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  • SpaceX Starship launch aborted on the pad at the last moment


    SpaceX’s mega Starship rocket came within a second or so from blasting off on a test flight Thursday, but some of the engines failed to ignite, triggering a launch abort amid billowing clouds of smoke and vapor.

    Elon Musk, the company’s founder and CEO, said two engines will be replaced “to be confident of a good flight” before sending Starship from Texas on a space-skimming journey halfway around the world. It will be the 13th flight for Starship, which at 407 feet (124 meters) tall with 33 main engines is the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket.

    SpaceX’s launch webcast showed the start of engine ignition three seconds before the planned liftoff, viewed from a drone high above the pad. Although the company did not elaborate, onscreen data showed four engines not firing, with the remaining 29 engines immediately shutting down and keeping the rocket anchored to the pad. It was the first time a full-scale Starship experienced a last-second abort like this.

    The launch team immediately began draining the fuel from the rocket.

    “Most probable launch timing is early next week,” Musk said via X.

    Everything was going SpaceX’s way, even the weather, until the partial engine ignition. In the end, the rocket’s automatic launch system worked as planned by halting everything. Too few operating engines could have doomed the launch. Some earlier Starship flights ended in explosive fireballs.

    Elon Musk’s company had newest, most advanced Starlinks aboard

    Twenty of SpaceX’s newest and most advanced Starlinks were on board Starship for release during the planned hourlong flight from Starbase, the company’s hub near the Texas-Mexico border. The internet satellites were going to try communicating with Starlinks already in orbit while taking photos of Starship’s heat shield.

    Neither the first-stage booster nor spacecraft were meant to be recovered, with both ending up in the sea.

    The rocket’s automatic launch system worked as planned by halting everything. Too few operating engines could have resulted in a failed launch. Some earlier Starship flights, for example, ended in explosive fireballs.

    World’s biggest rocket is key to putting astronauts back on the moon

    NASA is counting on Starship to land its astronauts on the moon in the next few years. The space agency has hired SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to build and fly the lunar landers that will return humanity to the surface of the moon after an absence of more than half a century.

    Both companies need to have their landers — Starship and Blue Moon — ready to fly by next year so that the newly named Artemis III crew can practice docking their capsule with them in orbit around Earth. The mission after that — Artemis IV planned for no earlier than 2028 — would use one of those landers to take two astronauts to the moon’s south polar region.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


  • AP Exclusive: ICE officer in Maine shooting has history of violent behavior, family and records say


    AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, several of his close relatives told The Associated Press.

    David Brouillette has a history of terrifying and violent behavior, according to those relatives. They accuse him of attacking women in his life over the years, and one shared a voicemail with the AP from last winter in which he told her that he thought someone should slit her throat.

    Brouillette’s troubling past further challenges how thoroughly the Department of Homeland Security has vetted recruits as it went on a hiring spree to help carry out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

    At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched the crackdown after retaking office, including 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who was shot and killed by Brouillette on Monday while in his car near his home in the coastal Maine city of Biddeford.

    DHS, which hasn’t released the name of the officer who killed Durán Guerrero, has said the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”

    Brouillette didn’t respond to text messages or an email seeking comment. Three relatives who said they had spoken to him since the shooting, including an ex-wife and daughter, said he told them he acted in self-defense.

    When reached for comment about Brouillette’s record and his role in Monday’s shooting, ICE spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement that, “We will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers,” and that “The ICE officer in question has nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience with required training including use of force training.”

    The White House referred all questions about the shooting and Brouillette to ICE.

    A new career in ICE

    Brouillette, 37, told his ex-wife Ashley Brouillette late last year that he had been hired by ICE. She said that because of his long history of psychiatric issues, she thought he was having a mental health episode and she didn’t believe him. She didn’t realize he’d been telling the truth until this week, when videos began circulating online of the moments surrounding the shooting.

    Ashley Brouillette told the AP that she spoke to her ex-husband in a Facebook audio call, and he acknowledged that he had killed Durán Guerrero. Their 18-year-old daughter, Madison Brouillette, also told the AP that her father called her Wednesday and said that he shot and killed Durán Guerrero.

    David and Ashley Brouillette were high school sweethearts who got married in 2007. She said she divorced him in 2009 because he had become physically violent with her, which began after she got pregnant with their daughter.

    According to Ashley Brouillette, he once threw boiling water at her while she was holding their child — an incident her mother Avis Collins also recounted.

    The abuse continued after she left him, she said.

    David Brouillette doesn’t appear to have a criminal record in Maine, as a check with the Maine Department of Public Safety returned no records for him.

    But hundreds of family court records obtained from the Augusta District Court clerk’s office detail years of allegations of physical and verbal abuse raised by his second ex-wife on behalf of herself and his daughters.

    The ex-wife — whom the AP is not identifying because she fears retaliation — alleged that he had stalked and harassed her and physically and verbally abused his daughter, according to multiple requests for temporary protection orders. Brouillette tackled his teenage daughter and smashed spaghetti in her hair, and during another outburst, he dragged his daughter around the house as she cried, she said.

    “Dave needs counseling or something for his PTSD & depression,” she wrote in an application for a temporary protective order on behalf of his teenage daughter which a judge granted in 2021.

    In court filings, David Brouillette said that his second ex-wife had slandered him.

    His oldest daughter, Madison Brouillette, said she also witnessed her dad’s volatility.

    “I watched my dad struggle a lot with a lot of things,” she told the AP. She said she came home from school once and he told her he had been sitting on a tree stump with a gun to his head.

    “If you don’t really, truly take care of yourself, there’s no way you can protect other people. And with my dad, he never wanted to get help,” she said.

    An immediate relative of David Brouillette who spoke on the condition that their name not be used said he was diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder as a child — a diagnosis that Ashley Brouillette confirmed. The immediate relative described him as “extremely mentally ill” and said he attempted suicide twice at age 12 and was hospitalized multiple times.

    The relative said they’ve been estranged for years, after they broke off contact because they feared he would harm them. He did not respond to their outreach this week, the relative added.

    A military deployment and law enforcement aspirations

    Growing up in Gardiner, a city of about 6,000 people roughly 60 miles (97 kilometers) northeast of Biddeford, where Monday’s shooting occurred, David Brouillette was enchanted by law enforcement and the military, his relatives said.

    High school yearbook photos show he was a member of the school’s Naval Junior ROTC, and he wrote that he planned to go to college and become a police officer.

    Brouillette was initially rejected by military recruiters because of his mental health diagnoses, but recruiters encouraged him to go off his medications for a year and reapply, which he did, his immediate relative said.

    He was eventually able to enlist.

    According to U.S. military records, Brouillette enlisted as a chemical equipment repairer in the Maine Army National Guard but then changed jobs to be a medical logistics specialist. He was in the Guard from November 2007 until January 2010, according to records provided by the Pentagon.

    A 2009 article in the Kennebec Journal listed Brouillette as a private in the Maine Army National Guard’s 152nd Maintenance Company in Augusta.

    In January 2010 he joined the regular Army as a human intelligence collector. Brouillette deployed to Afghanistan from May 2012 to February 2013 and eventually left the Army as a sergeant in December 2015.

    His immediate relative believes Brouillette’s time abroad worsened his emotional struggles: “Afghanistan destroyed him — trained him to be a killing monster, a machine. They took someone who was extremely mentally ill and turned him into a killing machine.”

    Life after the Army

    After his discharge, Brouillette held a hodgepodge of jobs — some in or adjacent to law enforcement — and was injured in an accident while training to become a firefighter, public records and court documents show.

    Brouillette worked for the Maine Correctional Center — a medium-security prison — and for the state’s Health and Human Services Department, spending less than a year at each.

    In 2019, court documents show, he was a police officer at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center near the state capital, Augusta. A Veterans Affairs department spokesperson on Thursday referred questions about Brouillette’s employment to DHS.

    But by the end of 2021, he wrote in a text message included in court filings, he was broke, going to school full-time and making money delivering food for DoorDash.

    Brouillette was enrolled in a firefighting program at Southern Maine Community College and was struck in the head by a steel beam while unloading a trailer at a training facility, according to a lawsuit he filed over his injury.

    He sustained a concussion and post-concussive syndrome, with symptoms including impaired memory, cognitive deficits, headaches, vertigo and light sensitivity, and was unable to complete the program, according to the lawsuit, which was settled out of court.

    In recent years, court filings show, he was collecting disability pay through the VA. He also drove a truck, but quit in January 2025, citing health issues.

    In March 2025, Brouillette passed an exam to become a real estate sales agent. His license was active until December. In a Facebook post, Realty of Maine announced Brouillette would be working in the firm’s Bangor office.

    “David lives in Maine after retiring from the United States Army,” said the post, which has since been deleted. Brouillette is no longer listed as an agent on the firm’s website. Messages seeking comment were left for Realty of Maine.

    In March, the Maine agency that handles child support matters filed a lien against him, public records show. The filing suggests that Brouillette may have been in line for a permanent impairment or disability settlement.

    ‘I don’t think he sees himself as a killer’

    In late 2025, around the time he joined ICE, his ex-wife Ashley said he left a three-minute voicemail mocking her for taking out a restraining order against him. According to the message she shared with AP, he repeatedly called her “disgusting” and suggested that she and the other women and girls in her “bloodline” should die.

    “And all of you should have your f——–g throats cut,” the voicemail said. “Yeah, you should. Am I threatening that I’m gonna do that? Nope. Nope. But do I think that you should have your f——-g throats cuts? Or should have had them cut? Yep.”

    She said she cut off contact with him until Wednesday, when his picture began circulating online.

    Ashley Brouillette reached out to his current wife on Facebook and they spoke on the phone for several minutes. Her ex-husband spoke with her, according to cellphone screenshots of the phone exchange she shared with the AP. He acknowledged he had fatally shot Durán Guerrero.

    “He was asking if I could tell them that he was a good person and not to talk about the abuse and stuff that I had endured while with him and he said that the most important thing is his character right now,” she said.

    She said he told her he is now hiding in protective custody.

    “I asked him why he did it,” she said. “He said it was a justified shooting. The guy was trying to run him over with a car.”

    His daughter also said he told her it was justified.

    “I don’t think he sees himself as a killer,” Madison Brouillette said.

    “I think he thinks that he genuinely did the right thing,” she added. “All he said was that he did what he had to do. He said that he had to protect himself.”

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    This story was updated to correct that that Gardiner is northeast of Biddeford.

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    Brook reported from New Orleans, Sisak reported from New York and Galofaro reported from Louisville, Kentucky. Associated Press reporter Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

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    Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.


  • Family to hold a vigil for man fatally shot by immigration officer in Houston


    HOUSTON (AP) — The family of a man who was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent in Houston is holding a public vigil Thursday evening in response to what the man’s son says is an outpouring of support amid renewed criticism of enforcement tactics.

    The ceremony for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who was fatally shot last Tuesday by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer while driving his construction crew to a job site in Houston, comes amid mounting scrutiny of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown. Encounters with ICE have resulted in at least 10 deaths since the start of Trump’s second term last year — two of which happened in the days after a federal agent killed Salgado Araujo.

    “My family would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for the unbelievable and incredible support we have received,” Salgado Araujo’s son, Ronaldo Salgado, said in a Facebook post Thursday.

    Salgado Araujo, 52, who had no criminal record, had lived in the U.S. for 35 years.

    In the fallout of the shooting, three men whom Salgado Araujo was driving when he was killed have adamantly disputed the government’s official account.

    The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said Salgado Araujo had rammed an ICE vehicle, and that a federal agent fired a weapon in self-defense. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a staunch supporter of Trump’s immigration crackdown, said Wednesday that the state’s top law enforcement unit would investigate the fatal shooting.

    More than a week after the shooting, new court records show the FBI is investigating whether drugs were found in the van, according to a search warrant application signed by a federal judge on Tuesday.

    FBI Special Agent David McNeilly stated in an affidavit that he observed four plastic bags of a white substance appearing to be meth inside the van. DHS has not stated that suspected drugs were the reason why ICE officers engaged in the traffic stop. The FBI referred all questions to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.

    U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz emphasized in a recorded video statement on Thursday that all information was preliminary and not conclusive.

    “We are doing everything we can to seek the truth and do the right thing,” Reitz said. “In the meantime, I encourage the public to give the FBI and DHS the opportunity to investigate.”

    An attorney for Salgado Araujo’s brother, who was in the van when the agent killed Salgado Araujo and who was subsequently detained by ICE, said that the powder is a homemade electrolyte mix that the construction crew used to stay hydrated while working outside in the grueling Texas heat.

    Ruby L. Powers, the attorney for Salgado Araujo’s brother, in a statement called for officials to test the substance to establish that it isn’t an illicit substance.

    “But no test result, whatever it ultimately shows, will change the fact that deadly force was used against Lorenzo,” Powers said. “You cannot shoot first and ask questions later.”

    —

    Riddle reported from Los Angeles.


  • Weather conditions again brought devastating floods to a vulnerable swath of Texas


    WASHINGTON (AP) — Long before sunrise in Texas, a shallow spot of the Guadalupe River rose above the height of a two-story house in just five hours on Thursday, sending a rush of water through a region still weary from last summer’s fatal flash floods.

    The dangerous flooding for a second consecutive year set off hundreds of high-water rescues, washed out roads and killed at least two people, authorities said. Relentless downpours served as another frightening reminder of the flood-prone Texas Hill Country, following what experts say was fueled this time by the right mix of air and lots of available moisture.

    “Last year, it was one big wave that came through. And it wiped everything out, and then it receded, and then we could deal with the damage. This time, we’re on day three of heavy rain and everything keeps continuing to rise, and it’s expected to rain today and tonight,” said Suzanne Sutphin Gschwind of Kerrville, where some of the worst flooding took place.

    Hot weather over the middle of the continental United States ensured storms that formed would move slowly, and rounds of rain over roughly the last three days at times reached several inches an hour. The flooding is “about as bad as it gets” — conditions that are typically rare, said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

    “Obviously, something like this doesn’t occur every year, but it has occurred over two years in a row and it has occurred over a region that is prone to flash flooding by its topography,” Oravec said.

    Nearly 1 trillion gallons of water fell on the three hardest-hit counties in Texas over three days — Uvalde County alone got more rain in that period than California has seen over the last month, according to Ryan Maue, former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

    Flooding over the Fourth of July weekend last year killed more than 100 people, including roughly two dozen children and camp counselors at Camp Mystic, a now-shuttered Christian camp for girls. These storms dumped rain on a wider area, overlapping with some of the places where floodwaters overturned cars, ripped down trees and sent rescuers hustling to save lives last July.

    A local official in Travis County, which includes Austin, said people were trapped on barn roofs and in trees. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said drones and helicopters were airborne for rescues.

    “We are looking at every square inch of the entire area for anybody who may be stranded anywhere. And there will be help coming very rapidly to whoever may be displaced, wherever they are,” Abbott said.

    The flood in Texas Hill Country

    The rain hit Texas Hill Country, a part of central and south Texas with steep terrain. Shallow soil covers limestone hills that have been soaked for days. Instead of the land absorbing the water, it shoots into rivers with steep banks.

    That causes water to rise fast, a dangerous scenario that catches people by surprise.

    When rivers rise so fast “it’s almost like a river tsunami,” said Tyler Roys, a senior meteorologist with the forecasting company AccuWeather. These conditions are so deadly because water is heavy and moves quickly. Just one cubic foot of water — imagine a box a bit larger than the size of a basketball — weighs about 62 pounds (28 kilograms).

    Compared to last year’s flood, the rain fell hard, but in some places it wasn’t quite as intense and rivers in many places didn’t rise quite as quickly, Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said. Plus, the previous days of rain previewed the flood threat.

    “This one is producing greater overall precipitation totals, but it is mostly doing it with lower rain rates. They are still fairly high, but they aren’t as high as they were last year,” he said.

    While swollen from rainfall, so far Guadalupe River levels have largely remained below record levels, some of which were reached during last year’s deadly floods. The river did surpass last year’s mark at the small community of Comfort, rising to 37 feet (11.3 meters) early Thursday, a mark 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) higher than it reached last year. At its height then, water weighing as much as the Empire State Building flowed downstream roughly every minute.

    The river’s record at this spot is 42.3 feet (12.9 meters) set in 1869.

    Climate change and forecasting

    It is difficult, especially as storms are happening, to know whether climate change has made the event more likely or worse.

    Oravec said that the conditions that created this storm — hot air that steers and slows storms — have long occurred, but that climate change could make these conditions more common. A warmer atmosphere also has the potential to hold more moisture and heavier rains.

    Last year’s flooding did raise awareness of the dangers floods create, especially when they occur at night, Oravec said.

    “I think overall it has been a good forecast. The effects are catastrophic, but the signal was there for potential heavy rainfall,” he said.

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    Associated Press writers Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia and Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed.

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    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment


  • Silver says Caitlin Clark has become a ‘political football’ amid WNBA officiating debates


    NEW YORK (AP) — Conversations about WNBA officiating and Caitlin Clark have now expanded to include NBA commissioner Adam Silver.

    Silver said Thursday that Clark has become a “political football” amid debates about officiating and physical play in the WNBA, spurred by a recent play involving the star guard and Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas.

    “Ultimately, the issues around Caitlin Clark are not largely about officiating,” Silver said, “and that particular incident is not about whether a foul should have been called at the time in the game or whether that was ultimately a flagrant on review.”

    He made the remarks during an onstage conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Game Plan Summit, presented by CNBC and Boardroom.

    “I have come to know Caitlin really well,” Silver added. “She’s an incredible player and also an incredible person. And she wants to focus on being the best player she can. She has become a bit of a political football in this country, and I think it’s incredibly unfair to her. I don’t think that issue is ultimately about officiating. It’s become political ping-pong with her. And she’s a young woman who’s trying to improve her game.”

    The play Silver referred to happened during a June 24 game between the Fever and Mercury when Thomas made contact with her fist to Clark’s throat in the second quarter. Thomas was not called for a foul on the play during the game, but the league subsequently upgraded the play to a flagrant foul and suspended her one game for “recklessly making contact with her fist.”

    Thomas later said the play was an accident. She has said she received death threats and has been called racial slurs after the incident, also criticizing WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert for not doing more to protect the league’s players.

    Clark and Fever coach Stephanie White have condemned threats levied at Thomas.

    Since she entered the league, Clark has helped significantly increase WNBA ticket sales and television ratings. However, many conversations around her have centered on polarizing topics, including race, officiating and politics.

    “I don’t even think it’s fair to her that this has become a separate storyline about one foul,” Silver said, adding: “Do we need to improve WNBA officiating? No doubt about it.”

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    AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball


  • US investigators lead probe into Ryanair flight where man was partly sucked out of broken window


    U.S. aviation safety investigators announced Thursday they are taking over the probe into a Ryanair flight from Greece that left passengers scrambling minutes after takeoff, when a window dislodged and a man was partially sucked out of the plane before being pulled back inside.

    The National Transportation Safety Board said that after taking a closer look at the plane’s flight path, investigators determined the incident occurred in Greek airspace, and not over the Republic of North Macedonia as they initially believed.

    International aviation rules allow Greece’s Hellenic Air and Rail Safety Investigation Authority to hand the investigation over to the NTSB. The U.S. federal agency said it accepted and is now leading the probe, with Greece participating.

    The incident happened on July 10 on a morning flight from the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki to Memmingen, near Munich. The flight was operated by Malta Air, a subsidiary of Ryanair, Europe’s largest budget carrier.

    The 61-year-old passenger, who was not identified by name, suffered neck and shoulder injuries and friction burns, according to a Greek hospital official. It was not immediately clear Thursday if the injured passenger remained hospitalized.

    The NTSB previously said it was notified that the flight turned back because of “a right engine issue and cabin decompression.”

    Ryanair has not publicly addressed the engine issue disclosed by the NTSB. In response to an emailed request for comment about the engine issue on July 10, the airline reiterated its previous statement about the flight returning to Thessaloniki after a window became dislodged.

    Passengers told Greek media that they heard a loud bang, oxygen masks dropped and the plane began to lose altitude.

    A series of short videos recorded from inside the plane and shared by Radio Thessaloniki showed passengers wearing oxygen masks after the cabin lost pressure. Another appeared to show the blown-out window, with a man seated nearby wearing an oxygen mask. A third video, apparently filmed after the aircraft landed, showed first responders working in the aisle.

    Shye Gilad, a former airline captain who teaches at Georgetown University’s business school in the U.S., said the window blowing out would have caused rapid decompression — a sudden loss of cabin pressure that can create a brief but powerful suction effect near the opening before the pressure stabilizes.

    “The seat belt can help in those first few seconds. It’s a difference maker and people should keep their seat belts fastened at all times,” Gilad said, adding that events such as this one are “very rare” because “it takes a lot to breach a cabin.”

    Flight records show the aircraft — a Boeing 737-800 delivered new to Ryanair in 2008 — had been climbing past 15,000 feet (4,570 meters) about six minutes after departure before immediately descending to about 6,000 feet (1,830 meters). Flight-tracking site Flightradar24 said the aircraft remained at the lower altitude for roughly 30 minutes to burn fuel before returning to Thessaloniki about an hour after takeoff.

    Ryanair said in its statement that one passenger requested and received medical care after landing, and that a replacement aircraft later flew passengers to Germany.


  • NBA ‘continuing to look into’ circumstances regarding Bucks’ signing of Gary Trent Jr.


    The NBA is investigating the circumstances surrounding the Milwaukee Bucks’ signing of Gary Trent Jr. that was officially announced Thursday.

    An NBA spokesman said that “the NBA is continuing to look into it.” ESPN first reported that the NBA was investigating the signing for possible circumvention of the salary cap.

    Although the Bucks didn’t disclose terms when they announced the signing, ESPN has reported Trent received a four-year, $64 million deal. He’s getting that lucrative deal after a season in which his statistics dipped.

    Trent is coming off a 2025-26 season in which he scored 8.1 points per game and played 21.2 minutes per game for Milwaukee. Those represented his lowest averages in both categories since his rookie season of 2018-19.

    The 6-foot-4 guard had joined the Bucks in 2024 by signing for the veteran minimum after a season in which he had scored 13.7 points per game and had shot 39.3% from 3-point range for the Toronto Raptors.

    He returned to the Bucks last year after scoring 11.1 points per game and shooting 41.6% from 3-point range with Milwaukee in 2024-25. He had capped that 2024-25 season by scoring over 30 points in two of the Bucks’ five playoff games during their first-round loss to the Indiana Pacers.

    The contract Trent signed last year included a $3.9 million player option for 2026-27 that he declined before agreeing to this new deal.

    The concerns over salary cap circumvention involve whether there was a prior agreement that Trent would be rewarded now if he signed below-market deals each of the last two years.

    While the situations aren’t similar, this probe comes as the NBA also investigates whether the Los Angeles Clippers circumvented salary cap rules involving a $28 million endorsement contract between seven-time all-NBA forward Kawhi Leonard and the now-bankrupt California-based sustainability services company called Aspiration Fund Adviser LLC. That investigation has put the Clippers’ trade of Leonard to the Toronto Raptors on hold.

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    AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba


  • Netflix posts higher Q2 results but shares drop due to lukewarm forecast


    Netflix said Thursday its second-quarter profit grew thanks to new membership signups and price increases, which “had gone well and as expected.”

    But the company’s shares declined sharply in after-hours trading as the video streaming company’s forecast for the current quarter fell below Wall Street’s expectations.

    Netflix earned $3.4 billion, or 80 cents per share, in the March-June period. That’s up 9% from $3.13 billion, or 72 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.

    Revenue grew 13% to $12.56 billion from $11.08 billion.

    Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 79 cents per share on revenue of $12.58 billion, according to a poll by FactSet.

    For the current quarter, Netflix is forecasting revenue growth of about 12%. Analysts are expecting revenue to grow by about 13%, to $13 billion.

    The Los Gatos, California-based company said its advertising business remains a top priority and it expects to bring in about $3 billion in ad revenue this year. Netflix added that it’s seeing strong interest in its live events offerings, including the Women’s World Cup.

    Netflix said animated film “Swapped” is on its way to becoming its second-most viewed original animated movie, behind last year’s wildly popular “ KPop Demon Hunters. ”

    The quarter’s most popular streams included Harlan Coben’s “I Will Find You,” “Legends” from the U.K., “The Polygamist” from South Africa and the K-drama “Teach You a Lesson.”

    Netflix said it is using large language models to improve how its subscribers find things to watch and it’s adding voice search functionality and artificial-intelligence powered natural language search.

    In February, Netflix walked away from its offer to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business.

    Shares of Netflix fell $5.33, or 7.2%, to $69.02 in after-hours trading.


  • Trump firm plans to sell priority access to Truth Social posts, possibly his own


    NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s media company is planning to charge for special high-speed access to Truth Social posts, including possibly his own affecting national security and financial markets.

    The move announced Thursday would allow Wall Street trading firms and other institutions to get news from top Truth Social contributors in milliseconds so they could profit off subsequent moves in stocks, bonds and interest rates.

    Called Truth PSI, the new service comes amid a flurry of other deals by Trump and his family company that critics say are exploiting the presidency for profit. It follows similar offers of paid access on rival platforms, though with one key difference: The most popular Truth Social poster is the president himself and, as the biggest shareholder of the public traded parent company, would directly benefit.

    “He’s selling expedited, privileged access to information about what he is doing as president,” said Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law and an expert in government conflicts of interest rules. “It’s yet more brazen corruption, an improper exploitation of government power to enrich himself.”

    The Trump family company declined to comment about whether the new feature is profiting off the presidency. Truth Social’s public parent, Trump Media & Technology, did not respond to emailed questions, including whether the president’s posts will be excluded from the offering.

    A press release states it would allow traders to see “the highest-ranking Truth Social accounts” ahead of others. The president has the most followers — 12.9 million — followed by his oldest son, Don Jr. and, close behind, his son Eric.

    The release did not say how much customers would be charged.

    In the past few months, Trump has announced major decisions and musings on his platform including posts about the Iran war, tariffs and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown in U.S. cities. The Iran posts in particular are impactful because investors are worried that higher oil prices will continue to stoke inflation and possibly force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.

    Stock in Trump Media & Technology has plunged more than 70% since the president took office last year, erasing $6 billion in shareholder wealth. Those losses, along with billions more of investor losses tied to new Trump family crypto businesses, have drawn scrutiny after Trump’s annual disclosure of his financial holdings shows he took in more than $1 billion in revenue last year in the same companies and offerings.

    Conflict of interest laws would bar U.S. government officials from owning a company that profits off their office by selling access to their decisions through public posts, says Washington University’s Clark. But the president and vice-president, she notes, are excluded from the provision.

    Despite that, all presidents since the law was passed decades ago have acted as if it applied — selling individual stocks, dumping business holdings or putting their financial assets in a blind trust so they wouldn’t know what was being bought and sold on their behalf while they wielded power — but Trump has refused.

    Trump Media has been trying to lift its stock price recently by branching into various businesses, including crypto, financial services and even nuclear fusion. It recently replaced its longtime CEO, former Congressman Devin Nunes, with a seasoned media executive, Kevin McGurn.

    In the release, McGurn described the Truth PSI move as part of a “strategy to monetize proprietary assets.” He added that he expected it to become a “meaningful, ongoing source of revenue.”

    Trump Media said that it plans to start the service next month and that it has already signed up customers.

    The stock rose 0.6% to $9.63 on Thursday. Before Trump took office last year, it closed at $40.


  • MLB to have earliest opening day on March 24 in 2027 — if there is a season


    NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball is set to have its earliest opening day next year except for international games, starting on March 24 — if there is an opening day.

    MLB said Thursday its 2027 season will start with a single game to be televised that night by Netflix. The teams have not been chosen.

    Opening matchups include Cleveland at the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis at Cincinnati, the Chicago White Sox at Detroit, Texas at Houston, Minnesota at Kansas City, Atlanta at the Los Angeles Dodgers, the New York Mets at Miami, the Los Angeles Angels at Milwaukee, Toronto at the New York Yankees, the Athletics at Pittsburgh, Arizona at San Diego, Colorado at San Francisco, Boston at Seattle, Baltimore at Tampa Bay and Philadelphia at Washington.

    Baseball’s labor contract expires Dec. 1 and a management lockout is expected. In 2022, an agreement wasn’t reached until March 10, causing opening day to be pushed back from March 31 to April 7.

    Chicago’s Wrigley Field will host the All-Star Game on July 13 and a rivalry weekend will follow.

    The regular season is scheduled to end Sept. 26.

    The Athletics are scheduled to play most of their home games in West Sacramento, California, for the third straight season before moving to a new ballpark in Las Vegas. They will have a homestand at the Triple-A ballpark in Las Vegas starting May 31 against San Diego and Cincinnati.

    With no labor contract in place for 2027, no international games are scheduled.

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    AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb