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  • McIlroy says PGA Tour pre-LIV was ‘actually pretty good’ and worries about future of 2nd-tier events


    SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) — Now that LIV Golf is flailing and the sport has pulled itself out of what once felt like a day-to-day crisis cycle, Rory McIlroy sees the future — and the past — a little differently.

    “You start to realize that the way the tour was before LIV came along was actually pretty good,” McIlroy said Tuesday, as he prepared for the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.

    The six-time major champion, once seen as the frontline defender of the PGA Tour when it was fighting to rebuild itself in the wake of the LIV startup, is now waiting to see what the tour does next.

    He recognizes that LIV’s injection of billions into the sport “created a false economy” that forced the tour to respond. Though it has made the rich richer with the creation of “signature” events with $20 million purses, McIlroy isn’t so sure that — or whatever comes next — is better than what came before it.

    One potential casualty of the shift: events like last week’s Canadian Open — a tournament with a national title on the line that McIlroy has won twice in the past seven years but skipped this year. It has been relegated to second-class status on the current schedule and could fall even further if it ends up part of what is being called “Track 2” in the tour’s next model, expected to kick off in 2028.

    Last week’s Canadian Open, won by 40th-ranked Bud Cauley, featured four players in the top 10.

    “Track 2 is a glorified Korn Ferry event,” McIlroy said of what essentially is the tour’s current minor league. “That’s what Track 2 is going to be. So I don’t think the Canadian Open should be one of those.”

    Anything McIlroy says carries more weight, in part because of his resume and in part because when LIV started up, he was its biggest critic among the players.

    As time passed, McIlroy grew weary of being a frontman and eventually settled into the idea that, while he preferred the PGA Tour and its connection to tradition and history, others made their decisions and that didn’t mean they couldn’t get along.

    Now, LIV is looking for funding after the Saudis announced they were pulling out of the investment. The PGA Tour: still revamping.

    Next week, the tour will unveil more details about tweaks to its new model. It is expected to increase fields to up to 130 players (from around 72) and restore the 36-hole cut in so-called Track 1 events.

    The lesser events would be mostly for players to work their way into the top. It makes the futures for those events less certain, in part because sponsors won’t pay as much to put their names on tournaments where they know the top players will be absent.

    “I just think there’s going to be certain events that might lose their stature if a sponsor doesn’t pony up $30 million,” McIlroy said. “So that’s the tough thing.”

    A return to New York under different circumstances than the Ryder Cup

    The trip to Shinnecock Hills on Long Island marks McIlroy’s first tournament in the New York area since last year’s Ryder Cup, where his R-rated exchanges with fans marked a low point in that event’s long history.

    There is, of course, an “Us vs. Them” nature to the Ryder Cup that doesn’t exist in week-to-week golf, where McIlroy plays most of his rounds in front of appreciative galleries.

    There was one moment at the PGA Championship last month outside of Philadelphia where a fan shouted “U-S-A!” after McIlroy hit a bad shot; McIlroy shouted a profanity at the fan, but nothing more came from the episode.

    Now, he’s back in New York — ready for whatever the golf course, and the gallery, throws at him.

    “Was it a rough week for me at times? Absolutely,” he said of the Ryder Cup. “But it is what it is. If that’s a price to pay to live the life that I’m living, then I’m OK with that.”

    Return to the past isn’t possible; McIlroy lives the good life either way

    Now 37 and one of only six players to capture the career Grand Slam, McIlroy is one of those rare players who had it good both before and after LIV came along and disrupted the game.

    He said he is not a decision-maker and, regardless of what the tour rolls out for 2028 and beyond, “I’ll continue to play my schedule, which is getting less and less as the years go on.”

    He said the tour had to adapt to retain talent when LIV came along and grabbed Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, a five-time major champion who has since returned to the PGA Tour.

    Now, their futures are in flux and McIlroy views the tour he never left in a different light.

    “Now that LIV looks like it’s less of a threat,” he said, “I think the old ways of the PGA Tour weren’t actually that bad.”

    ___

    AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf


  • Sean Penn to direct Warner Bros. movie about a police officer at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot


    NEW YORK (AP) — Sean Penn will direct a movie about a police officer who was at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in 2021, Warner Bros. announced Tuesday.

    Following his Oscar-winning performance in “One Battle After Another,” Penn will direct the as-yet untitled film from his own script. Bradley Cooper is in talks to star, though no deal has been finalized.

    Representatives for Penn and Warner Bros. didn’t comment Tuesday on the movie’s protagonist but said he’s based on a real person.

    When Penn attended the 2022 hearings of the House Select Committee investigating the deadly attack on the Capitol, he sat between Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges, both of whom responded to the attacks.

    Fanone testified that he rushed to the scene and was “grabbed, beaten, tased, all while being called a traitor to my country.” The assault, which stopped only when he said he had children, caused him to have a heart attack. Hodges also testified about his harrowing experience.

    At the hearings, Penn said he was attending as “just another citizen” to observe and see if justice would be served.

    The film is described as being about “an unexpected friendship.” Production is expected to start mid-2027.

    The movie’s announcement comes just days after the U.S. Justice Department said it will not challenge Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The $111 billion deal, agreed to in February, will put the Warner Bros. film studio under the control of David Ellison, Paramount’s chief executive.

    Ellison and his father, the Oracle founder Larry Ellison, have strong ties to President Donald Trump. On Sunday, Ellison attended the Ultimate Fighting Championship event at the White House.

    “One Battle After Another,” hailed as a timely political film, won best picture at the Academy Awards in March. Penn won his third Oscar for his racist military zealot Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, but skipped the ceremony to instead visit Ukraine.


  • Paris Hilton returns to Utah ‘troubled teen’ facility to support others who allege mistreatment


    SPRINGVILLE, Utah (AP) — Paris Hilton returned Monday to the Utah boarding school where she said she was abused as a teenager, the latest stop in her yearslong campaign calling for reforms to what is commonly known as the troubled teen industry.

    This time Hilton was speaking in support of two families who filed lawsuits Monday alleging that their children were mistreated at Provo Canyon School, the same facility where Hilton spent almost a year in the late 1990s. The hotel heiress and media personality alleges staff members beat her, watched her shower, fed her unknown pills and locked her in solitary confinement without clothing.

    “I dreamed of becoming strong enough, successful enough and powerful enough to come back and be the hero that I needed when I was a little girl locked inside,” Hilton said. “Today is that day, and I am not backing down.”

    The school is now under new ownership, and the administration has said it can’t comment on anything that came before the change, including Hilton’s time there.

    Hilton, 45, called on Utah licensors to shut down the school. She has testified about her experiences there in Congress and state legislatures around the U.S., helping pass laws to protect teens in Utah and 15 other states. Utah has long played an outsized role in the troubled teen industry, a network of private, for-profit residential centers for children with behavioral issues.

    State health officials imposed temporary restrictions on Provo Canyon School in May, saying the staff did not seek immediate medical care for a student with serious injuries. The restrictions, which include a prohibition on accepting new clients, are set to end Thursday.

    Aleah Corona, the mother of the injured student, alleged in Monday’s lawsuit that the school did not immediately help the 13-year-old after another resident slammed his head on the ground. The boy ended up with a fractured jaw and a traumatic brain injury, she said. Another family alleged their daughter had severe stomach pain and nausea for more than a week before the school sought proper medical attention. She then experienced kidney failure, their lawsuit alleges.

    The school said it could not comment on specific cases due to patient privacy laws.

    “At Provo Canyon School, the safety, dignity, and well-being of those entrusted to our care are our highest priorities,” the school said in a statement.

    Hilton strutted toward the campus in Springville with her middle fingers raised, telling The Associated Press she refused to be intimidated by a place where she once feared for her life every day.

    She warned that parents, like her own, can fall victim to misleading marketing tactics that portray teen facilities as safe.

    “These places really just prey on parents who are just looking for help for their children,” Hilton said. “I wasn’t a bad kid, I was just sneaking out at night, getting bad grades. I had ADHD, so I wasn’t doing well in school, but this was definitely not the place that I should’ve been sent. My parents had no idea.”


  • McDonald’s is serving fried apple pie again for America’s 250th birthday


    McDonald’s is frying up some apple pies to honor America’s 250th birthday.

    The company said Tuesday it’s bringing back fried apple pies for the first time in more than three decades. They’ll be available at most U.S. restaurants for a limited time starting June 23.

    McDonald’s is one of several fast-food companies offering semiquincentennial treats. Burger King recently debuted its Firecracker Cookie Pie, which has a sugar cookie crust and red, white and blue star-shaped sprinkles. Sonic is offering a red, white and blue slush float for $2.50. Hardee’s has an iced Star-Spangled Biscuit with red and blue sprinkles.

    Here’s a look at McDonald’s fried apple pies by the numbers:

    — 1968: The year McDonald’s introduced both its fried apple pie and the Big Mac hamburger. Litton Cochran, a McDonald’s franchisee in Tennessee, developed the rectangle-shaped pie, which was served in a cardboard sleeve. 1968 was a momentous year that included the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis and Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles, protests against the Vietnam War and the signing of a federal law prohibiting housing discrimination.

    — 1992: The year McDonald’s replaced the fried apple pie with a baked version in most of the U.S., responding to growing consumer awareness of fat and cholesterol consumption. The U.S. Department of Agriculture first published its food guide pyramid the same year. Fried apple pie remained on McDonald’s menus in Hawaii and is still sold in some other countries, including the United Kingdom, Mexico, Greece, Australia and China.

    — 230: Number of calories in McDonald’s baked apple pie. That’s 10 more calories than the fried version, according to the company’s website. A cup of boiled lentils, a single almond Snickers bar and a grande Frappucino from Starbucks have the same calorie count, according to publicly available nutrition information.

    — 130: Number of members of the Facebook group “Bring Back the Original McDonald’s Fried Apple Pie.” By comparison, there are 1,100 members lobbying McDonald’s in the “Bring Back the McRib” Facebook group and 928 members of the “McDonald’s, Bring Back the Szechuan Sauce” Facebook group.

    — 170 million: Number of American-grown apples that McDonald’s says it serves every year at its U.S. stores.

    — 35: Height, in feet, of a giant fried apple pie that McDonald’s is installing on Route 66 in Joliet, Illinois, near McDonald’s Chicago headquarters. That’s about the height of a three-story house and some species of palm trees. The giant apple pie will stay in place until July 4, the company said.


  • Republican Gov. Mike DeWine wants Ohio to abolish the death penalty, saying it is not a deterrent


    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who has repeatedly postponed executions over the past seven years, said Tuesday that Ohio should abolish the death penalty, confirming his change of heart on the policy he helped write as a state legislator 45 years ago.

    DeWine, 79, said during a news conference that data indicates the death penalty is not serving as a deterrent to violent crime, which he had always believed was its moral imperative.

    “I do not believe that argument today can be successfully made, nor do I believe that there’s any chance in the future the facts that I’ve cited to support that belief will change,” he said. “Therefore, I believe Ohio should abolish the death penalty.”

    To bolster his case, DeWine brandished charts and graphs detailing the diminishing number of death sentences meted out by courts and showing the exceedingly long wait times that elapse as legal appeals play out for those on death row. He said condemned murderers are increasingly unlikely to ever be executed, sometimes dying by natural causes or by suicide before their execution date arrives.

    “In summary, each decade that the death penalty has been in effect, the chances of a murderer getting executed get more and more and more remote,” DeWine said.

    He also cited years of pain brought to victims’ loved ones by the delays and the toll taken on the mental health of state employees who serve on execution teams.

    DeWine, facing a term limit in December, said he felt compelled to share his observations now, having had 50 years of experience with the issue from the time he was a young county prosecutor, through being a congressman and U.S. senator, then as Ohio’s attorney general. But he said his outright opposition has only crystallized over the past year.

    Divided reaction to DeWine’s position

    Headed into the announcement, any chance of a legislative repeal of the death penalty appeared unlikely. Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman has said he would oppose such an effort.

    In repeatedly extending Ohio’s unofficial death penalty moratorium by postponing scheduled executions, DeWine has cited pharmaceutical suppliers’ unwillingness to provide the drugs used in lethal injections. In January 2025, President Donald Trump ordered then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to help states try to resolve that issue.

    Interim Ohio Republican Attorney General Andy Wilson expressed relief that DeWine didn’t choose to use commutations and that his office will continue working to uphold the current law.

    DeWine has already said he expects no further executions during his term, but he said the compelling nature of the death penalty data remains the same whether you include the past seven years, when executions have been on hold, or not.

    Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, said the governor’s decision is in line with “an evolution on the death penalty” across the political spectrum in Ohio.

    “Nobody supports a system that harms victim families, convicts innocent people and wastes millions of dollars without a shred of improved public safety,” Werner said.

    Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, said his group had been anticipating DeWine’s announcement, which he called “well-reasoned.”

    Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports the death penalty and crime victims’ rights, said DeWine may be right that Ohio’s death penalty isn’t currently serving as a deterrent.

    However, “what is needed is the political will and effective leadership,” Scheidegger said.

    Death penalty’s future being debated nationally

    The governor noted that Ohio is far from the only state where such trends exist. Use of and support for the death penalty has been on the decline nationally for two decades.

    Currently, 27 states allow the death penalty and 23 do not, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center. Ohio is among four states where executions are paused by executive action. The center reported in 2023 that more Americans now believe the death penalty is administered unfairly than fairly, a first.

    Texas has executed 600 people since it resumed the death penalty in 1982. Republican state Rep. Jeff Leach, who has met with death row inmates and advocated for reforms, led a group of state lawmakers last year who successfully halted the first execution in the U.S. tied to a murder conviction for shaken baby syndrome.

    Then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan, also a Republican, signed off on the execution of one killer then decided not to carry out any more. In virtually his last act as governor, he emptied death row with pardons and commutations in 2003. Numerous governors have commuted some number of death sentences or granted broad blanket clemency to condemned inmates in the years since to empty portions of their death rows.

    But the nation remains divided.

    Since 2019, Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia have eliminated the death penalty, while five states have approved nitrogen gas executions since 2024 to get around issues with lethal injection protocols. Meanwhile, Trump pushes to expand federal executions. During his first term, Trump’s administration carried out 13 federal executions, more than under any president in modern history.

    DeWine’s position has evolved over time

    Pushing back execution dates has left Ohio with 30 scheduled over the next four years, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Ohio hasn’t put an inmate to death since July 18, 2018, the year before DeWine took office.

    The state reinstated capital punishment in 1981 under a law co-written by DeWine. Ohio resumed death penalties in 1999, and 56 people have since died by lethal injection in the state.

    DeWine’s support has slowly shifted since his political career began in 1976. As attorney general, DeWine ordered the Ohio prison system to consider alternative lethal injection drugs. A year later, in 2020, he said lawmakers would have to choose a different method before any more inmates could be executed.

    Since then, neither a bipartisan push to ban the practice nor a competing effort to bring nitrogen gas executions to Ohio has gone anywhere. A nitrogen gas execution in Alabama was halted last week, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to set aside a lower-court ruling that found the method unconstitutionally cruel.

    ___

    Associated Press writer John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed.


  • A taste of home, yerba mate is a shared bond for many World Cup fans


    KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Alongside their flags, jerseys and songs, fans at World Cup matches are bringing along their cups and straws to share a sip of yerba mate as they root on their national teams.

    The caffeinated beverage that is ubiquitous in some South American countries has spread alongside the multicultural appeal of soccer, including in the United States, where it’s become a drink of choice for star athletes on the pitch and off.

    When reigning World Cup winners Argentina arrived at their hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, fans were outside pouring and sharing yerba mate in gourd cups with metal bombillas, the straw that acts as a filter for the steeped leaves. At Cafe Corazon, one of the biggest importers of yerba mate in the Midwest, a line of fans wearing sky blue-and-white striped jerseys was nearly out the door on Monday, the day before Argentina played their first match of the World Cup.

    “Our mate has been flying off the shelves,” said Dulcinea Herrera, one of the co-owners of Cafe Corazon. “So a lot of people have been coming in to try it. People who aren’t Argentinian want to just have that experience. And we have a lot of Argentinians coming in saying, ‘Oh, this reminds me of home.’”

    Plenty of the World Cup’s most famous stars are avid drinkers, from Uruguay’s Luis Suarez to Argentina’s Lionel Messi. The latter posted a photo of himself holding a mate cup in one hand and the World Cup trophy in the other after his team won in 2022, cementing the drink’s place in the hall of famous sport beverages.

    Mate, your way

    The drink that dates back to Indigenous people and the gauchos — South American cowboys — is sipped around the world, with other nations and cultures adding a different spin or flavor, says Christine Folch, a cultural anthropologist at Duke University and author of “The Book of Yerba Mate.”

    People of certain regions, such as Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil, prefer their mate in different types of vessels and prepared certain ways, which can be a cultural identifier when those fans meet up at a friendly match. Fulch has a large collection of mate cups, including ones made of cow hooves and horns, alongside hand-stitched, leather-wrapped metal cups and gourds.

    In the early 20th century, mate became popular in Syria and Lebanon, which is why one the main places to get the traditional dried leaves in the U.S. is at Middle Eastern grocery stores, Folch explained. In the U.S., it’s often sold in refrigerated cans, marketed to an American audience as a natural energy drink and mixed with fruit flavors. Some Cuban Americans drink a version of mate that’s sweetened and carbonated. In Berlin, Club Mate is a popular carbonated drink that often gets mixed with alcohol.

    Traditionally, the leaves of the trees are smoked during preparation, so the mate can have a smoky overtone as well as a strong grassy, earthy flavor that people say makes them feel less jittery than coffee.

    And if you want to sound knowledgeable when ordering, it’s pronounced like MAH-teh, not as in your soccer teammate.

    Sip and share

    It’s a drink made for social settings, like a sporting event, because traditionally people will share the same cup or bring enough to share, says Folch.

    “When somebody offers you mate and you accept, what you have done is you have stepped into a relationship. So it’s a way of bonding with people,” says Folch.

    Sebastian Cufre and his father Rene, who was born in Argentina, drove to Kansas City from Albuquerque trying to score last-minute tickets to the match. They met other Argentina fans at Cafe Corazon and shared a cup of mate around their tables.

    “It’s like something that you pass around during the games,” said Cufre.

    He’s tried the canned American version, but isn’t a fan.

    “Honestly, I don’t even consider that to be mate,” Cufre said. “That’s like a completely different class of beverage.”

    Whatever the preference, fans of mate want their North American friends to give yerba mate a chance if they see a cup being passed around while at a cafe, a restaurant or a watch party.

    “It’s not only a drink, but a social thing,” said Fernando Villagran, originally from Salta, Argentina, who traveled from California to cheer on Argentina’s team. “It is about friendship.”

    ___

    AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup


  • Aldon Smith’s brain donated to CTE Center as family’s attorneys investigate his death at age 36


    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The family of former NFL star Aldon Smith is donating his brain to the Boston University CTE Center to research the long-term effects of repetitive brain injuries following his sudden death at age 36.

    Smith died Saturday hours after delivering pizzas to a homeless charity in the San Francisco Bay area.

    No cause of death was given and Smith’s family has hired attorneys Harry Daniels, Bakari Sellers and Wayne Kendall to investigate Smith’s death.

    “As with anyone who dies so suddenly at such a young age, we understand that there is a great deal of interest in and speculation about Aldon Smith’s passing and we intend to get to the bottom of it,” the attorneys said in a statement released Tuesday. “To that end, we have taken a number of steps including sending his brain to Boston where medical experts will examine it for CTE as well as other damage caused by years of concussions and additional trauma.

    “In the meantime we simply ask you to keep Aldon’s family in our prayers and respect their privacy as they struggle to come to grips with this terrible loss.”

    Smith’s friend, Amir Shirazi, told the San Francisco Chronicle, that he found Smith slumped over in the front passenger seat of his car after delivering the pizzas on Saturday. Smith was taken to a hospital and was declared dead.

    “He was a creative mind, so smart, so fierce, so real, so powerful, his presence, his passion and his aura meant a lot to me as a brother and I wish I could’ve did more to help him and pray to God he doesn’t have to hurt anymore,” his former teammate, Anthony Dixon, wrote on social media.

    Smith was drafted by the 49ers with the seventh pick out of Missouri in 2011 and made an immediate impact on the team, helping San Francisco snap a playoff drought and reach the NFC title game his first three seasons with one trip to a Super Bowl.

    He had 14 sacks as a rookie when he finished second to Von Miller in voting for the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year and had a franchise-record 19 1/2 sacks in 2012 when he was named a first-team All-Pro.

    His 33 1/2 sacks in his first two seasons are the most in NFL history. He kept that pace up with 4 1/2 sacks in the first three games in 2013 before the off-field issues started with an arrest for DUI and a stint in rehab for substance abuse that sidelined him for five games.

    He was released by San Francisco in August 2015 after another drunken driving charge — his fifth arrest in three years. He signed with Oakland just before the start of the 2015 season and had 3 1/2 sacks in nine games before being suspended again.

    Smith applied for reinstatement to the NFL in 2016, but was not allowed back initially. The Raiders released him in 2018 following a domestic violence arrest. A plea agreement was reached in that case.

    He eventually was reinstated in 2020 and played 16 games for Dallas that season and had five sacks.

    He signed with Seattle the next season but was arrested again for battery and was released in training camp. He served a six-month jail sentence for DUI in 2023 and never played again in the NFL.

    Smith finished his career with 52 1/2 sacks in 75 games.

    ___

    AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL


  • Indiana becomes the latest state to receive flexibility from Trump on federal education spending


    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is giving Indiana more flexibility over how it decides to spend its federal grant money, the third state to receive such exemptions from the Education Department as it seeks to “return education to the states.”

    Indiana’s plan will consolidate $50 million in federal money from five funding streams into one with fewer spending restrictions, similar to exemptions over federal spending granted to Iowa and Louisiana earlier this year. State officials said the waiver would reduce the costs associated with compliance and documentation by about $20 million.

    Education Secretary Linda McMahon approved the state’s plan at an event Tuesday in Indiana, appearing with state Secretary of Education Katie Jenner and Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican.

    Jenner said the state welcomes the expanded control over federal money.

    “As states, we have significant control over education in that we set the standards, we can choose our curriculum, we can design our assessments,” Jenner said. “But when it comes to federal funding, our hands have always been tied. Until now.”

    The Education Department sends billions of dollars each year to American schools, based on funding levels set by Congress. The money makes up a small but critical part of most school district budgets, arriving in dozens of separate grants and funding streams set aside for specific purposes.

    Waivers from the federal government have been offered for years, and were widely used during the pandemic. Under the Trump administration, which has vowed to dismantle the federal Education Department, they have gained traction as a new way to reduce the federal footprint in state and local education decisions.

    Indiana’s waiver is also the first granted by the Trump administration that allows a change in accountability systems, allowing Indiana to reduce how heavily academic indicators are weighted in school performance scores.

    Still, the department can grant only so much flexibility. Indiana’s request sought to create a school choice program by giving money set aside to improve low-performing districts to higher-performing ones that enroll students from other schools, but that was denied.

    An Education Department official said that proposal was not approved because it would have changed how funds are allocated to recipients, an explicit restriction on the secretary’s waiver authority.

    Iowa’s plan faced similar hurdles. The state originally sought flexibility for major grants like Title I, which sends more than $100 million to Iowa schools with high percentages of low-income students, and to consolidate 10 funding streams into a single grant. The department approved a much smaller waiver — collapsing four funding streams totaling $9.8 million for programs that fund teacher training, English learners, after-school programs and academic enrichment.

    More waivers are likely to come, as a handful of conservative-led states have either expressed interest or submitted their own proposals for expanded flexibility.

    President Donald Trump’s administration has described the waivers as an effort to empower state leaders and minimize administrative burden.

    At the same time, Trump has lent support to a growing school choice movement. States are using taxpayer money to finance kids’ private school or homeschooling expenses, encouraging them to leave public school. The federal government is set to launch its own school choice program next year.

    Programs supported by federal money often support disadvantaged students, such as additional funding for rural schools, low-income schools and English-language learners.

    Without these explicit designations, critics say, money for vulnerable populations may be rolled into more general spending initiatives that do not specifically address the challenges those students face. The three waivers approved so far roll funding set aside for English-language learners into a broader spending pool.

    The Education Department also approved Indiana’s request for a unified school accountability system that relies on benchmarks developed by the state. The new system places a greater focus on college and career readiness.

    Denise Forte, CEO of EdTrust, a group that advocates for educational equity, criticized the waiver and the new accountability system for limiting transparency and accountability and for de-emphasizing reading and math scores.

    “The Department of Education will allow Indiana to rewrite its accountability system in a way that will mask student performance and move millions of dollars in dedicated funding away from students who need it most,” Forte said in a statement.

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    The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.


  • John Tortorella not returning as coach of the Vegas Golden Knights


    John Tortorella will not return as coach of the Vegas Golden Knights after guiding them to the Stanley Cup Final on an interim basis.

    Uncertainty lingered over the situation through the team’s elimination in Game 6 of the final against Carolina on Sunday night. General manager Kelly McCrimmon announced Tuesday that Tortorella would not be back.

    “We thank Torts for the guidance he provided our team since joining the organization in March,” McCrimmon said. “When the decision was made to bring Torts to Vegas, we needed an immediate impact to help us at a pivotal point in the season. Torts’ experience and leadership proved to be the boost that we were looking for, helping guide us to the Stanley Cup Final. We are grateful for Torts’ passion, sincerity, and commitment to our organization, and we wish him and his family the best.”

    McCrimmon hired Tortorella on March 30 when he fired Bruce Cassidy with eight games left in the season. The Golden Knights won seven of them and then got through three rounds before losing to the Hurricanes in the final.

    Players spoke highly of how Tortorella handled jumping in this spring, and that praise continued on exit day after finding out he would not return. Rasmus Andersson said Tortorella “was a perfect fit at a perfect time for us.”

    “Torts was awesome,” fellow defenseman Shea Theodore said. “I think he was really what our group needed at the end to kind of push us in the playoffs. A lot of credit to him. He was a fantastic coach.”

    Tortorella, who turns 68 next week, is 22 years removed from coaching Tampa Bay to the Stanley Cup in 2004. After his time with the Lightning, he spent time running the bench for the New York Rangers, Vancouver, Columbus and Philadelphia and was out of the league for roughly a year before getting the call from McCrimmon.

    “It’s a tough situation for a coach to come in with that little time left,” said Vegas’ Noah Hanifin, who won gold at the Olympics when Tortorella was on staff as an assistant. “And just the way he was able to kind of get us back on the right track fast, and give us a chance, was pretty impressive.”

    Tortorella took criticism in recent days for deciding to stick with goaltender Carter Hart, whose .863 save percentage was the lowest in the final since Minnesota’s Jon Casey in 1991. Hart and Tortorella overlapped with the Flyers from ’22-24.

    McCrimmon is scheduled to speak to reporters on Wednesday. One avenue Vegas could go with for Tortorella’s successor is promoting Ryan Craig, who has been coach of its top affiliate, the Henderson Silver Knights of the American Hockey League, for the past three seasons.

    ___

    AP freelance writer W.G. Ramirez in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

    ___

    AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl


  • Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice released after 30-day jail stint for car crash probation violation


    KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice was released from a Dallas County jail on Tuesday after serving a 30-day sentence for violating the terms of his probation, which stemmed from his role in a car crash that left multiple people injured on a Texas highway.

    The 26-year-old Rice had been booked into the jail on May 19 after testing positive for THC. Upon his release, Rice made a quick dash past a handful of reporters and into a waiting SUV, which whisked him away from the facility.

    Rice had surgery about a week before he was sentenced to clean up debris in his right knee, which had been causing inflammation. A judge approved a request from his lawyers to allow him to receive treatment at Parkland Hospital while serving his sentence.

    Rice missed all of the Chiefs’ voluntary offseason workouts and their mandatory minicamp, which concluded last week. But Chiefs coach Andy Reid said recently that he expects him to report on time to training camp at the end of July.

    “(Chiefs trainer) Rick (Burkholder) has talked to him more than what I have,” Reid said, “just making sure that everything was set there where he could do some rehab with it and still do the time that he needed to take care of. So he’s on top of that, and thank goodness that they’re allowing him to do that. So, they’ve been great with that.”

    The Chiefs are counting on Rice to help an offense that often struggled during a disappointing 6-11 finish last season.

    He’s been valuable when he’s been available, catching 156 passes for 1,797 yards and 14 touchdowns and helping the Chiefs win the Super Bowl in the 2023 season. But he’s also missed games because of suspension and injuries, resulting in just 28 played in three seasons.

    “We’re moving forward as normal as we go here,” Reid said during voluntary workouts. “When he gets back, we’ve got to get him caught up in doing what he needs to do, and make sure he gets it. It’s not an easy thing he’s going through.

    “Life lessons are important,” Reid added, “but we’re all given chances to learn, and he’s in that position now.”

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