health. 

Dr. Murthy said, "Our relationships are a source of healing and well-being hiding in plain sight — one that can help us live healthier, more fulfilled, and more productive lives."

He added, "Given the significant health consequences of loneliness and isolation, we must prioritize building social connection the same way we have prioritized other critical public health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders. Together, we can build a country that’s healthier, more resilient, less lonely, and more connected." 

Researchers in this latest study out of Colorado said they began their data-collection with baseline and monthly surveys, and were able to get nearly 7,000 people over age 55 from all 50 states in the U.S. to participate, they said in a paper published online by the university. 

Those who worked on the study found some good news in their data, discovering that at least 10% of older adults said they exercised outdoors more frequently since the pandemic. A small group of those surveyed said they found that their lives opened up more as they went to concerts, classes and other events. 

Religious faith could also contribute to increasing the health of older adults. 

As Muslim's holy month of Ramadan came to a close and as Christians recently marked Good Friday, Pope Francis said many religious faithful were feeling a "sense of worth," that "only the Lord can give."

Researchers on the study out of Colorado found that the pandemic had a significant effect on how much civic engagement adults made a part of their lives. In 2019, a Pew Research study found that those who are religiously active in congregations appear to enjoy more civic engagement than those who are not affiliated with a religion — and that they tend to drink less alcohol and smoke less, habits which are often correlated with depression or anxiety, according to government health experts.

Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and the University Hospital Essen published findings in the journal Nature Human Behavior after conducting a large-scale review and analysis of hundreds of touch-intervention studies. They found that touch can benefit human physical and mental health no matter one's age or current state of wellness, though some specifications can provide higher benefits than others.

The Colorado researchers found that as in-person interactions wane, it could become "increasingly rare" for adults with "differing sociopolitical perspectives, to collectively hang out and respectfully converse." 

The Population Reference Bureau published findings online last year that said data from Emily Wiemers of Syracuse University and colleagues found that adults between 50 and 64 were "more likely" to experience mental and economic difficulties in the first year of the pandemic than those who were 65 and older. 

The American Psychological Association signaled that any attempted interventions into the issue of loneliness might be based on assumptions, because "strong evidence supporting interventions addressing loneliness remains limited. The increase in loneliness associated with the pandemic highlights the need for a concerted effort to strengthen that evidence base," researcher Mareike Ernst said. 

New numbers show consumers aren't changing their feelings much about the economy compared to last month. The University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers data came out Friday, and the Consumer Sentiment Index came in at 77.9%.

That measurement is down 1.9% from last month. The University considers that a small change, saying it shows consumers perceived few meaningful changes in the economy.

One area in which consumers have been paying close attention is in the cost of certain products most families buy. This week's 3.5% year to year increase in the Consumer Price Index was pushed by higher costs for gas, housing and car insurance — but another place folks feel the pinch is in their regular trips to the grocery store.

"I went grocery shopping this morning and I spent 150 bucks," said Hannah Cupples, a private chef and owner of For Chef's Sake based in Colorado. "But I mean, that puts my monthly grocery budget at like 5 or 600 bucks. That's a lot of money."

When it comes to prices, many are finding the cost of groceries hard to swallow.

"I can make one chicken into four or five different meals," Cupples said. "But the other thing that comes with that is I have the luxury of time on that, that most people don't have because a lot of this is my job."

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said this week overall food prices were flat between February and March, giving consumers some relief.

Year-over- year, the Fed reported that groceries were up by 1.2%. But an analysis by the St. Louis Fed shows food-at-home costs are up nearly 25% since the pandemic shutdown in March of 2020.

SEE MORE: Inflation rate ticks higher, could delay interest rate drop

"Of course, there are goods which have increased as much as 10%, or even 21% in the case of say, fruits, for example, or eggs and milk," said Kishore Kulkarni, an economist at Metro State University of Denver.

Kulkarni said factors over recent years like drought, avian flu, labor costs and the lowest cattle numbers in decades have led to increased food prices.

"So, the goods that have to be shifted from one location to another tend to have a much higher price," Kulkarni said. "So, even the California fruits and vegetables are getting more expensive. So those are the reasons why specific items will have a much higher, or sometimes even lower increase in price than the general price."

Savvy shoppers know food prices are extremely volatile. The price of eggs between February and March, according to the CPI report, rose 4.6%.

But year-to-year eggs are down nearly 7%, while fruits and vegetables jumped 2% annually, whole chickens are up 3% and ground beef is 6.2% more expensive.

And for food away from home, the bill is 4.2% up over last year.

"I think restaurants are feeling that more than most places," Cupples said. "There are certain levels of restaurants where things are already out of most people's price ranges that the second that they start to go up beyond that, I mean, you're cutting out 75% of your client base."

A record number of prescription drugs are in short supply in the United States.

A total of 323 active drugs are experiencing a shortage, according to statistics from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

The organization said this is the highest number of shortages since they started tracking in 2001. The previous record was 320 shortages in 2014.

The CEO of the organization, Paul Abramowitz, wrote a response to the shortage in a blog post this week saying, “Much work remains to be done at the federal level to fix the root causes of drug shortages.”

So what drugs are affected?

@scrippsnews Have you been impacted by any drug shortages? According to statistics from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, 323 active drugs are experiencing a shortage — the highest number of shortages since tracking began in 2001. The previous record was 320 shortages in 2014. #drugshortage #pharmacy #healthtok ♬ original sound - Scripps News

The report shows certain basic lifesaving products are in short supply, including oxytocin and pain and sedation medications.

ADHD medications as well as certain chemotherapy drugs are also in short supply.

The ASHP said some of the reasons behind all of these drug shortages include supply-and-demand issues, manufacturing problems, and business decisions.

Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services outlined possible suggestions to help prevent drug shortages.

One of the recommendations included collaboration with the private sector to implement two programs: a Manufacturer Resiliency Assessment Program and a Hospital Resilient Supply Program. The HHS believes these initiatives could create more transparency in the market.

SEE MORE: More local pharmacies expected to disappear in 2024

A former U.S. Air National Guardsman and former city councilor from Massachusetts is believed to have enlisted in the Russian military while he faces child pornography charges in the United States, according to multiple reports, including Military.com.

Wilmer Puello-Mota, 28, was seen in undated video posted to pro-Kremlin media sites that appears to show him signing papers in a military enlistment office in Siberia, The Associated Press reported. 

Puello-Mota is a U.S. Air Force veteran and a former elected official in Massachusetts who U.S. officials say fled the country after he was charged with possessing sexually explicit images of children.

Reports say he informed his lawyer that he had joined the Russian military and could be made a part of its fight against Ukraine. 

In a statement to Scripps News, the Massachusetts National Guard said, "We are aware Mr. Puello-Mota left the country in response to civil criminal charges filed against him. These charges are very serious and led to his separation from service in October 2022. Criminal activity is not compatible with our values as an organization and will not be tolerated in our ranks."

The Holyoke City Council in Massachusetts confirmed that Puello-Mota served with them after being elected in November 2021. Beginning in January 2022, he served as the area's Ward 2 councilor until the end of his term in January 2024, a spokesperson for the council told Scripps News. It was noted that while serving on the Holyoke City Council he went by the name Will Puello.

SEE MORE: House votes to reauthorize FISA spy program amid political pushback

A message was sent out on the secure messaging platform Telegram with a video that appeared to show Puello-Mota at the Russian military enlistment center. A message read, "An American signed a military contract at the patriots center in Khanty-Mansiysk," the Guardian reported. 

As the Associated Press reported, Puello-Mota's lawyer, John M. Cicilline, said he called his client on Jan. 8, a day before he was expected to plead guilty, according to the Boston Globe. He learned that his client had boarded a flight from Washington, D.C. to Turkey just a day before. 

"He said, 'I joined the Russian army,' or something like that," according to an account from Cicilline to the Boston Globe. “I’m sure he joined the Russian army because he didn’t want to register as a sex offender,” he said. 

The National Guard said it revoked Puello-Mota's security clearance before the completion of the civil proceedings against him "due to the seriousness of the charges." The Guard said Puello-Mota willfully disregarded the "ongoing legal process he is involved in," and said before his legal troubles he served as a Tech Sgt. and a Security Forces airman with the 104th Fighter Wing.

The National Guard said that more extensive records on Puello-Mota's service were not available due to his level of discharge from the military and said it had no further information about the case to provide, referring any other questions to the Attorney General in Rhode Island.

The Associated Press reported that Puello-Mota was arrested in Warwick, Rhode Island, in 2020 after police, who were investigating reports of a stolen gun, allegedly found nude images of a 17-year-old on Puello-Mota's phone. 

Rhode Island prosecutors told the Associated Press that they couldn't independently authenticate other videos and still images that appeared to show Puello-Mota in both Ukraine and Russia. 

"If they are accurate the defendant is well beyond the jurisdiction of this court and, if false, the defendant is engaged in an elaborate ruse to conceal his whereabouts,” prosecutors said. 

Congress is facing another deadline. This time, lawmakers are trying to reauthorize an intelligence capability that advocates call an "essential tool in the war on terror."

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, has been around since 1978. Section 702 of FISA was enacted after 9/11 with the goal of making it easier for the government to monitor foreign threats around the world.

The National Security Agency says section 702 is "the most significant tool in the NSA collection arsenal for the detection, identification, and disruption of terrorist threats." In 2022, it was used to collect the electronic communications, like emails, phone calls and texts, of nearly 250,000 foreigners.

"The information goes into the president's intelligence daily briefing. About 65% of that material comes from 702 collections. The idea that we would let that expire would be the height of national security irresponsibility," explained Sen. Mark Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

But data on Americans is inadvertently collected alongside the foreign targets. The government says protocols exist to protect Americans' privacy. But some argue those rules aren't enough and they want to see more reforms.

"Every agency that receives Section 702 data routinely searches through the data for the express purpose of finding and reviewing Americans' communications. The FBI conducted 200,000 of these backdoor searches in 2022 alone," said Elizabeth Goitein, the senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Some lawmakers want to leave the program as it is. Others want new procedures and rules to better protect Americans' privacy. That debate is what's slowing down reauthorization.

One reform considered, but voted down in the House of Representatives, would have required U.S. law enforcement agencies to get a warrant before searching data collected by Section 702.

"The only reason that the government was able to get these communications in the first instance without a warrant was by certifying that it was targeting only foreigners overseas. So if that premise shifts, and if the government is now trying to locate and find an American's communications, it should have to go back and get the warrant that it skipped at the front end," said Goitein. 

FBI Director Christoper Wray opposed the warrant requirement, saying it would slow down the agency's ability to disrupt terrorist and cybersecurity threats. Sen. Warner agrees, saying, "Those who either want to kill this legislation or cripple it with this warrant requirement, I think are just dead wrong."

Congress has until April 19 to reauthorize Section 702 surveillance and ensure the program can continue without disruptions. The House passed the reauthorization on Friday. It's now up to the Senate to meet the deadline. 

SEE MORE: House votes to reauthorize FISA spy program amid political pushback

Up until retirement, most of what you budget for in life is pretty straightforward. You can set up savings goals to put a certain percentage down on a new home purchase. You might have a fraction of your income filtering into a 529 college savings plan for your kids’ education, or a preset number of dollars rerouted to savings to pay for a vacation.

But the formula for how much to squirrel away for retirement is tricky and loaded with lots of variables. What will your lifestyle be like? How much will inflation be? And, for millennials and younger generations, there’s the looming question of what Social Security benefits of the future will look like if reserves run dry in the next decade.

So, how much money do you need to have saved for retirement? That’s the million-dollar question — which most Americans believe will actually cost them more than a cool million, according to a new study from Northwestern Mutual. The financial services company found that Americans think they’ll need $1.46 million saved in order to retire comfortably. This figure is an all-time high, and up from $1.27 million when Northwestern Mutual did a similar survey last year. In 2020, survey respondents thought having $951,000 stashed away for retirement would provide a good enough cushion.

SEE MORE: One surprising state dominates list of top places to retire

The study, which involved surveying 4,588 U.S. adults in January 2024, also found that Americans across the board have an average of $88,400 saved for retirement.

“People’s ‘magic number’ to retire comfortably has exploded to an all-time high, and the gap between their goals and progress has never been wider,” said Aditi Javeri Gokhale, chief strategy officer, president of retail investments and head of institutional investments at Northwestern Mutual, in a press release. “Inflation is expanding our expectations for retirement savings, and putting the pressure on to plan and stay disciplined.”

But do you really need nearly $1.5 million saved up for a comfortable nest egg? Simplemost asked certified financial planners and retirement experts about magic numbers. Not surprisingly, retirement goals are subjective and personal, so while a certain figure may be more than enough for some, it may fall short for others. In some scenarios, you may need just a fraction — about $500,000 saved — for a comfortable retirement, one expert told us. Here’s what experts have to say about the “magic number.”

How much do you really need saved for retirement?

The amount needed for retirement, also known as the “magic number,” depends on personal and financial circumstances, says Marguerita Cheng, CFP, and expert contributor for Annuity.org, an advocate for financial planning.

For example, what will your expenses be in retirement? Consider both your essential expenses and your lifestyle and variable expenses, she says.

Then, you can assess how much income you can expect to receive once you retire. Are you eligible for income from a pension? Do you have a spouse, partner or family member who will help offset living expenses? Other considerations include when you’ll start receiving Social Security benefits. What are your savings and investments? If you feel more comfortable with increasing their sources of guaranteed lifetime income, you can consider annuities.

“Some individuals can retire with $500,000 in savings and investments if they defer Social Security to full retirement age and own their home outright,” Cheng says.

SEE MORE: Retirees are returning to the workforce in droves: Here's why

Others may need to downsize to reduce costs associated with having a larger home, such as property taxes, utilities and maintenance, she adds.

One of her best tips: Don’t forget to consider the impact of taxes and inflation.

To offset costs, some might even relocate to a state with no state income tax. Nine U.S. states have no income tax, according to AARP. They are: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

What else to consider when saving for retirement

Studies often attempt to offer an average or ballpark figure for retirement, but generalized numbers can be misleading, cautions Chad Gammon, a financial planner at Arnold and Mote Wealth Management. That’s because they fail to factor in things like lifestyle, where you’ll retire, life expectancy, how much inheritance you want to leave behind and other variables.

Relying on these average figures, he says, can lead to financial anxiety or misplaced confidence.

“Those who find themselves below the threshold might worry unnecessarily about their ability to retire, while those above it might falsely assume they are completely free of financial concerns in retirement,” Gammon says.

Northwestern Mutual’s findings that reveal Americans’ nest egg aspirations are at a record high comes at an interesting time. Inflation has slowed to under 3%, down from over 9% in June 2022, and 401(k) balances have been shooting up. The average 401(k) account balance, according to figures from Fidelity, was $118,600 in the final quarter of 2023, which is a 14% increase from the year prior and up 24% since 2018.

SEE MORE: The best and worst states to retire, ranked

Ask yourself the 'magic' question

People often ask themselves, “Do I have enough to retire?” But the better question to ask yourself first is: “How much will I be spending in retirement?” says Chris Urban, CFP, and founder of Discovery Wealth Planning.

It’s also wise to consider what type of accounts your investments are in, he says.

For example, is your money in tax-deferred accounts like 401(k)s and a Traditional IRA, which will be reduced by taxes when money is withdrawn? Or, do you have cash stashed away in Roth accounts where qualified withdrawals will not be taxed? Do you have money in regular taxable brokerage accounts that might be able to take advantage of capital gains tax rates in some situations?

To get a ballpark figure, there are a number of retirement calculators online that ask questions about how much you have in savings, what age you want to retire, what percentage of your current salary you think you’d be comfortable living off of and more.

But your best bet for a more tailored “magic number” goal is to meet with a financial planner who can take your unique situation into consideration to help you plan for the future.

This story was originally published by Brittany Anas at Simplemost.com.

A Texas semitrailer driver rammed a stolen 18-wheeler into a public safety building where his renewal for a commercial driver’s license had been rejected, killing one person and injuring 13 others, authorities said Friday.

The driver — identified as Clenard Parker, 42 — was pulled out of the truck by authorities after smashing into a Texas Department of Public Safety office in the rural town of Brenham, outside of Houston, Sgt. Justin Ruiz said.

Authorities say Parker was taken into custody but did not say which charges he would face.

“This deliberate, heinous act is a reminder of the dangerous work done by our law enforcement and licensing agencies that work to provide public safety and services,” Republican state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst said in the statement.

Of those injured, two people were flown to CHI St. Joseph's Hospital in Bryan, one was flown to Memorial Hermann in Houston and three people were transported to Baylor Scott and White in Brenham but have since been released. Eight people were treated on the scene. Kolkhorst said in the statement that no DPS staff suffered serious injuries and one staffer was trapped “for a period of time” in the building.

SEE MORE: Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice surrenders to authorities after car crash

Texas DPS officials said in a social media post on X that the crash happened at the agency's office in Brenham, Texas, located about 75 miles (120 kilometers) west of Houston and requested people avoid the area to clear the way for responding medical personnel.

The Texas Rangers are investigating the incident and there is no further threat, DPS officials said Friday.

Images from the scene showed a large, red tractor-trailer hauling material on a flatbed in the parking lot of the building. The front end of the 18-wheeler was damaged and covered with debris from the front doors of the office. Debris was also scattered out front near a gaping hole in the entrance.

The Texas Department of Public Safety is a sprawling agency and one of the largest state law enforcement operations in the country. It includes troopers who are a central part of a massive border security operation on the U.S.-Mexico border as well as the Texas Rangers, the state’s top criminal investigators. But the department also has offices across the state that issue driver’s licenses.

City of Brenham officials did not immediately respond to calls seeking further information.

“It’s not hard to be safe and card people.”

That's what a Northern Kentucky family's attorney is saying after he says alcohol contributed to a March 2023 incident that left a young man in a coma.

The Smith family is suing two restaurants — Twin Peaks and KickShot Billiards — for serving alcohol to minors and gross negligence after their underage son drank at the establishments. They're also suing FAT Brands for negligence, which is the company that owns Twin Peaks.

“In this case, this Twin Peaks chose not to card a table full of kids. They chose to serve him shots and beers,” said David Barber, the attorney representing the family.

Barber said alcohol contributed to an incident in March 2023 that resulted in Sean Smith suffering severe and potentially fatal injuries. 

After 19-year-old Sean and his group left the restaurants they went to a state park. Sean was sitting on the back of a car when the driver took off, and Sean hit the ground. Barber said he was conscious for a short period of time before he was airlifted to the hospital.

“Sean… broke multiple bones in his skull and in his spine, and suffered [a] brain stem injury that has left him basically in a coma ever since,” Barber said.

He said Sean was with other minors at the time.

“This Twin Peaks was known locally to this group of kids that Sean was with as a place where they can go and order alcohol without being carded, that's why they went there,” Barber added. “Kentucky law says if Twin Peaks makes that choice to serve a minor then they’re responsible for what happens later.”

He said the group then briefly stopped at KickShot after they were served at Twin Peaks.

“The group was served a bucket of alcoholic beverages without being ID'ed and then those were shared. That’s also against Kentucky law,” Barber said, adding that Sean's condition is getting worse. "They’re going to have to make some really tough choices before long."

He said the family's medical bills are approaching $3 million and that they are seeking to hold the restaurants accountable to prevent this from ever happening to another family.

Scripps News Cincinnati has reached out to Twin Peaks, KickShot and FAT Brands for statements. We have yet to get a response.

This story was originally published by Jessica Hart at Scripps News Cincinnati.

O.J. Simpson died Thursday without having paid the lion’s share of the $33.5 million judgment a California civil jury awarded to the families of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

Acquitted at a criminal trial, Simpson was found liable by jurors in a 1997 wrongful death lawsuit.

The public is now likely to get a closer look Simpson's finances, and the families are likely to have a better shot at collecting — if there is anything to collect.

Here's how the next few months may play out.

The probate process

Whether or not he left behind a will, and whatever that document says, Simpson's assets will now almost certainly have to go through what's known as the probate process in court before his four children or other intended heirs can collect on any of them.

Different states have different probate laws. Generally, the case is filed in the state where the person was living when they died. In Simpson's case that's Nevada. But if significant assets are in California or Florida, where he also lived at various times, separate cases could emerge there.

Nevada law says an estate must go through the courts if its assets exceed $20,000, or if any real estate is involved, and this must be done within 30 days of the death. If a family fails to file documents, creditors themselves can begin the process.

A stronger claim in death?

Once the case is in court, creditors who say they are owed money can then seek a piece of the assets. The Goldman and Brown families will be on at least equal footing with other creditors, and will probably have an even stronger claim.

Under California law, creditors holding a judgment lien like the plaintiffs in the wrongful death case are deemed to have secured debt, and have priority over creditors with unsecured debt. And they are in a better position to get paid than they were before the defendant's death.

Arash Sadat, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in property disputes, says it is “100%” better for the claimant to have the debtor be deceased and their money in probate.

He said his firm had a jury trial where their clients got a $9 million jury award that the debtor appealed and delayed endlessly.

”He did everything he could to avoid paying this debt," Sadat said. "Three or four years later, he died. And within weeks, the estate cuts a check for $12 million. That’s the $9 million plus interest that I had accrued over this time.”

The executor or administrator of the estate has much more of an incentive to dispense with debts than the living person does. “That’s why you see things like that happening,” Sadat said.

But of course that doesn’t mean payment will be forthcoming.

“I do think it’s going to be quite difficult for them to collect,” attorney Christopher Melcher said. “We don’t know what O.J. has been able to earn over the years.”

Neither Sadat nor Melcher is involved with the Simpson estate or the court case.

What assets did Simpson have?

Simpson said he lived only on his NFL and private pensions. Hundreds of valuable possessions were seized as part of the jury award, and Simpson was forced to auction his Heisman Trophy, fetching $230,000.

Goldman's father Fred Goldman, the lead plaintiff, always said the issue was never the money, it was only about holding Simpson responsible. And he said in a statement Thursday that with Simpson's death, “the hope for true accountability has ended.”

What about trusts?

There are ways that a person can use trusts established during their life and other methods to make sure their chosen heirs get their assets in death. If such a trust is irrevocable, it can be especially strong.

But transfers of assets to others that are made to avoid creditors can be deemed fraudulent, and claimants like the Goldman and Brown families can file separate civil lawsuits that bring those assets into dispute.

Harvard University announced Thursday that it is reinstating standardized tests as a requirement for admission beginning with students applying for fall 2025 admission. Harvard joins other colleges that are again mandating tests for those hoping to enter the schools.

In June 2020, Harvard began a temporary test-optional policy under which students could apply to the college without submitting scores. The change was adopted as access to standardized testing during the pandemic became limited.

Other schools like Yale, Dartmouth, Brown and MIT are also again requiring standardized tests for those seeking admission.

Harvard had initially said it was going to maintain its test-optional policy through the entering class of fall 2026.

Under the change announced Thursday, students applying to Harvard for fall 2025 admission will be required to submit standardized test scores from the SAT or ACT exams to satisfy the testing component of the application.

SEE MORE: The changing state of college admissions

In what the school called “exceptional cases” when applicants are unable to access SAT or ACT testing, other eligible tests will be accepted, including Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams.

School officials said test scores are weighed along with information about an applicant’s experiences, skills, talents, and contributions to their communities, as well as their academic qualifications in relation to the norms of their high school, and personal recommendations.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi Hoekstra said in a news release that standardized tests are a means for all students — regardless of background or life experience — to provide information that is predictive of success in college.

“In short, more information, especially such strongly predictive information, is valuable for identifying talent from across the socioeconomic range,” Hoekstra said.

The school said that all along it welcomed those seeking admission to submit test scores if they had them. Most of those accepted into the college during the past four years submitted test scores, according to the school.

The school also pointed to research that they said found that standardized tests are a valuable tool to identify promising students at less well-resourced high schools, particularly when paired with other academic credentials.

SEE MORE: Got kids in college? This FAFSA discount is going away

An 8-year-old Kentucky boy died of a fentanyl overdose last month, not from eating a batch of strawberries, authorities said this week. The family had told police they believed the boy had an allergic reaction and took him to a hospital with a rash.

Police in the city of Madisonville charged 33-year-old Antonio M. Person with manslaughter on Wednesday after investigators determined the boy died of “fentanyl intoxication.”

Person was living in the same house as the boy and had fentanyl in the home, a Madisonville police report said, without elaborating on their relationship. Person was charged with drug trafficking and illegal gun possession in late March when police searched the home following the boy’s death.

When the boy developed the rash, his family gave him the antihistamine Benadryl and soaked him in a bath at home, but it did not go away, according to Madisonville police. The family took him to the emergency room but brought him home several hours later, according to police. He died the next morning on March 15.

The strawberries were sold at a high school fundraiser and the episode prompted the county's health department to issue an advisory to dispose of the fruit. On Tuesday, the Hopkins County health department said testing on samples of the strawberries by the Food and Drug Administration showed they were safe to eat.

Person is in custody at Hopkins County Jail on a $1 million bond for the manslaughter charge.

Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice turned himself in to authorities Thursday on an arrest warrant in connection to an injury car crash last month.

Rice's attorney confirmed his client was released on bond after being booked into a jail in Glenn Heights, Texas, a city in the southern part of the Dallas metroplex. A warrant for Rice's arrest was issued by police Wednesday in connection to a six-vehicle injury crash on March 30 in Dallas.

"I want to re-emphasis Mr. Rice’s continued cooperation with law enforcement," attorney Royce West said in a statement. "Mr. Rice acknowledges his actions and feels deeply for those injured as a result of this accident. Our legal team is now tasked with reviewing all legal documents."

SEE MORE: Lawyer: Chiefs' Rashee Rice was driving Lamborghini involved in crash

Rice is charged with one count of aggravated assault, one count of collision involving serious injury and six counts of collision involving injury.

Last week, West announced in a press conference that Rice admitted to driving a Lamborghini SUV that was involved in the crash. The Lamborghini, along with a Chevrolet Corvette, lost control while driving at high speeds and caused a chain reaction collision. Four people were transported to area hospitals with minor injuries.

An arrest warrant was also issued Wednesday for 21-year-old Theodore Knox, the driver of the Corvette. Knox faces the same charges as Rice. Authorities said nobody else involved in the crash is expected to be charged in connection to the incident.

"I take full responsibility for my part in this matter and will continue to cooperate with the necessary authorities," Rice said in a social media statement last week. "I sincerely apologize to everyone impacted in Saturday's accident."

The Kansas City Chiefs had no comment after the arrest warrant was issued Wednesday.

This story was originally published by Steve Kaut and Jack Anstine at Scripps News Kansas City.

The Biden administration is canceling student loans for another 206,000 borrowers as part of a new repayment plan that offers a faster route to forgiveness.

The Education Department announced the latest round of cancellations Friday in an update on the progress of its SAVE Plan. More people are becoming eligible for student loan cancellation as they hit 10 years of payments, a new finish line for some loans that’s a decade sooner than what borrowers faced in the past.

Casting a shadow over the cancellations, however, are two new lawsuits challenging the plan's legality. Two groups of Republican-led states, fronted by Kansas and Missouri, recently filed federal suits arguing that the Biden administration overstepped its authority in creating the repayment option.

“From day one of my Administration, I promised to fight to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “I will never stop working to cancel student debt — no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us.”

With the latest action, the Education Department has now approved cancellation for about 360,000 borrowers through the new repayment plan, totaling $4.8 billion.

The SAVE Plan is an updated version of a federal repayment plan that has been offered for decades, but with more generous terms.

Congress created the first income-driven repayment option in the 1990s for people struggling to afford payments on standard plans. It capped monthly payments to a percentage of their incomes and canceled any unpaid debt after 25 years. Similar plans were added later, offering cancellation in as little as 20 years.

"He's using the law as he found it when he came into office to try to make the student loan system work for people, and it's having effect," said Pierce.

Arguing that today's borrowers need even more help, the Biden administration merged most of those plans into a single repayment option with more lenient terms.

The SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education) Plan allows more borrowers to pay nothing until their income rise above certain limits. It also lowers payments more than past plans, eliminates interest growth and cancels unpaid debt in as little as 10 years.

Biden announced the plan in 2022 alongside his broader proposal for a one-time cancellation of up to $20,000 for more than 40 million people. While the one-time cancellation was struck down by the Supreme Court, the SAVE Plan moved forward and initially escaped legal scrutiny.

SEE MORE: Biden promotes new 'life-changing' student loan relief plan

The repayment plan opened for enrollment last fall, with certain provisions scheduled to be phased in later this year. The faster path to cancellation was among those slated to start this summer, but the Biden administration fast-tracked that benefit early this year, announcing forgiveness for 153,000 borrowers who had hit 10 years of payments.

Almost 8 million Americans have enrolled in the plan, including 4.5 million who pay nothing because they have lower incomes.

In a call with reporters, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the plan provides relief and prevents borrowers from falling behind on their loans.

“Now they have some money back in their pockets, instead of a bill that too often competed with basic needs like groceries and health care,” he said.

"For borrowers that took out $13,000 or less, they get their debt cancelled in 11 years. For people that took out $14,000 or yet less, they get their debt cancelled in 12 years and that goes on all the way up to 20," said Mike Pierce, executive director for the Student Borrower Protection Center.

The Biden administration says it's designed to help those who need it most. Counterintuitively, those with smaller student loan balances tend to struggle more. It’s driven by millions of Americans who take out student loans but don’t finish degrees, leaving them with the downside of debt without the upside of a higher income.

In two separate lawsuits, Republican attorneys general in 18 states are pushing to have the plan tossed and to halt any further cancellation. They say the SAVE Plan goes beyond President Biden’s authority and makes it harder for states to recruit employees. They say the plan undermines a separate cancellation program that encourages careers in public service.

It’s unclear what the suits could mean for loans that have already been canceled. A court document filed by Kansas' attorney general says it's “unrealistic to think that any loan forgiveness that occurs during this litigation will ever be clawed back.”

The lawsuits don't directly address the question, and the attorneys general didn't immediately respond to an Associated Press request.

The Education Department says Congress gave the agency power to define the terms of income-driven payment plans in 1993, and that authority has been used in the past.

Along with the repayment plan, President Biden is trying again at a one-time student loan cancellation. In a visit to Wisconsin on Monday, he highlighted a proposal to reduce or cancel loans for more than 30 million borrowers in five categories.

It aims to help borrowers with larges sums of unpaid interest, those with older loans, those who attended low-value programs, and those who face other hardships preventing them from repaying student loans. It would also cancel loans for people who are eligible for other forgiveness programs but haven't applied.

The Biden administration says it will accelerate parts of the proposal, with plans to start waiving unpaid interest for millions of borrowers starting this fall. Conservative opponents have threatened to challenge that plan, too.

On Friday the administration also said it's canceling loans for 65,000 borrowers who are enrolled in older income-driven repayment plans and hit the finish line for forgiveness. It also announced cancellation for another 5,000 borrowers through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Through a variety of programs, the Biden administration says it has now provided loan relief to 4.3 million people, totaling $153 billion.

The Biden administration announced on Thursday $830 million in new grants to harden old U.S. infrastructure against the effects of ongoing climate change.

Eighty projects will improve roads, rail, ports, transit systems and other surface transportation infrastructure in 37 states with a special focus on those under particular threat from the effects of extreme weather.

The funds will help counter flooding impacts, upgrade stormwater drains, replace emergency bridges, and help cities set new plans to improve coastlines and transit projects.

Funds fall into one of four categories: $621 million for resilience improvement, $119 million for coastal infrastructure improvements, $45 million for community resilience and evacuation improvements and $45 million for planning-stage projects.

SEE MORE: US announces $6 billion for new emissions-cutting technologies

The end goal, officials say, is to make transportation safer from the indirect effects of worsening flooding and fires.

"We have seen far too many examples of transportation infrastructure being shut down or damaged by extreme weather, which is more extreme and more frequent in this time of climate change," Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg told reporters. "America’s infrastructure was not built for the climate that we have today, and the consequences of this are very real and being felt by people in every part of the country."

The funds are the latest to be distributed through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that passed in 2021, which together with the Inflation Reduction Act budgets some $50 billion for climate projects.

U.S. forestry officials got a rare sight when they spotted a small "elusive" federally protected creature, usually around 17 inches long, scurrying across the ground in West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest. 

Seen in dark, somewhat grainy video, the little species, once common to Pennsylvania's mountains, has now dwindled to only around an estimated 100,000 left in the wild, the U.S. Forest Service said. 

Neotoma magister, or the Allegheny woodrat, has "nearly disappeared" in areas where it once thrived, and the reason is largely a mystery. Experts say it could be a mix of factors though, including habitat destruction. 

Scientists believe the gypsy moth is also to blame, because they harm their beloved acorn-producing oak trees. 

Why small species matter

Small species are often the part of an ecosystem that maintain "the fabric of the world around us," as Michael Samways wrote in an article published by Smithsonian Magazine. 

Pollinating soil and flowers, spreading seeds and maintaining the fertility of the land are key results of the behaviors of small species. As Samways writes, animals like birds would lose food sources, and soil formation would halt in many areas without small species. 

Native rodents play a key role in the health of grasslands and the forest, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notes. These species are also an important source of food for predators and scavengers like bobcats, wolves, foxes and hawks. 

SEE MORE: From failed police officer to tiny hero: Meet Roger, Taiwan's fave pup

The Allegheny woodrat is a relative to the packrats of the West, and is more mouse-like in the appearance of its tail and color. They are considered to be largely solitary creatures who tolerate each other during mating season. 

The species of rodent has been tracked since at least the early 1900s when it was determined that the American chestnut may have been a significant and important source of food, the Pennsylvania Game Commission reported. They nest deep into rock outcrops and mostly bear litter sizes of only around two or three offspring. 

In the 1990s a study found that an increase in great horned owls — as the barriers between forested areas and agricultural fields increasingly grew — put woodrat populations under more pressure to survive. And tiffs over den sites in rocky areas and caves between the rodents, and increasing populations of porcupines could have also had an effect on the woodrats' dwindling numbers over the years. 

Addressing members of the House Appropriations Committee, FBI director Christopher Wray put the agency's budget request in stark terms.

"We need all the tools, people and all the resources required to tackle these threats and keep Americans safe," Wray said.

Wray's warning comes in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and the subsequent Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. He said those overseas events could embolden small groups or a lone wolf targeting America.

"Our most immediate concern has been that individuals or small groups will draw twisted inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks here at home," Wray said.

One concern is the terrorist group, ISIS. Just this month, law enforcement in Idaho arrested Alexander Mercurio. In court documents, federal officials say the 18-year-old pledged allegiance to ISIS, attempted to provide material support to the group and planned to conduct attacks on churches in Idaho.

"Now, increasingly concerning is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, akin to the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia concert hall a couple weeks ago," Wray said.

ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack at the Crocus City concert hall outside of Moscow which killed more than 140 people.

"You've recently testified that threats, 'have gone to another level' and foreign terrorists, including ISIS and al-Qaida, have renewed calls for attacks here in the U.S. — can you expand on that?" asked Rep. Hal Rogers, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee.

Wray responded by saying that all the terrorist groups share something in common.

"These are terrorist orgs that don't typically see eye to eye, but they seem to be pretty united in calling for one thing: calling for attacks on us," Wray said.

At the hearing, Wray also urged Congress to renew FISA – the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

"It's critical in securing our nation, and we're in crunch time," he said.

Wray also said the U.S.-designated terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas are also threatening to attack, by potentially hitting U.S. interests in the Middle East.

SEE MORE: Idaho teen planned church attacks to support Islamic State group

It's the collapse nobody saw coming, as an economic lifeline in Baltimore became a deathtrap in seconds. Now the Port of Baltimore is blocked, cutting off a key economic engine for the U.S. East Coast.

Just over two weeks after the collapse, Marylanders are still in shock. How did the iconic Key Bridge come down? Could more have been done to save the lives of the six construction workers who died? How and when will it be rebuilt?

Scripps News hears from Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott about how the city plans to recover, investigates why a collision was previously deemed “unlikely” and explains how more bridges across the country are at risk from similar critical vulnerabilities. 

SEE MORE: Officials will meet to discuss rebuilding collapsed Baltimore bridge

A woman who authorities say fatally stabbed her partner at their Los Angeles apartment Monday then threw her two children from a moving SUV onto the freeway, killing her infant daughter, was an astrologer who called the impending solar eclipse "the epitome of spiritual warfare" in an online post days earlier.

Los Angeles police believe Danielle Cherakiyah Johnson, 34, posted on X as an astrology influencer and recording artist with the moniker " Ayoka," in the days leading up to the violence, which began hours before the eclipse peaked in Southern California, said Lt. Guy Golan.

While detectives have reviewed Johnson's posts, police are not considering the eclipse to be a precipitating or contributing factor to the slayings "because we just don't know why she did what she did," Golan told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

"We've taken all the facts we can, but without being able to interview her and without having something more tangible than a post on X, I don't know how much weight you can give to somebody [saying] there's an apocalypse and attribute it to one of the most horrific murders we've had in LA," Golan, who is head of the homicide unit investigating the case, said.

Authorities say Johnson and her partner, 29-year-old Jaelen Allen Chaney, had an argument around 3:40 a.m. Monday in their apartment in Woodland Hills, about 25 miles northwest of downtown LA. Johnson stabbed Chaney and fled with her kids, an 8-month-old girl and her 9-year-old sister, in a Porsche Cayenne.

SEE MORE: Doctor dies after flying out of trailer on way to see solar eclipse

Johnson then drove along Interstate 405 in Culver City and threw her daughters out of the moving SUV around 4:30 a.m., police said. The baby was pronounced dead on the road, but the older daughter — who witnessed the stabbing — survived with moderate injuries.

Johnson traveled southwest to Redondo Beach, where a half-hour later she was driving over 100 miles per hour and crashed into a tree. The LAPD is investigating whether the solo crash was an apparent suicide.

The Los Angeles Times first reported on Johnson's social media activities in connection with the killings.

"Get your protection on and your heart in the right place," she posted April 4 to more than 105,000 followers on X. "The world is very obviously changing right now and if you ever needed to pick a side, the time to do right in your life is now. Stay strong you got this."

On April 5, she posted in all caps, "Wake up wake up the apocalypse is here. Everyone who has ears listen. Your time to choose what you believe is now."

Her social media also included a mix of antisemitic screeds, conspiracy theories about vaccines and warnings about the end of the world alongside astrological predictions and positive affirmations. Also on April 5, she posted the word "LOVE" dozens of times. Her personal website offers a variety of services including "zodiac healing work," "alcohol balancing system" and an "aura cleanse."

Johnson's internet presence and online following dates back years. The Fader, a music magazine, interviewed her in 2016 as an astrology personality.

"She was very standoffish," said Norman Linder, a Woodland Hills neighbor. He only saw Johnson and her daughters a few times before in the apartment complex.

Another neighbor, Anita Mazer, told the AP that when she saw the family, "I just said 'hello.' The baby was really cute," she said Wednesday. "It's horrible."

Golan said there were no calls for police to respond to the couple's apartment prior to Monday's killing, when neighbors called 911 after seeing the door open. Johnson did not have a felony criminal record in California and there were no indications of reported domestic violence.

Detectives did not immediately link the Woodland Hills slaying to the daughters, Golan said. He was in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood when he started getting push alerts from news organizations on his cellphone about the infant's death on the roadway in Culver City. Investigators realized there might be a connection between two missing children from the family's apartment and the tragedy on the interstate.

"I was like 'Oh, there's two young girls who were stranded on the 405 Freeway.' That is such a random and terrible thing to hear about. And we knew there were two young children," Golan continued. "We were setting up an Amber Alert."

Golan said detectives discovered candles and cards inside the apartment, but he was not sure whether they were tarot cards.

"They didn't look like your standard deck of cards that you would play poker with," he said.

The solar eclipse's path of totality stretched from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Newfoundland, Canada, a swath approximately 115 miles  wide. Revelers were engulfed in darkness at state parks, on city rooftops and in small towns when the moon blocked out the sun, though Southern California only saw a partial eclipse that peaked at 11:12 a.m.

Across the globe, the celestial event spawned fears of the apocalypse and other suspicions rooted in religion and spirituality. But Golan noted that others who posted online about their eclipse-related worries did not commit violence like Johnson.

"How many people wrote about it," he said, "and didn't go out and murder somebody?"

Within hours of a cargo ship striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge, viral conspiracy theories exploded online. They overshadowed updates from authorities like the FBI and officials who were eventually on the scene that morning.  

In the time it took for authorities to confirm that the deadly collapse wasn’t intentional or an act of terrorism, conspiracy theories racked up tens of millions of views. Here’s how it unfolded.  

A timeline of conspiracy theories

In the aftermath of the bridge collapse, disinformation sought to cast blame on the southern U.S. border, elusive foreign enemies, DEI, and the Obamas.  It started after a ship named Dali lost power and crashed into the bridge just before 1:30 a.m.  By 7:30 a.m., authorities had said there was “absolutely no indication” of terrorism or that the bridge was intentionally hit. A statement from the White House around the time and later remarks from President Joe Biden also reiterated there was “no indication of any nefarious intent."  

But none of these statements from on the ground or over at the White House would matter — because also at around 7 a.m., about six hours after the crash, one of first conspiracy theories started to spread, falsely stating the Dali had been cyberattacked by "foreign agents of the USA.” 

Ten minutes later, it was bizarrely suggested on a live TV news program that a “wide-open border” could be linked to the disaster when, notably, all the victims of the collapse were immigrants. An hour after that, at 8:25 a.m., an online influencer falsely claimed DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — or so-called “anti-white business practices” were the root cause, while sharing the DEI page of the ship’s company. 

When later asked about this theory in a CNN interview, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said, “My response is I have no time for foolishness.” 

Sandy Hook conspiracy-theorist Alex Jones would post on X: “Looks deliberate to me. A cyber-attack is probable. WW3 has already started.” 

Before the first 24 hours were up, another conspiracy theory would draw connections between an apocalyptic Netflix film produced by former President Barack Obama and footage of the bridge collapse. Michael Flynn, who was national security adviser to former President Donald Trump, a state representative and a former Newsmax correspondent would all weigh in broad speculations that went relatively viral. By the time Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott would ask the public to “have a little bit of decency and respect” and stop spreading misinformation, it would be too late.  

When the truth ‘is a lot less interesting’

Conspiracy theories around the bridge collapse. Many of them were on X (formerly known as Twitter), posted by popular accounts with many followers and verified checks, making them easier to engage with or, alarmingly, to believe, experts said. “They have a real legitimacy when they when they come from somebody who has hundreds of thousands of followers or when they come from somebody like an Alex Jones,” Mike Rothschild, conspiracy theory researcher and author of "The Storm Is upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything," told Scripps News.  

“These names have built up a lot of trust in these communities,” Rothschild continued. “These are news sources for the people who look at an event and see hidden conspiracies and wheels turning and plots and things like that. They don't trust the mainstream media; they don't trust mainstream experts. They trust these people who they think are telling them the real truth. And those are often very popular figures.” 

Some of the earliest social media posts spreading disinformation gained upward of 15 million views, compared to a post by FBI Baltimore which received just over 110,000 views. 

The spread of conspiracy theories during a disaster isn’t new, especially on social media. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, disinformation soared in an attempt to explain where the virus originated, how it could be treated, and the number of people who were dying. 

Typically, conspiracy theories try to capitalize on the silence between a not-yet-explained event and the release of facts. According to Rothschild, even when there is an explanation, it may be too simplistic to be considered true or, at the very least, interesting. 

“You're just trying to find an explanation for something that really has an explanation. It's just kind of a boring one,” Rothschild said. “A ship hitting a bridge column by accident because the power went out is a lot less interesting and a lot less compelling, than ‘It's a cyberattack carried out by the deep state in order to distract us from what's happening in Ukraine' or whatever it is.” Beyond sowing distrust and confusion, conspiracy theories and disinformation during a time of tragedy, destroy a sense of unity, experts said. 

“What they're saying is: ‘No, actually, this wasn't just an accident for which we should all help out our fellow man who's suffering right now,’” Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, told Scripps News. 

Instead, disinformation “undermines the solidarity that we need in order to respond effectively to moments of tragedy by putting the blame on something else,” Ahmed said. 

Officials, in rare calls to the public, appeared to reinforce a sense of solidarity by calling out misinformation and underscoring that the bridge collapse was a human tragedy. 

“We are not in the habit as a Department of Transportation, of being in the business of dealing with conspiracies, or conspiracy theories or that kind of wild thinking,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a CNN interview. “But unfortunately, it is a fact of life in America today. What’s really upsetting is when misinformation or disinformation circulates, that is not without victims.” 

"Some of those victims are people targeted by conspiracy theories and disinformation," Ahmed said.  

'Dipping into a toxic well’

When Baltimore resident and community organizer Kim Trueheart woke up early on March 26 to the news that Francis Scott Key Bridge had collapsed, she didn’t want stories or theories. She wanted the facts. 

“My first thought was, ‘Oh, God, were the people on the bridge at the time?'” Trueheart recalled. “And come to find out the only ones who were on the bridge were workers who happened to be immigrants. I thought about their children, their families. And that was heartbreaking.” 

Trueheart, who runs the Liberty Village Project community center 30 minutes from where the Francis Scott Key Bridge stood, said she gets her news from local stations and social media — particularly Instagram “because I think it's less political.” She was upset to see the kind of disinformation later being shared about the victims. 

“Their immigration status seemed to be the big issue,” Trueheart told Scripps News she noticed online. “As opposed to human life, and dignity, and respect for the potential loss of life. There was a lot of commentary around the immigration status, and I just thought that was so wrong.” 

For this reason, Trueheart said she’s slow to share what she sees online.  

“We'll hit that button and we tweet something, and then come to find out that it wasn't true,” Trueheart said. “We've got to be careful with what we repeat, what we share, what we disseminate."

"Every time you take information from social media, you are dipping into a toxic well, which can be full of lies [and] disinformation, deliberately sent by people and conspiracy theories that might drag you down a rabbit hole,” Ahmed said.  

It’s this hole Trueheart said she must dig her way through.  

“The fortunate thing is that if you dig deep enough, there is an unbiased set of facts out there. You've got to dig often,” she said. 

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addressed U.S. lawmakers at the Capitol on Thursday, urging them to consider the importance of global commitments at a time of tension in the Asia-Pacific and deep skepticism in Congress about U.S. involvement abroad.

Kishida is in Washington this week visiting President Joe Biden as the White House completes hosting each leader of the Quad — an informal partnership between the U.S., Japan, Australia and India that is seen as important to countering China's growing military strength in the region. Kishida highlighted the value of the U.S. commitment to global security and offered reassurances that Japan is a strong partner.

On Capitol Hill, his audience included many Republicans who have pushed for the U.S. to take a less active role in global affairs as they follow the “America First" ethos of Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The Republican-controlled House has sat for months on a $95 billion package that would send wartime funding to Ukraine and Israel, as well as aid to allies in the Indo-Pacific like Taiwan and humanitarian help to civilians in Gaza and Ukraine.

“As we meet here today, I detect an undercurrent of self-doubt among some Americans about what your role in the world should be,” Kishida told Congress.

He sought to remind lawmakers of the leading role the U.S. has played globally since World War II. After dropping two nuclear weapons on Japan to end the war, the U.S. helped rebuild Japan, and the nations transformed from bitter enemies to close allies.

“When necessary, it made noble sacrifices to fulfill its commitment to a better world,” Kishida said of the U.S.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier this week that he hoped Kishida's visit would underscore “that we’re in a worldwide situation here against the enemies of democracy — led by China, Russia and Iran.”

Japan has taken a strong role in supporting Ukraine's defense against Moscow as well as helping humanitarian aid get to Gaza. It is also seen as a key U.S. partner in a fraught region where China is asserting its strength and North Korea is developing a nuclear program.

“Japan is a close ally — critical to both our national and economic security,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement. "This visit will continue to deepen the diplomatic and security relationship between our two countries and build on the strength of decades of cooperation.”

Kishida offered reassurances that Japan is also committed to global security and human rights. He said that since recovering from the “devastation of World War II,” Japan has transformed from a reticent ally to a strong partner “standing shoulder-to-shoulder” with the U.S.

The prime minister called China’s stance “unprecedented” and “the greatest strategic challenge, not only to the peace and security of Japan but to the peace and stability of the international community at large.”

Kishida was also attending a U.S.-Japan-Philippines summit on Thursday in another effort to bolster regional cooperation in the face of China’s aggression. The United Kingdom also announced Thursday that it would hold joint military exercises with Japan and the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific next year.

Beijing has pushed back strongly on those actions during Kishida's visit.

Mao Ning, the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said, “Despite China’s serious concerns, the U.S. and Japan attacked and smeared China on the Taiwan question and maritime issues, grossly interfered in China’s domestic affairs and violated the basic norms in international relations.”

Meanwhile, Kishida cast the future of the conflict in Ukraine as having far-reaching consequences. He emphasized that Japan has committed to providing Kyiv with $12 billion in wartime aid, including anti-drone detection systems.

“Ukraine of today may be East Asia of tomorrow,” Kishida told lawmakers, and later added: “Japan will continue to stand with Ukraine.”

SEE MORE: Japan is giving Washington 250 new cherry trees

The statements drew standing ovations from much of the chamber but a group of hardline conservatives remained seated. Other lawmakers skipped the speech and Capitol staff filled empty chairs with congressional aides.

Those moments encapsulated the pressure that House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing as he searches for a way forward for the foreign security package. It will be a difficult task to navigate the deep divides among Republicans. Making matters worse for the Republican speaker, he is already facing the threat of being ousted from the speaker's office.

Kishida, who was elected in 2021, arrived in Washington while facing political problems of his own in Japan. Polls show his support has plunged as he deals with a political funds corruption scandal within his ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The nation's economy has also slipped to the world's fourth-largest last year, falling behind Germany.

This is the first time a Japanese prime minister addresses Congress since Shinzo Abe traveled to Capitol Hill in 2015. Kishida is the sixth foreign leader to address Congress during Biden's presidency.

He relished the moment and highlighted his ties to the U.S. He told lawmakers how he spent his first three years of elementary school in New York City while his father worked there as a trade official. Lawmakers applauded and laughed as he recalled American pastimes like attending baseball games and watching the Flintstones.

“I still miss that show,” Kishida told them. “Although I could never translate, ‘Yabba dabba doo.’”

A New Jersey library may have given out counterfeit solar eclipse glasses ahead of Monday's celestial event.

Moorestown Library shared the warning in a Facebook post that day just before noon E.T., which was about three hours before totality began over the neighboring state of New York.

In the post, the library said it had purchased the glasses from Walmart's website, and "though they are labeled as having been manufactured by Medical King, they may be counterfeit."

"We advise against using these and apologize profusely for the error," the post continued.

Viewing the solar eclipse without proper glasses could put a person at risk for solar retinopathy. This untreatable consequence of looking at the sun occurs when the retina is burned, creating a hole in your vision. 

The library urged anyone who used a form of solar eclipse glasses to test them using instructions from CNET, which lists steps like ensuring the ISO standard is a correct level and checking for the product's inclusion on the American Astronomical Society's list of reputable vendors.

The AAS's list on its website does include Walmart as an authorized retailer, but it states that "some (not all)" sell ISO-compliant eclipse glasses in stores though "not necessarily on their websites," as some chains use different suppliers for different selling channels.

SEE MORE: 30% unaware solar eclipses can cause eye damage, survey finds

In this case, Moorestown Library said in a comment that it suspects the glasses it distributed came from a "counterfeit manufacturer" and told one person who said they tested the glasses to an "okay" result that they "cannot be certain of their effectiveness."

The "counterfeit manufacturer" would be Medical King, which the AAS also lists as an authorized importer and dealer of solar eclipse glasses. It gives a link to Medical King's website that also states its product adheres to the AAS's safety protocols.

The glasses have a 3-of-5-star rating on the manufacturer's website, with many saying they were too dark to see the eclipse. Another said the glasses worked fine, but when compared to others the customer had to see the eclipse, the product "hurt eyes a little bit whereas the other ones did not affect vision afterward at all. Not sure what this means for if they're actually good or not."

In the end, whenever that next total solar eclipse comes to the U.S. (you've got 20 years, according to NASA), it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to test your glasses before staring into the sun.

The White House said U.S. small business applications have surpassed 17 million new filings since President Joe Biden took office.

In a statement on Thursday, U.S. Small Business Administration head Isabel Casillas Guzman called it a "historic small business boom."

The federal government said earlier this year that average monthly new businesses applications were 440,000 for the first three years of the Biden administration.

In March, Vice President Kamala Harris said the administration had set a goal of increasing federal contracts for minority-owned businesses by 50%. The vice president made the remarks at an event in North Carolina focused on growing small businesses. 

SEE MORE: Harris promises 50% increase goal in contracts for minority businesses

The administration made the announcement while touting what it calls record job creation and "cooling inflation."

On Thursday a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that U.S. producer prices increased for the 12-month period ending in March by their largest year-over-year hike since April of last year. 

According to U.S. government data, in the last year, "Americans across the country and in a wide range of industries filed a record 5 1/2 million new business applications, bringing the total number under this administration to a record-breaking 16 million."

Census Bureau data shows that Black-owned businesses increased by around 13% between 2017 to 2020. Between 2017 and 2021, their revenues jumped by 43%, Scripps News reported. 

The fight over paid parental leave is not new in the United States, but it is not expected to get addressed nationally until after the election at the earliest. That means the debate is happening more at the state level, especially when it comes to teachers.

Let's start with the data.

According to the National Council on Teacher Quality and their 2022 survey of the country's 148 largest school districts, only about 18% offered some form of parental leave.

For many teachers, that means planning to have a child means figuring out when summer break is or accruing enough sick time to take a significant amount of time off.

Shannon Holston is the chief of policy and programs at the National Council on Teacher Quality and says the lack of a comprehensive paid family policy is an issue nationally, but it's especially an issue in the teaching profession, where recruiting teachers and keeping them is a challenge.

"Teachers now largely rely on unpaid leave," Holston said. "Paid parental leave helps districts keep great teachers in the classroom."

California is currently at the center of the debate, where educators are excluded from any fully paid parental leave. California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation to change that in 2019, citing cost issues. Money is largely the main reason legislation for teachers' parental leave hasn't passed in more states.

Holston says if organizers can convince California to pass this legislation, it could inspire more states and school districts to do the same. 

A bill advanced in the California State Capitol last month, but it is still far from law.

"The International Labor Organization actually recommends 18 weeks of parental leave. We are far from that for teachers," Holston added. 

The movement is gaining steam in other parts of the country, however. Chicago began offering paid parental leave to teachers this year. 

As a sign of how this isn't your typical Democrat versus Republican issue, Tennessee, South Carolina and other conservative states like Arkansas have passed some form of paid leave for teachers in recent years. 

Holston expects the issue to become an even bigger one when local teachers unions negotiate new contracts. That's happening in Cleveland, Ohio presently. 

SEE MORE: Should teachers be armed? The Tennessee Senate says yes

Authorities in Idaho say the killing of a suspected home invader by an 85-year-old woman, who says she was woken up by the intruder, has been deemed justifiable homicide by a state prosecuting attorney. 

The office for Idaho Prosecutor Ryan Jolley said in a statement that video, photographs, information collected from search warrants and witness statements led his office to determine that Christine Jenneiahn was justified and acted within the law when she shot and killed 39-year-old Derek Condon. 

Jenneiahn told police Condon made entry into her home in eastern Idaho's Bingham County as she slept. She said he woke her up shining a flashlight and pointing a gun at her while wearing a "military jacket" at around 2 a.m. on the morning of March 13, the state's prosecuting office said. 

Authorities said the only other person in Jenneiahn's home lawfully at that time was her disabled son David. 

SEE MORE: Paramedics using ketamine on patients | Scripps News Investigates

Jolley's office said Condon placed Jenneiahn in handcuffs and led her into the living room, where he handcuffed her to a wooden chair. Detectives noticed what appeared to be blood on her pillow and the floor in her room, and Jenneiahn said Condon had struck her in the head while she was awake, but couldn't immediately recall exactly when, authorities said in a report. 

When Condon asked Jenneiahn where in the home she kept her valuables, she said she didn't have much, and he held a gun to her head, she told police. She eventually told him she had two safes in a lower part of the home. 

According to prosecutors, Condon began rummaging through Jenneiahn's home while she was in handcuffs and discovered that her son David was in the home. At some point while Condon was looking for valuables, Jenneiahn was able to drag herself and the chair she was handcuffed to into her room to retrieve her revolver from under her pillow, authorities said. 

She then went back into the living room and hid the firearm between an armrest and a cushion and waited for Condon, prosecutors said. She told detectives that during all of this time Condon threatened to kill her multiple times. When Condon reentered the room with Jenneiahn, that is when she says she fired multiple shots striking him at least twice with gunfire as Condon returned fire.

Jenneiahn was struck multiple times in various areas of her body by Condon's return gunfire, prosecutors said. 

Police said Jenneiahn remained on the floor wounded and in handcuffs for around 10 hours before she was able to call 911 when her son came upstairs and gave her a phone. Police said they later discovered a broken window at the back of Jenneiahn's home with tools at the scene that indicated how Condon likely made entry into the residence. 

Investigators found a lock-picking set, a car key, a handcuff key and a bag with items stolen from the home on Condon. 

Authorities praised Jenneiahn for her "heroism, fortitude" and "will to live." They plan to honor her in the future.

"We wish her well in her recovery and look forward to finding a way to honor her at a later date," the Bingham County Sheriff's Office wrote in a Facebook post.

Scripps News has reached out to the sheriff's office for more information on the extent of her injuries and is waiting to hear back.

Bingham County includes the town of Blackfoot, where Condon is from. The town of 37,000 has a radius of just 15 miles. The area had just four robberies in 2021 and 2022, and 39 instances of stolen property in those same years, according to state records. From that same time period, there is just one homicide on record.

Idaho's legal code states that "no person" in the state "shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting" themselves, prosecutors noted in their report. 

Stamps are about to get a bit more expensive this summer — before getting another price increase in January 2025. The U.S. Postal Service announced its new prices for first-class mail Forever stamps this week, which will go up by a nickel in July.

Stamps will jump from their current price of 68 cents to 73 cents on July 14, according to the USPS. This is a 7.8% increase in price, and is the same total increase stamps saw in the year from January 2023 to January 2024, when they increased from 63 cents to 68 cents.

Here’s the full breakdown of price changes for USPS services that are expected to go into effect in July:

Not every USPS service will see a price increase this summer, however. The organization says post office box rental fees will stay the same, and there will be a 10% decrease in the cost for postal insurance when mailing an item.

The latest price increase for stamps sticks to the schedule USPS announced in September 2021, which is for cost adjustments to be made twice every year — once in January and once in July.

The financial state of the USPS has long been an issue in need of addressing, with the Government Accountability Office having the organization on its High Risk List since 2002. The 2022 Postal Service Reform Act was passed to help strengthen the financial future of the USPS, and price increases like these are a direct result of those efforts.

The USPS says its postage prices are still “among the most affordable in the world” and this claim holds water when compared to Europe. The average price of first-class stamps across Europe is the equivalent of $2.09, while the price of stamps in the United Kingdom is the equivalent of $1.70.

If you want to get stamps for 68 cents, stock up on them before the increase happens on July 14.

This story was originally published by Clint Davis at dontwasteyourmoney.com.

The former longtime interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani is being charged with federal bank fraud for crimes involving gambling debts and theft of millions of dollars from the Japanese sensation, federal authorities said Thursday.

U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada announced the charges Thursday.

Ippei Mizuhara served as Ohtani's interpreter after Ohtani came to the U.S. to play baseball. Estrada says Mizhuara "acted as Mr. Ohtani's de facto manager."

Estrada says Mizuhara helped Ohtani set up a bank account for Ohtani's baseball salary. Estrada says Mizuhara stole more than $16 million from Ohtani's bank accounts to pay for his own sports betting and lied to the bank to access the account.

"Due to the position of trust he occupied with Mr. Ohtanti" he was able to "use and abuse" that trust "in order to plunder Mr. Ohtani's bank account," Estrada said, also confirming that when Ippei would win on sports bets, he did not deposit the money into Ohtani's account.

"Mr. Mizuhara did all this to feed his insatiable appetite for illegal sports betting," Estrada said, adding the complaint alleges he committed fraud "on a massive scale."

SEE MORE: Ohtani 'beyond shocked' at allegations of gambling by his interpreter

Estrada says there is no evidence that Ohtani was aware of his interpreter's actions, adding that Ohtani has cooperated fully and completely with investigators.

"I want to emphasize this point: Mr. Ohtani is considered a victim in this case," he said.

Mizuhara is expected to appear in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles for his initial appearance in the near future, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office press release.

An email seeking comment on the allegations against Mizuhara was sent to his attorney, Michael G. Freedman.

The maximum penalty for the bank fraud charge Mizuhara faces is 30 years in prison.

Mizuhara was abruptly fired by the team after the scandal surfaced last month, catalyzed by an IRS Criminal Investigation of an alleged illegal bookmaker. Major League Baseball opened a separate investigation.

Ohtani subsequently laid out a version of events that placed responsibility entirely on Mizuhara, who had given conflicting accounts of whether Ohtani had paid off Mizuhara's gambling debts.

Ohtani left the Los Angeles Angels in December to sign a record $700 million, 10-year contract with the Dodgers. Ohtani and Mizuhara had been daily companions since Ohtani joined the Angels in 2018.

Mizuhara told ESPN on March 19 that Ohtani paid his gambling debts at the interpreter's request, saying the bets were on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football. But ESPN said Mizuhara changed his story the next day, saying Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts and had not transferred any money to bookmakers.

SEE MORE: Is baseball star Shohei Ohtani a victim of theft, or is he in trouble?

On March 25, Ohtani told a Dodger Stadium press conference that he never bet on sports or knowingly paid any gambling debts accumulated by his interpreter.

"I am very saddened and shocked someone whom I trusted has done this," the Japanese star said through a new interpreter.

"Ippei has been stealing money from my account and has been telling lies," Ohtani said. "I never bet on sports or have willfully sent money to the bookmaker."

Ohtani said he first became aware of Mizuhara's gambling problem during a team meeting after a season-opening victory over the San Diego Padres in Seoul, South Korea.

The investigation moved at a quick speed, with the charges coming about three weeks after news of the scandal broke.

"We understood there was a significant amount of public interest in this case," Estrada said. "While we were able to work on this case rapidly, it was a very thorough investigation."

There has been no information about the status of baseball's separate investigation. MLB rules prohibit players and team employees from wagering — even legally — on baseball. They also ban betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookmakers.

Ohtani earned around $40 million in salary from the Los Angeles Angels before becoming a free agent and getting his $700 million deal, although it's also expected he earns tens of millions at least in endorsements each year, too.

A baker in Kansas was at a loss when she realized the diamond from her wedding ring was missing after working on batches of cookie dough.

Dawn Monroe, owner of Sis' Sweets Cookies and Café, told local news stations that the missing center diamond was picked out by her husband nearly 40 years ago.

“I was crying, and all he could say was, ‘You still have me,’ so that made it all better,” Monroe told KMBC. 

Monroe issued a call to customers to check for her diamond in their baked goods.

“My heart is beyond broken. It’s been on my hand for 36 years,” she wrote in a post from her bakery’s Facebook page. “If you happened [to] find it, I would forever be in debt if you would return it. It’s a marquis cut. I’m sorry if you find it but I don’t take my ring off for anything.” 

A photo showed a gold band on Monroe's hand with a hole where the center diamond should be. The post received hundreds of shares online.

Monroe also told KMBC she was worried a customer could bite into it.

“I didn’t want anybody to break a tooth,” she said.

She told the station it could be in a batch of chocolate chip, sugar or peanut butter cookies.

Monroe said the diamond is worth more than $4,000, and she is offering a reward for its return. 

"I would definitely make it worth your while bringing it back," Monroe told KMBC with a laugh. 

Former NFL star Terrell Suggs was arrested Tuesday in Arizona, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff's office, in relation to an incident earlier this year in a Starbucks drive-thru.

Scottsdale police say Suggs, 41, was taken into custody and booked on charges of threatening and intimidating and disorderly conduct with a weapon. They add that the incident took place on March 10, but he was just arrested for the incident this week.

SEE MORE: Chiefs' Rashee Rice to surrender after warrant issued by Dallas police

According to police documents, Suggs brandished a firearm during a verbal altercation in which he threatened to kill another driver after a minor collision in a Starbucks drive-thru. The incident was reportedly captured on a camera within the victim’s vehicle. 

"I was getting coffee. I was not looking for any trouble," Suggs said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press. "When the man in the other vehicle escalated the situation, I feared for my safety not knowing what his intentions were. Throughout the incident, I was the one who felt in danger, while fearing I would be followed home and for the safety of my family nearby at my residence."

Suggs has since been released from custody and is expected to appear in court later this month. 

The seven-time Pro Bowl linebacker played 17 seasons in the NFL after being drafted 10th overall by the Baltimore Ravens in 2003. He spent almost all of his career in Baltimore before splitting his final season between the Arizona Cardinals and Kansas City Chiefs.

This story was originally published by Scripps News Phoenix.

Powerful storms rumbled over parts of the U.S. Southeast on Thursday, prompting a few tornado warnings, causing flash flooding, and delaying the start of one of the world's biggest sporting events, in Georgia.

The storm system, which has already been blamed for at least one death in Mississippi, demolished buildings and flooded streets in the New Orleans area Wednesday. It continued to spawn flash flood and tornado warnings in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina on Thursday.

More than 100,000 customers lacked power Thursday afternoon nationwide. That included more than 60,000 in Louisiana, which was hit hard by storms Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.us.

Now, forecasters say parts of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia will be near the bull's-eye of a new area of concern Thursday. Those areas could see some tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail, according to the latest outlooks from the Storm Prediction Center.

The entire state of Ohio was under a flood watch Thursday afternoon. The ground there is already saturated with the potential for heavy rainfall on the way, said James Gibson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Ohio.

Public school students in at least a dozen counties in West Virginia were sent home early Thursday due to the arriving storms. Southern West Virginia was hit by 10 tornadoes April 2. It was a record for one day in the state, which gets two tornadoes in an average year.

In Augusta, Georgia, the start of the Masters golf tournament was delayed, tournament officials announced. Forecasters predict wind gusts as high as 45 mph.

"Those wind speeds could easily knock down branches here and there," said Brad Carlberg, a National Weather Service forecaster. "Just be aware of the weather and gusts, especially if you are near trees, because a branch could fall down at any time."

Torrential rains early Thursday made roads impassable in Valdosta, Georgia, an emergency manager reported. In Tallahassee, Florida, storms toppled trees and caused significant street flooding, the weather service said.

SEE MORE: Are you prepared for a natural disaster? Do these things now

Emergency responders Thursday afternoon were assessing damage near St. Augustine, Florida, where the National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touched down earlier that day. Photos shared by St. Johns County Fire Rescue showed fences ripped apart, but no deaths or serious injuries were reported. Fire Rescue Chief Sean McGee said one person went to a local hospital with storm-related injuries, but they were not transported by rescue workers.

Meteorologist Ben Nelson said National Weather Service teams were surveying the area to determine the cyclone's intensity.

Storm damage has been reported from Texas to the Florida Panhandle.

A tornado struck Slidell, about 30 miles  northeast of New Orleans, on Wednesday. It ripped roofs off buildings and partially collapsed others in and around the city of about 28,000. Authorities said first responders had to rescue people trapped in one apartment building.

Slidell Mayor Greg Cromer estimated at a news conference Wednesday night that about 75 homes and businesses were damaged. St. Tammany Parish President Mike Cooper estimated that hundreds more homes were damaged outside the city.

Police video showed tree limbs littering the streets and flooded yards that resembled swamps. Outside a McDonald's restaurant, a car was on its side, power poles leaned, and large pieces of the trademark golden arches were strewn about.

"I've never talked to God so much before in my life," Robin Marquez said after huddling with co-workers in a two-story building where the roof was ripped away and walls caved in.

There were no reports of deaths or critical injuries in Slidell. The weather service posted on social media Wednesday that initial surveys indicate the area was hit by an EF-1 tornado, with winds from 86 mph to 110 mph.

Close to 8 inches of rain fell in parts of New Orleans. It came as the system of pipes and pumps that drains the city dealt with problems with its power generating system, forcing workers to divert power as needed.

"During intense rain, the mission sometimes shifts from keeping the streets dry to draining them as quickly as possible," the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board said in a statement.

A woman died in central Mississippi when a power outage shut down her oxygen machine, officials said. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said 72 homes were damaged.

In Texas, several people were rescued from homes and vehicles early Wednesday when flooding inundated parts of Jasper County, near the Louisiana line, authorities said.

In the Houston suburb of Katy, strong thunderstorms collapsed part of the roof of an auto repair shop. Storms also damaged businesses and cars in a strip mall, sending a large air conditioning unit on the roof crashing to the parking lot, officials said. Some of the damage was preliminarily determined to have been caused by a weak tornado, officials said.

"We were blessed that no lives were lost," Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen said. Only minor injuries were reported.

Runaway 14-year-old twin sisters who were reported missing in Detroit were recovered after a month.

Police body camera video from Monday morning shows the moments the juveniles were found at a hotel in Allen Park, Michigan, with a man who has a criminal past. They were found after a woman in Nebraska reported a stolen debit card to police and the hotel where her card was charged.

"I swear for about a week, I've been telling them something bad would happen on Monday," Megan McQuain said.

McQuain, from Omaha, Nebraska, was right. Sunday night and Monday morning, her daughter Abigale received unexpected text messages on her cellphone that connected the family in Nebraska to a Comfort Inn hotel in Allen Park.

"I was very concerned and confused," Abigale said. "I was on the phone with my boyfriend. And my boyfriend said, 'Go tell your mom.'"

Around 11:30 p.m. Sunday, Abigale received a text from her bank, which was one of many showing that her debit card was used at several hotels including one in Allen Park. Her mother immediately called the hotel and law enforcement.

"It's after midnight at this point and as I'm doing a police report with our officer, I got a call from the detective that they had the man in custody that had taken my daughter's debit card information,'" said McQuain.

But what unfolded next in Allen Park made everyone's heart stop.

Police body camera video shows moments when officers find teens at hotel:

Allen Park Police Department Officer James Vanderaa recognized the two teenagers who were found in a 30-year-old man's hotel room.

"I know who you guys are, I know who is looking for you and we will have to solve this tonight," Vanderaa told the girls.

The 14-year-old twins ran away on March 8 while visiting their grandmother.

The twins were reunited with their father right away. The suspect, Marcus Peoples, has been charged with computer crime, credit card fraud and harboring runaway children.

"I was shocked," Abigale said. "It turned out to be so much more. I thought it was just a stolen debit card."

The investigation is ongoing as to how the teens connected with the suspect and how the suspect acquired Abigale's debit card information.

Meanwhile, in a statement to Scripps News Detroit, Allen Park Police Department Chief Christopher Egan said:

"I am extremely proud of these officers, professionalism, and tenacity to follow through on a case working as a team that allowed them to observe these missing girls. Their quick actions may have prevented a more serious situation."

This story was originally published by Faraz Javed and Brandon Speagle at Scripps News Detroit.

O.J. Simpson, a football star who would later be a defendant in arguably the biggest murder trial in U.S. history, has died at the age of 76, according to a post on his X account. 

"On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer," the post reads. "He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace. The Simpson Family." 

In February, Simpson denied reports that he was in hospice care as he was reportedly quietly battling prostate cancer. WPLG-TV had reported that Simpson was undergoing chemotherapy. 

His last post on X came on Feb. 11 when he predicted that San Francisco would beat Kansas City in the Super Bowl.

Simpson rose to fame in the late 1960s because of his skills on the football field, and he captured the attention of the nation again after the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994.

Simpson was charged with their murder in June 1994, days after the two were found dead. Simpson's friend Al Cowlings was behind the wheel of a white Ford Bronco carrying Simpson that led police on a slow-speed chase back to Simpson's residence, where he was subsequently arrested. 

The trial would last for about a year, concluding with Simpson's acquittal in October 1996. 

Although Simpson was found not guilty in the criminal trial, he was later found liable for the deaths in a civil trial.  

In the years to follow, Simpson found himself in more legal trouble. He was convicted in 2008 for an armed robbery in Las Vegas. Prosecutors said Simpson was among a group of people who broke into a hotel room and stole memorabilia at gunpoint. According to The Associated Press reports, Simpson claimed that he was taking back memorabilia stolen from him.

He was sentenced to 33 years in prison but was released in 2017 after being granted parole.

Before his infamous legal issues, Simpson was one of football's most recognizable faces, even well after his retirement. His popularity soared in 1967 and 1968 when he led USC to back-to-back Rose Bowls and won the 1968 Heisman Trophy. 

He was then drafted by the Buffalo Bills in 1969, where he spent nine seasons. Simpson was a five-time Pro Bowler while in Buffalo and won the league's MVP award in 1973. 

Simpson spent his final two years in the NFL as a member of the 49ers. 

Meanwhile, Simpson's Hollywood profile also rose. He appeared in dozens of films, with his most notable role as Detective Nordberg in the "Naked Gun" films. 

The Pro Football Hall of Fame reacted to Simpson's death. 

“O.J. Simpson was the first player to reach a rushing mark many thought could not be attained in a 14-game season when he topped 2,000 yards,” said Hall of Fame President Jim Porter. “His on-field contributions will be preserved in the Hall’s archives in Canton, Ohio.”

For months, investigative reporter Katie LaGrone with Scripps News Tampa has shared what teachers describe as specific reasons driving them out of the profession.

But now, she is sharing the story of how one woman is helping some of these teachers find a new start away from the classroom.

“I’m not trying to convince teachers to leave; I’m helping those who want change.”

You might call Lisa Harding a teacher’s teacher.

She spent years as CEO of an online teacher training and development company and was even born into the profession.

“I came from a family of teachers. My parents both met teaching in middle school,” she explained.

So, it got our attention when Harding told us that after 15 years of working to place educators in the classroom, she stumbled on her latest venture, which is squarely focused on helping teachers get out.

“Teachers started reaching out to me asking for help making a career transition into the field that I just left, and I couldn't keep up with the demand,” she explained, adding how the opportunity that was right in front of her posed a personal dilemma.

“I kind of had a moral, ethical question to ask myself, but I realized I’m not trying to convince teachers to leave the classroom; I’m just helping those that want to make a change and giving them the skills that they need to do so,” she said.

Harding and her business partner moved forward, starting the Teacher Career Transition Academy.

It’s an online subscription-based program that offers a step-by-step approach to helping educators switch careers.

Services include a wide range of help, from rewriting resumes to make them less teacher-focused to specialized coaching on negotiating salaries that are above average teacher pay. Annual membership is $500, and members can pay a monthly $57 charge.

“We've had teachers that, since they've left, they've already been promoted or gotten new jobs, and they've doubled their teaching salary within 12 months. It's pretty wild,” Harding said.

Sign of the times

Her company is a sign of the times as Florida struggles to hire new teachers or keep the ones it has.

Last school year, more than 18,000 Florida teachers resigned, representing about 10% of the state’s publicly employed teachers at the time.

Our recent investigation found that some of the top reasons teachers decided to leave the profession included pay, politics, student behavior and overall burnout.

A principal's story

“I absolutely thought I was a lifer. I loved my job, and I think probably if COVID didn't hit, I would still be a principal,” said Michelle Auger, who’s among the thousands of Florida educators who have left the industry in the last few years.

Auger spent her entire professional career, more than 35 years, in education.

Most recently, she was a principal at an elementary school near Tampa.

But after watching her own teaching staff burn out, “it was just so disheartening to me. I think that's really the bottom line for me,” she explained about what ultimately led her to leave.

Auger signed up with the Career Teacher Transition Academy to help revamp her resume by highlighting skills she used every day on campus but didn’t know how to sell outside the profession.

“Project management is probably the biggest one of all. As an administrator, that was one I never would have thought to even put on there, but I’m like, gosh, I do that every day, all day,” she explained about Harding’s services.

Today, Auger is the educational program coordinator for a camp in central Florida. She describes it as a dream job and credits Harding’s company for helping her as the pressures of teaching in Florida continue to leave so many exploring life outside the classroom and how to get there.

“I’m not going anywhere. There's definitely a niche here,” said Harding. I think teachers are going to start to see more and more of their peers thriving in careers beyond the classroom, where they have more flexibility, better working conditions, and better pay. This is only the beginning,” she said.

This story was originally published by Katie LaGrone at Scripps News Tampa.

Fans of Caitlin Clark got a final chance to bid farewell to the basketball superstar Wednesday night when the University of Iowa held its end-of-year celebration.

Some 8,000 screaming fans packed into Iowa's home arena to commemorate the Hawkeyes' season. During the festivities, Iowa athletics director Beth Goetz announced that Iowa will be retiring Clark's No. 22 jersey, making it just the third in program history to be memorialized. 

"There's been a lot of really good 22s to come before me and play for this program, whether it's Kathleen Doyle or Sam Logic," Clark said after the announcement. "So, that number holds a lot of weight, far beyond my name, and I guess I'm just really grateful."

SEE MORE: Caitlin Clark offered $5M to join Ice Cube's BIG3 basketball league

Despite falling one game short of a national title for a second consecutive year, it was a storybook season for Clark. From breaking the all-time college basketball scoring record to drawing the largest women's basketball regular season television audience of the past 25 years, there's no denying Clark's indelible impact on not only college basketball, but women's sports as a whole. 

Next up for Clark is the WNBA draft on April 15, when she is widely expected to be the No. 1 overall pick. The Indiana Fever have the first selection for the second year in a row, meaning Clark may find herself staying in the Midwest. 

The backlog of untested rape kits that once numbered over 16,000 has been cleared, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein announced this week. 

The kits take DNA from victims of sexual assault and attempt to match it with potential suspects, which can aid in prosecution.

State officials said in 2017 that 16,000 untested kits "sat on the shelves of local law enforcement agencies." However, efforts to clear the backlog after that remained uncoordinated. 

In 2019, there remained about 12,000 untested rape kits. After lawmakers in North Carolina passed House Bill 29 in 2019 to provide officials with resources to test the kits, the backlog slowly dwindled. 

Officials said 5,075 samples have been entered in the national Combined DNA Index System database, and CODIS has matched the samples to 2,702 hits. The attorney general's office said that 2,024 of those samples "had hits to offenders whose DNA is in the database because of previous convictions or arrests."

North Carolina officials said those hits led to 114 arrests. 

"Today is a great day: North Carolina has ended the rape kit backlog. I am incredibly proud of the bipartisan and collaborative effort that produced this achievement – Republican and Democratic legislators, district attorneys, and law enforcement officers all played a critical role in ending the backlog," Stein said. "I also want to thank the scientists at the State Crime Lab who have worked countless hours to get these kits tested. Most importantly, I thank the victims for their bravery in submitting the evidence so we can hold their rapists accountable."

SEE MORE: US mail theft often begins with a stolen key

Advocates say some victims of sexual assault had to wait decades to have their rape kits tested. 

According to the advocacy group Joyful Heart Foundation's End the Backlog campaign, North Carolina will join 19 states that have cleared their backlogs of rape kits. Several states, including California, Texas, Indiana, Oklahoma and Iowa, still have thousands of untested kits, the group says. 

The organization said North Carolina had one of the largest state backlogs it had seen. 

“Every untested rape kit represents a survivor waiting for justice, some for decades,” said Ilse Knecht, director of policy and advocacy at the Joyful Heart Foundation. “Testing each kit has been and will always be the primary goal of End the Backlog. By ending the backlog of rape kits in North Carolina, the state has signaled to every survivor that they matter and what happened to them matters."

While there have been several states that have passed reforms to end the backlog of untested rape kits, Congress has provided funds to support testing efforts through the Debbie Smith Act. In 2019, the act was reauthorized through the end of the 2024 fiscal year. 

The Senate voted in October to reauthorize funding, but the House has yet to take up the measure. Anti-sexual violence organization Rainn has been advocating for Congress to reauthorize the act. 

“The Debbie Smith Act has been the most effective anti-rape legislation that Congress has ever passed,” said Scott Berkowitz, Rainn's founder and president. “It has helped law enforcement test hundreds of thousands of pieces of DNA evidence, identified serial rapists, and helped in the prosecutions of the nation’s most dangerous sexual predators.”

Tired of opening your internet bill and trying to figure out precisely what you’re paying for each month? You’re not alone, and the federal government now requires internet service providers to be more transparent with their fees.

A new Federal Communications Commission rule that just went into effect mandates ISPs to provide an easy-to-read breakdown of internet fees. And, the new graphic has a familiar look: a nutrition label.

Whether you’re opening your next bill or visiting an internet provider’s store, you will find this new visual aid that looks almost identical to what you see on food packaging.

The new internet “nutrition label” comes from a 2023 FCC ruling with the promise to help consumers receive “easy-to-understand, and accurate information about the cost and performance of broadband services.”

“Consumers will finally get information they can use to comparison shop, avoid junk fees, and make informed choices about which high-speed internet service is the best fit for their needs and budget,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in the ruling’s press release.

The April 10 deadline applies to internet service providers with at least 100,000 subscribers. Smaller ISPs have until Oct. 10 to meet the new requirement, according to the FCC broadband label fact sheet.

While the new label provides a quick glance at broadband fees, it can be tricky to navigate some of the terms listed on the label. Terms like introductory rates, monthly price, length of contract and early termination fees are common in our everyday language. However, the label also has line items that may leave some customers scratching their heads, like “pass-through fees.”

We had no idea what that meant. So we looked it up on the FCC’s helpful glossary (which is also available in Spanish) on their internet label information page. All of the terms listed on the new labels are included on this reference page.

By the way, a “pass-through fee” simply means extra fees related to government programs (universal service or regulatory fees) that providers “pass through” to their customers.

While we may not be able to avoid all those fees, at least now these labels will keep us informed about what our internet provider is charging us for and give us more power to comparison shop.

This story originally appeared on Simplemost.

The Masters is underway at Augusta National Golf Club after a two-and-a-half hour weather delay Thursday.

The original tee time was set for 8 a.m. local time, but organizers postponed the start amid heavy rain and gusty winds. The first round eventually began at 10:30 a.m.

Initially, gates and parking had been closed to attendees, but opened up an hour before the tournament's new start time.

Prior to the first round, the 88th Master Tournament kicked off with ceremonial tee shots from Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson. The "Honorary Starters" tradition dates back to 1963, where golf legends kick off the tournament with swings of their own.

Players in the first round include Erik van Rooyen of South Africa and Jake Knapp of the U.S.

When the tournament was originally set to start, the Weather Channel's forecast for Augusta, Georgia, showed rain and thunderstorms, but a partly cloudy outlook for the afternoon. A wind advisory had been in effect.

Texas police issued an arrest warrant on Wednesday for Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice in connection to an injury crash last month in Dallas.

A representative from attorney Royce West's office, who represents Rice in the case, confirmed to Scripps News Kansas City that he planned to turn himself in.

West would Rice during the surrender, though more details weren't immediately available.

SEE MORE: Lawyer: Chiefs' Rashee Rice was driving Lamborghini involved in crash

Rice, 23, faces one count of aggravated assault, one count of collision involving serious injury and six counts of a collision involving injury.

In a press conference last week, Royce West, an attorney representing Rice, said Rice admitted to driving a Lamborghini SUV—one of two cars that lost control, the other being a Chevrolet Corvette—that caused a chain reaction crash involving multiple vehicles.

Dallas police, on Wednesday evening, also issued an arrest warrant for the driver of the Corvette, Theodore Knox, 21. 

Knox faces the same charges that Rice does.

Police said they do not plan to charge any of the passengers involved in the crash.

Scripps News Kansas City spoke to an assistant of Rice’s attorney who said his office was working to learn more about the charges.

In the aftermath of the crash, Dallas police said they were attempting to make contact with Rice, who had left the scene of the crash. West said he and Rice made contact with police by that Sunday evening. Rice took to Instagram earlier this month to express his apologies.

"I take full responsibility for my part in this matter and will continue to cooperate with the necessary authorities," Rice said on Instagram. "I sincerely apologize to everyone impacted in Saturday's accident."

The Kansas City Chiefs had no comment on the arrest warrant.

This story was originally published by Sam Hartle at Scripps News Kansas City. 

You may have lived through every second of the now-infamous "Willy Wonka Chocolate Experience" from behind your phone screen, but what if you were given the chance to live out the meme in real life?

Yes, the now-infamous Glasgow event that became a viral hit and made worldwide headlines is coming back — this time, to California.

According to a page on Eventbrite, which firstly states "YES THIS IS A REAL EVENT," "Willy's Chocolate Experience LA" will mark the return of the "highly-acclaimed" adventure and its debut in the U.S. following its "groundbreaking success" at the Glasgow event.

But those descriptions probably aren't how attendees would describe it — if they're not just laughing about it now.

Visitors attending the Glasgow event in February were promised an "immersive" Wonka-themed experience complete with giant props, dancing Oompa-Loompas and candy galore. Instead, they were met with a large warehouse filled with lackluster decorations, a half-inflated bouncy castle and two jellybeans each, one attendee told The New York Times.

SEE MORE: Underwhelming Willy Wonka experience ends with upset families

Attendees soon requested refunds or even called the police, and midway through, the event organizer, the House of Illuminati, abruptly canceled the experience. But that didn't end its life for good, as the internet soon took it up as its new sensation. 

Not long after, social media was full of photos, videos and memes from the experience, including one fan-favorite of a "sad" Oompa Loompa employee. That employee, Kirsty Paterson, is said to be making a comeback at the Los Angeles event.

him: you better not be a sad, low budget oompa loompa when I get there

me: pic.twitter.com/mf2RnfCpgr

— brian (@brian_cason) February 27, 2024

"Following its groundbreaking success in Glasgow, this fantastical event promises an immersive journey into the whimsical world of 'Willy' Wonka, featuring the notorious Scottish Oompa Loompa, Kirsty Paterson, in an exclusive absurdist Q&A and fan photo opportunity," the event page states.

And a few other traits from the Scotland event are being replicated in the states too, like its location of a "nondescript warehouse" in downtown Los Angeles. Attendees will also be given two complimentary jelly beans, no doubt a nod to the candy treats given at the first experience. 

Other "enchanting attractions" included in the $44 general admission fee will be an "immersive" silent film screening complemented by live music, local vendors selling sweet treats and perhaps even "Wonka" star Timothée Chalamet, who the event page states has "expressed interest in attending."

So if you're up for a potential Fyre Fest-esque night on April 28, tickets can be purchased here. They're non-refundable "because we're actually going to deliver," the page states, but all proceeds will be donated to a mental health charity.

Analysts say Costco's interesting and innovative initiative selling 1-ounce gold bars to its members has been a success in the months since its launch last year. 

A research equity note released by analysts at Wells Fargo has reportedly found that the company is bringing in as much as $200 million a month since the debut of the exclusive online sales of the precious metal  bars in 2023. 

As MarketWatch reported, the analysts said the gold sales appear to be boosting same-store sales by around 1%.

In October, the company found that customers were buying out the pure 24-karat gold bars faster than its discounted 170-ounce jugs of laundry detergent, The Associated Press reported. 

The company's CFO Richard Galanti said during an earnings call that the gold bars were "typically gone within a few hours" after they are posted for sale on Costco's website, and said at the time the company had initially placed a two-bar limit for each buyer. The company was selling them at just under $2,000 each. 

SEE MORE: What is the 'Oatzempic' trend, and are its social media claims true?

The company said it was monitoring reports on Reddit while watching sales as it estimated how receptive customers would be to continued sales of precious metals. 

Estimates have found that Costco is pricing the gold bars aggressively at around 2% above the spot price, Investor Place reported. With just one transaction per member allowed, this could contribute to how the gold bars are priced. Within each transaction, up to five bars were eventually permitted in a sale. 

Costco has said on its website that there will be no refunds for purchase of gold bars. 

Wells Fargo has called Costco's decision to offer gold and silver for sale a "smart move" that "reinforces" the company's "value position." Jewelry has also been a top-performing product sector for the warehouse giant, Axios reported. 

Think you're fit enough to physically protect some of the nation's top officials? If your answer is yes, let's see how many pushups you can do in a minute.

The Central Intelligence Agency is seeking "executive protective agents" to provide "24/7/365 armed protection" to leaders worldwide, according to an official job posting. The selected candidates will be expected to work with foreign security officials, operate security vehicles, analyze threats and use weapons to get the job done.

These "strenuous" demands necessitate a physically, mentally and emotionally fit applicant, the posting states. And though testing the latter two could prove difficult, there's a clear list of prerequisites you must pass to complete the physical portion.

That list of prerequisites includes five exercises, which you must pass before getting the CIA job and on an annual basis thereafter. The requirements are:

- A minimum of 18 pushups in 1 minute

- A minimum of 27 situps in 1 minute

- Run 1.5 miles in 15 minutes, 20 seconds or less

- Run a 300-meter dash in 1 minute, 8 seconds or less

- Do a 180-pound dummy-drag in 2 minutes or less

SEE MORE: The CIA starts a new in-your-face recruiting method for Russians

If you still think you have what it takes, you'll also need to be a U.S. citizen, at least 18 years old, willing to move to the Washington, D.C. area, registered for the Selective Service and able to complete security and medical evaluations, the job posting says.

Plus, minimum qualifications say preferred applicants will at least have completed a bachelor's degree with a 3.0 GPA or higher, "excellent teamwork and decision making skills," and "high levels of trustworthiness, integrity and loyalty to the United States." 

Military, security or law enforcement work history is a plus, too. And a higher experience level could get you the top of the starting salary range — $122,459 — versus the bottom — $66,654.

But it's not about the money, according to the agency. 

"As a CIA employee, you'll also get the satisfaction of knowing your work is part of something bigger than yourself," the job posting reads. "Our work is driven by one mission: to keep our Nation safe. Every day is an opportunity to enhance U.S. national security."

A police shooting in Akron, Ohio of a 15-year-old boy is drawing some criticism. Body camera footage released by the department shows the officer ordering Tavion Koonce-Williams to put his hands up.

The officer was responding to reports of a person pointing a gun at houses. Seconds later, the officer fired a single shot, hitting the teen in the hand. Video shows Williams was holding something that looked like a gun when the officer fired, but it turned out to be a toy gun. You can hear Williams on the body camera yelling, "It’s fake, it’s fake!"

Shortly after the incident, Akron police uncuffed Williams and gave him medical treatment. While on the ground Williams told officers, "I'm a good kid bro, I get A's in school. I play football. I just wanted to be safe, my cousin just died."

Williams' grandmother, Karen Robinson, said she's angry about the shooting and believes police overreacted. Robinson said, "I believe he was just being a boy. I don't believe he was aiming as if to say, 'I'd like to shoot this one.'"

A local community organization said in a statement that the officer should be fired. Police records show the officer involved in the shooting was previously fired from the department in 2021 for several policy violations — including threatening his girlfriend with a firearm.   

He was rehired after a negotiation between the city, the police department and the local police union — which has proven to be a common occurrence in law enforcement across the country.

A Washington Post investigation revealed that from 2006 to 2017, the nation's largest police departments fired at least 1,800 officers then agreed to reinstate more than 450 of those same officers after appeals. A similar study from the Vanderbilt Law Review found about 46% of firings by police departments are reversed in arbitration.

In this case, The Akron police union says it stands by the officer and added that while the public may have concerns about the officer's personnel file, "it does not change the fact [the shooting] was objectively reasonable."

SEE MORE: Former Mississippi officers receive state sentences for racist torture

A man in Virginia Beach, Virginia went out to make a little extra money — but what he thought would be just another day driving for the ride-share company Lyft as a "side hustle," turned into big bucks after he bought a lottery ticket on a whim. 

Ryan Pasch took a $5 cash tip he received from an appreciative customer and went to a local gas station to refill his vehicle's tank. It was there that he decided to buy a "Strike It Rich" scratch-off ticket to try his luck. 

The chances of winning are slim, according to the Virginia Lottery's website — just 1 in 1,224,000. 

Pasch walked into the 7-Eleven store and bought the ticket. As he scratched off the opaque substance on the paper ticket he said he "got a little light-headed" when he realized he was a $150,000 top-prize winner.

“I was pretty stoked!” he told lottery officials. 

In fact, Pasch had won the third and final top prize for the game, causing Virginia lottery officials to shut the game down.

SEE MORE: Jackpot claimed: About the $1.3 billion Powerball win

Virginia lottery officials said their policy is to close scratcher games after the last top prize made available has been claimed. 

Pasch smiled in a photo taken by the state's lottery organization wearing a black hoodie and holding a large green Virginia Lottery check with his prize amount imprinted on the front. 

Lottery officials said Pasch's hometown of Virginia Beach received almost $34.9 million in lottery money that went to fund K-12 education programs for the most recent fiscal year. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is looking forward to the day the "entirely fictitious" sexual assault lawsuit against him is brought to court, his attorneys said in a new court filing.

In the answer filed Tuesday to last month's complaint, Adams' defense attorneys said their client denies "each and every" allegation Lorna Beach-Mathura brought forth in her suit and that he expects "complete vindication." They also asked for the complaint to be dismissed in its entirety and that Adams and other defendants be granted relief for fees incurred so far in the case.

Beach-Mathura sued Adams, New York City and the NYPD on claims the now-mayor sexually assaulted her in 1993 while they were both working for the department's Transit Bureau. 

In the complaint, the Florida resident claims she went to Adams for help after being repeatedly passed over for promotions. Then after offering to drive her home to discuss her future, Adams instead pulled into a vacant lot, demanded oral sex from her and exposed himself, the suit alleges.

The plaintiff claims she didn't formally report the alleged incident at the time out of fear of exacerbating her work problems, stating that it was a time of intense discrimination and retaliatory behavior against those who complained. 

SEE MORE: NYC Mayor Eric Adams sued for alleged sexual assault of ex-colleague

"Instead of helping plaintiff get fair treatment at Defendant Transit Bureau, defendant Adams preyed on her perceived vulnerability, demanding a quid pro quo sexual favor and sexually assaulting plaintiff, revealing himself not to be the 'Guardian' he purported to be, but a predator," the complaint states, referring to the NYPD's Guardians Association, a fraternal organization formed to fight for Black employees, which Adams led at the time.

Beach-Mathura's case was filed under the Adult Survivors Act, a now-expired New York law that extended the window in which sexual assault survivors could take legal action. 

Since her initial notice of claim was filed last year, Adams has vehemently denied the allegations, saying then that he doesn't know the woman and that the sexual assault "absolutely did not happen." 

"I don't recall ever meeting this person, and I would never harm anyone in that magnitude," Adams said last fall. "It did not happen, and that is not who I am and that is not who I've ever been in my professional life. And, you know, it's just something that never took place."

Adams is being represented by Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix — Corporation Counsel for NYC — and Alex Spiro, who has previously represented high-profile people like Elon Musk and Jay-Z. Spiro's typical rate is above $2,000 an hour, but Politico and ABC News report he's only charging Adams and the city around $200 per hour.

A children’s bookstore in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, considered to be the first Black-owned in the state, is closing less than a year after it opened because of numerous alleged death threats, the owner said on social media. 

The owner of Liberation Station Bookstore on Fayetteville Street, identified by multiple media outlets as Victoria Scott-Miller, said the store has been receiving threats, including hate mail, since September 2023. 

“Some we brushed off, while others included disturbing phone calls detailing what our son Langston wore when he was at the shop alone,” the bookstore’s Facebook said. 

They made attempts to mitigate the situation including frequently changing store hours and posting content after hours, the posts said. 

“Our choice to close our physical location is not a retreat, but rather a reimagining of our aspirations, dreams, vision, and above all, our SAFTEY—both physical and emotional,” the store wrote on Facebook. 

Liberation Station’s brick-and-mortar location opened in June 2023 and had thousands of attendees during its grand opening weekend. It has been featured nationally on Good Morning America and in publications like The Oprah Magazine, Essence and American Airlines’s magazine, American Way. 

In a 2020 interview, Scott-Miller told The Washington Post she and her family decided to create the bookstore, which began as a pop-up, to curate a collection of books where Black children were the heroes of the stories and the narratives didn’t center around types of trauma or oversimplified versions of Black history. 

“We will forever cherish the profound experiences, intergenerational encounters, stories exchanged, and history that we have created together within these walls,” the bookstore wrote on Facebook. “Your support has been the bedrock of our existence and will continue as we transition to the exploration of a new activation location in Southeast Raleigh.”

SEE MORE: Rise of Black-owned businesses is changing entrepreneurship

Japan is giving the United States 250 new cherry trees to help replace the hundreds that are being ripped out this summer as construction crews work to repair the crumbling seawall around the capital's Tidal Basin.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made the announcement as President Joe Biden welcomed him to the White House on Wednesday for an official visit and state dinner. President Biden said the gift is meant to mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. in 2026, adding, “Like our friendship, these trees are timeless, inspiring and thriving.”

In 1912, first lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador to the United States, planted two Yoshino cherry trees on the northern bank of the Potomac River's Tidal Basin. They were part of the 3,000 such trees Japan gave the U.S. in a symbol of the two countries' friendship.

The trees blossom in brilliant pinks and reds each spring and draw more than 1 million visitors to Washington. The aesthetics of the nation's capital aside, the latest gift reflects the geopolitical alliance between President Biden and Kishida as they hold talks on the delicate security situation in the Pacific. The state dinner is designed to celebrate one of President Biden’s strongest allies.

Senior administration officials noted on a call with reporters that the two most important gifts that foreign countries have given the United States are arguably the Statue of Liberty — which came from the French and was dedicated in 1886 — and Japan’s cherry trees in Washington.

The Tidal Basin is a 107-acre human-made reservoir bordering the Jefferson Memorial that is home to the highest concentration of cherry blossom trees. The senior officials said that when the Japanese learned that some of the trees would be felled due to the construction work, they immediately offered to provide saplings when the time was right.

“I am confident that the cherry blossomlike bond of the Japan-U.S. alliance will continue to grow even thicker and stronger, in the Indo-Pacific and in all corners of the world,” Kishida said.

President Biden, in his remarks, passed up a chance to mention Stumpy, the gnarled and hollow old cherry tree that stands on the Tidal Basin's south bank. Stumpy frequently becomes submerged in flood waters from the Potomac and has become a social media phenom. It is set to be removed as part of the $133 million, three-year improvement project to rebuild and reinforce the sea wall.

President Biden said that he and his wife, Jill Biden, strolled the White House lawn on Tuesday evening with the prime minister and his wife, Yuko Kishida, to visit three cherry trees. One of them was planted by the first ladies last year and the other two are part of the new round of saplings.

“Every spring, cherry blossoms bloom across this city, thanks to a gift from Japan of 3,000 cherry trees over a century ago,” President Biden said. “People travel from all over our country and the world to see these magnificent blossoms.”

SEE MORE: Early blooms in DC as National Cherry Blossom Festival begins

Strong storms flooded New Orleans streets and demolished buildings in one of the city's suburbs Wednesday, part of a severe weather system that pounded communities across much of the South, killing one in Mississippi.

In Slidell, Louisiana, northeast of New Orleans, multiple people were injured and first responders were scouring neighborhoods after reports of a morning tornado strike.

Robin Marquez was at work, in a two-story building in Slidell when the sky suddenly darkened and she could see a cylindric funnel quickly approaching.

"Tornado," she screamed, hoping other employees would heed her warning.

She and seven others huddled in her office, away from windows as wind gusts imitated the sounds of a train above them, the lights flickered and they could feel "the building being torn apart" around them.

"I've never talked to God so much before in my life," the 45-year-old said.

Marquez and the others with her were not injured. When they left their shelter, they saw complete destruction. The roof was gone, the walls caved in and the aluminum siding was ripped off. In the middle of what once was the building's lobby lay a speed limit sign.

"They had businesses that partially collapsed, apartment complexes. Trees are down everywhere, power lines are down everywhere," Daniel Suezeneau, a spokesperson for Slidell police, said in a video update Wednesday on social media.

Police video shows roofs torn off of homes and apartments, tree limbs littering the streets and flooded yards that resembled Louisiana swamps. Outside a McDonald's restaurant, a car was on its side, power poles leaned toward the ground and large pieces of the McDonald's Golden Arches sign were strewn about.

High-water vehicles were mobilized for rescues from rising water — even as officials and property owners were assessing damage from a suspected tornado, Suezeneau said. Injuries ranged from "minor to moderate" he said.

SEE MORE: Tornadoes, large hail, floods threaten Gulf Coast and Southern regions

First responders were able to remove people trapped inside a heavily damaged apartment building, police said.

After several hours of steady, often heavy rain, New Orleans suspended bus service as water collected in streets and flooded highway underpasses. An estimated 8 inches of rain was reported to have fallen in parts of the city, the latest challenge to the city's antiquated street drainage system.

In Mississippi, one person was killed and one was injured by severe weather that pounded the state Tuesday night and Wednesday, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said. The agency also said 72 homes were damaged. The death and most of the property damage occurred in Scott County, east of the capital city of Jackson.

Heavy rain, tornadoes, hail and damaging wind gusts were all possible across the Gulf Coast and the Deep South on Wednesday, according to meteorologist Ashton Robinson Cook with the NWS Weather Prediction Center.

In Texas, several people were rescued from homes and vehicles early Wednesday morning when flooding inundated parts of Jasper County, near the Louisiana line, authorities said.

"The City of Kirbyville remains under water and is still the major concern at this time," the Jasper County Sheriff's Office said on social media.

All major roads into Kirbyville, a town of about 2,000 people, were shut down early Wednesday due to the flooding, the sheriff's office said. Shelters were being set up after about 50 people were displaced from their homes, Billy Ted Smith, the Jasper County emergency management coordinator said. He estimated those people came from about 20 flooded homes and said there had been around half a dozen people rescued from vehicles. He said that so far, no major injuries have been reported.

In the Houston suburb of Katy, strong thunderstorms that passed through the area around 2 a.m. Wednesday collapsed part of the roof of a Firestone repair shop. Storms also damaged businesses and cars in a nearby strip mall, including sending a large air conditioning unit that had been on the roof crashing to the parking lot, officials said.

No one was inside the repair shop, but at a nearby sports bar, employees were in the back cleaning up and restocking after the business had closed for the night when the thunderstorms rolled through, Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen told reporters later Wednesday morning.

"We were blessed that no lives were lost," Christensen said, adding that only minor injuries were reported.

Some of the damage in Katy had preliminarily been determined to have been caused by an EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds of around 90 mph, National Weather Service meteorologist Bradley Brokamp said.

Photos posted on social media showed heavy damage to a church in Port Arthur, Texas, where city officials said they were also dealing with downed trees and powerlines.

In Mississippi, the sheriff sent out an urgent warning Wednesday to people in parts of Yazoo County, just northwest of Jackson, about a levee there.

"If you or someone that you know lives in the Eastbrook subdivision on Highway 16 in Yazoo County you need to evacuate IMMEDIATELY!!!," the Yazoo County Sheriff's Office posted on social media. "The levee is about to break on the lake and the houses will flood. Please get out ASAP!!!"

It was not immediately known how many residents were affected by the evacuation order, but the sheriff's office said in an update that only people in the Eastbrook subdivision were affected by the levee situation.

In Slidell, Marquez said in the coming days and weeks they will help the community rebuild — as is the way of life in Louisiana, which is frequently battered by damaging weather.

A joyful celebration of the end of Ramadan devolved into panic Wednesday in Philadelphia after rival groups exchanged gunfire, leaving at least three people injured and hundreds of parents and children to flee in search of safety.

The annual Eid al-Fitr event, held outside a large mosque in the city's Parkside neighborhood, came to a sudden end when some 30 shots rang out at about 2:30 p.m., Philadelphia police said.

Five people were later taken into custody, including a 15-year-old boy who sustained leg and shoulder wounds when he was shot by police and was taken to the hospital by an officer, authorities said. Police said he was carrying a gun.

Additionally, one man was shot in the stomach and a juvenile victim had a wound to the hand, police said.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel confirmed at a news conference that a police vehicle responding to the 911 calls for help struck a young child who was fleeing the park. He said the child suffered a leg injury.

Witnesses described running to tents set up near the park, hiding behind trees and dropping to the pavement to avoid the gunfire, trying to shield children. Other attendees ran inside the nearby school and mosque and began frantically searching for their children and loved ones.

Authorities said nearly 1,000 people attended the event. Several witnesses said they came back to the park hours after the shooting to try to find their shoes or cellphones after running several streets away to safety.

"Ninety-nine percent of the people attending this event were good people who wanted to have a good time," Bethel said, noting that city officials were offering their support to the Islamic community.

Police investigated the aftermath late Wednesday afternoon at Clara Muhammad Square, which was strewn with debris including blankets, strollers, coolers and a number of shoes left behind by celebrants. A few tables with aluminum containers of food to break the fast of Ramadan sat in the middle of the park, surrounded by yellow crime scene tape. Two tubs of melted bright red water ice were spilled onto the sidewalk.

Around 4 p.m., members of the masjid began pushing large brooms to clean up the debris left in the street and on the sidewalk. A handful of young women dressed in bright colors picked up valuables — a bag, a cellphone, shoes — and set them aside for people to claim. Others waited for police to allow them to gather their purses or lawn chairs from the park.

Zania Weatherford had just gone to her car for a moment when she heard the gunfire and saw people running across the street. She called relatives at the event to make sure they were safe.

"Last year, someone set off firecrackers and scared everyone," Weatherford said. "This is just a celebration of life for God to forgive us for our sins. There’s one month that God chains the devil down, so whoever did this can’t even blame the devil."

The motive for the shooting was not immediately clear. The suspects include four males and a female, Bethel said.

Eid al-Fitr is an Islamic holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the month when devout Muslims fast daily from dawn to sunset. Ramadan is a time of increased worship, charity, and good deeds. Eid al-Fitr means the feast, or festival, of breaking the fast.

An Oklahoma judge ordered a Kansas City Chiefs superfan known as "ChiefsAholic" who admitted to a series of bank robberies to pay $10.8 million to a teller who was assaulted with a gun, though attorneys say the teller may never collect any money.

A judge in Tulsa handed down the order last week against Xaviar Michael Bubudar, 29, who was known for attending Chiefs games dressed as a wolf in the NFL team's gear. Former bank teller Payton Garcia alleged Bubudar used a gun to assault her during a robbery of a Bixby, Oklahoma, credit union in December 2022, court records show.

The judge ordered Bubudar to pay Garcia $3.6 million for her injuries and loss of income, and $7.2 million in punitive damages. A message left Tuesday with Bubudar's attorney was not immediately returned.

Garcia's attorney, Frank Frasier, acknowledged that it would be difficult to collect the money for his client, but said the judgment sends an important message.

"I think the judge feels that way," Frasier told The Associated Press. "She did not come right out and say it during the hearing, but I argued that nobody should be able to profit from this, be it notoriety, clicks, views or likes."

Frasier said if Bubudar ever sold his story, wrote a book or was somehow able to profit from his story, his client would be able to collect some of the judgment against him.

SEE MORE: 'ChiefsAholic' pleads guilty in connection to string of bank robberies

Although tellers have sued their employers over bank robberies before, it's far less common for them to sue a robber.

Ed Blau, a prominent criminal defense attorney in Oklahoma City, said that's because it's safe to assume bank robbers aren't generally wealthy. Blau, who is not affiliated with Garcia's case, said that while it's strategically savvy for Garcia to sue Bubudar, it's unlikely she will ever collect much from him.

"She could have gotten a judgment for $10 billion, but the likelihood of collecting is exceedingly slim," he said. "She's got a judgment on paper only."

Bubudar pleaded guilty in February to a string of robberies of banks and credit unions in multiple states. He remains imprisoned until his formal sentencing, which is set for July 10 in Kansas City.

Federal prosecutors said Babudar admitted to the robberies and attempted robberies in 2022 and 2023 and to laundering the stolen money through casinos and online gambling.

As part of the plea agreement, Babudar must pay at least $532,675 in restitution. He also must forfeit property — including an autographed painting of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes that was recovered by the FBI.

Before his arrest, Babudar was a well-known figure on social media for his rabid support of the Chiefs and attended several games dressed as a wolf in Chiefs' clothing.

A New York doctor died after flying out of a trailer she had been traveling in with family to see Monday's solar eclipse.

On Saturday, 58-year-old Monika Woroniecka had just 20 minutes left on her trip to Stony Brook when the freak accident occurred, according to New York State Police.

Police said she had been riding in a house trailer, a 2024 gray Airstream, which was being pulled by a pickup truck driven by her husband, 59-year-old Robert Woroniecki.

Witnesses riding behind the trailer on State Route 12E told police they saw the passenger door swing open from the wind. They said Monika’s arm was holding onto the door, causing her to be thrown from the trailer. 

When she was ejected, Monika’s head struck the shoulder of the highway.

State police responded to the scene at approximately 3:04 p.m.

Police said a Cape Vincent Ambulance transported Monika to Samaritan Medical Center’s Emergency Room, where she succumbed to her injuries.

Monika was a pediatrician at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital.

An investigation into the incident is underway, police said.

A whistleblower is speaking out after the Federal Aviation Administration announced a probe into Boeing's Dreamliners. 

Those aircraft are different from three other Boeing models that suffered mid-air incidents this year.

Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour alleges that the 787 jets could have damaged parts, including improperly closed gaps in the bodies, which airlines may not know how to check for.

Salehpour first voiced his concerns to The New York Times Tuesday.

The engineer’s attorney said the FAA was surprised to discover the gaps were still an issue. Boeing disputed the allegations, saying it worked with the FAA to ensure the issues don't cause safety concerns. 

“He has repeatedly reported to Boeing management serious concerns about Boeing's current production and quality control processes, which he believes are creating potentially catastrophic safety risks,” Salehpour’s attorney Debra S. Katz previously said in a letter to Department of Transportation administrator Michael Whitaker. 

"In his work on the 787, he observed shortcuts taken by Boeing in the shimming process during assembly, resulting in drilling debris left in interfaces and deformation of composite material," Katz wrote. "This shortcut has resulted in decreased fatigue performance of the airplanes. He has also observed that Boeing's implementation of a new process in assembling the 777 without the necessary redesign of relevant parts has led to misalignments of parts, which Boeing engineers are pressured to overlook. This too has resulted in serious safety risks."

Salehpour told the Times he was repeatedly retaliated against by Boeing for raising alarms.

A Senate subcommittee is holding a hearing about Boeing concerns next week.

This comes as Boeing continues to come under fire for a series of mishaps.

Most recently, an Air Canada Boeing 737 Max 8 was forced to make an emergency landing in Idaho on Tuesday after pilots received a cargo hold indicator light in the flight deck, according to Scripps News Boise. The flight had been traveling to Canada from Mexico. No injuries were reported. 

Days prior, an engine cover on a Boeing 737 operated by Southwest Airlines ripped open after taking off from Denver International Airport Sunday morning. 

Boeing has been under increased scrutiny since a door plug flew off one of its Boeing 737 Max 9 jets operated by Alaska Airlines at the beginning of the year. The plane full of passengers was left with a gaping hole in mid-air, and was forced to make an emergency landing. 

Last month, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun announced he intends to resign at the end of the year. 

SEE MORE: Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun to step down in wake of 737 Max crisis

Ralph Puckett Jr., a retired Army colonel awarded the Medal of Honor seven decades after he was wounded leading a company of outnumbered Army Rangers in battle during the Korean War, has died at age 97.

Puckett died peacefully Monday at his home in Columbus, Georgia, according to the Striffler-Hamby Mortuary, which is handling funeral arrangements.

President Joe Biden lauded Puckett for his "extraordinary heroism and selflessness above and beyond the call of duty" while presenting the retired colonel with the nation's highest military honor at the White House in 2021. President Biden noted the award was "more than 70 years overdue."

"He's always believed that all that mattered to be a Ranger was if you had the guts and the brains," President Biden said.

Puckett was a newly commissioned Army officer when he volunteered for the 8th Army Ranger Company that was formed soon after the Korean War began in 1950. Despite his inexperience, Puckett ended up being chosen as the unit's commander. He had less than six weeks to train his soldiers before they joined the fight.

SEE MORE: White House Medal of Honor event recognizes meritorious conduct

"I said to myself: 'Dear God, please don't let me get a bunch of good guys killed,'" Puckett told the Ledger-Enquirer of Columbus in a 2014 interview.

Over two days in November 1950, Puckett led his roughly 50 Rangers in securing a strategically important hill near Unsan. Puckett sprinted across the open area to draw fire so that Rangers could find and destroy enemy machine-gunners. Though badly outnumbered, Puckett's troops repelled multiple counterattacks from a Chinese battalion of an estimated 500 soldiers before being overrun.

Puckett suffered serious wounds to his feet, backside and left arm after two mortar rounds landed in his foxhole. He ordered his men to leave him behind, but they refused.

Puckett was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest U.S. military honor, in 1951. It was upgraded to the Medal of Honor decades later following a policy change that lifted a requirement that such awards be made within five years of valorous acts.

During the White House medal presentation, President Biden said that Puckett's first reaction to receiving the honor had been: "Why all the fuss? Can't they just mail it to me?"

Despite his injuries in Korea, Puckett refused a medical discharge from the Army and spent another 20 years in uniform before retiring in 1971. He was awarded a second Distinguished Service Cross in 1967 for dashing through a hail of shrapnel to rescue two wounded soldiers in Vietnam, where Puckett led an airborne infantry battalion.

Puckett's military honors also included two Silver Stars, three Legions of Merit, two Bronze Stars and five Purple Hearts.

"He feared no man, he feared no situation and he feared no enemy," retired Gen. Jay Hendrick, who served as the top general of U.S. Army Forces Command from 1999 to 2001, said in the Army's online biography of Puckett.

Born in Tifton, Georgia, on Dec. 8, 1926, Puckett graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and received his commission as an infantry officer in 1949.

After retiring from the Army, Puckett served as national programs coordinator of Outward Bound, Inc., and later started a leadership and teamwork development program called Discovery, Inc. He remained an active supporter of the 75th Ranger Regiment stationed at Fort Moore near his Columbus home.

Puckett told the Columbus newspaper he learned one of his most important life lessons on his first day at West Point, when a senior cadet told him that one of the few acceptable answers he could give to any question would be: "No excuse, sir."

"It was ingrained on my thinking that I have no excuse at any time I do not meet the standards that I'm supposed to meet," Puckett said.