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  • Black women’s non-profit awards grants to local Southern groups as part of joy-filled tour


    Organizations supporting Black women and girls across the American South can expect a bit more joy — and more money — this summer following a new round of grants.

    The Southern Black Girls and Women’s Consortium will grant $350,000 to two dozen Southern community organizations working in thirteen states. The grants will fund organizations that address acute challenges facing underserved Black women and girls, like maternal health, gender-based violence prevention and educational support.

    The funding and tour come at a moment when organizations focused on supporting underserved communities face funding crunches following the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

    The administration has invoked civil rights laws traditionally understood to have protected the rights of marginalized communities to investigate or prosecute instances of “anti-white racism” and “illegal DEI” in companies, non-profits and government agencies.

    “We’ve seen this retrenchment in philanthropy, and people are not putting resources on the ground,” said Chanceé Lundy, Southern Black Girls’ executive director. “Organizations are struggling, and we want to make sure that people know that we see them. We value the work that we’re doing, and we want to be able to help fill some of the gaps that they are experiencing.”

    The grants coincide with the organization’s summer “Joy and Justice” tour, which convenes community building activities, resource drives and festivals in nine cities. Most of the tour stops take place at schools and community centers in majority-Black neighborhoods. One rally will take place at the Virginia Capitol alongside agency leaders promoting diversity in the state’s government.

    Southern Black Girls has maintained funding from some major corporations and foundations, though Lundy described the efforts to maintain those relationships as “extremely difficult” for most groups in the current political climate, where supporting race and gender conscious organizations may prompt backlash from the federal government.

    “We’re being punished for who we are,” said LaTosha Brown, a voting rights activist and co-founder of the organization.

    President Donald Trump defeated former Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black woman presidential nominee of a major party. About 9 in 10 Black women backed Harris for the presidency, according to a survey of voters by AP VoteCast. Brown said that Black women’s longstanding participation in liberal politics made them a “target” in the current political climate.

    “We have always been anchored, particularly in the social justice movements of this country, and I don’t think that that’s any different now. I think in many ways it has been exacerbated, just given the environment,” said Brown.

    Both Brown and Lundy noted that Black women have always faced discrimination and marginalization in the South despite being integral to the region’s economy and culture. Lundy recalled stories of past generations of Black women who raised the children of white families that upheld Jim Crow policies that underfunded schools, restricted voting and enabled political violence against Black communities.

    “You have to have a deep, deep sense of humanity to be able to do that,” said Lundy. She said that the tour was part of promoting Black women’s place in the country’s history and future as the U.S. prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary. “We’ve kept our humanity intact through it all, and I think this moment requires that.”

    Lundy said she hoped the tour and grants would enable Black girls to reach their full potential.

    “You matter now in this moment,” Lundy said was her “joyful” message to young Black girls. “And you’re not a victim. You are actually the solution, that you are the antidote to what is happening right now.”


  • DC reaches court settlement with man detained while protesting troops’ patrol with Darth Vader song


    WASHINGTON (AP) — The District of Columbia has reached a settlement agreement for an undisclosed amount of money with a resident who claims police illegally detained him for following an Ohio National Guard patrol while playing Darth Vader’s theme song from “Star Wars” on his phone — an act of protest against the Trump administration’s federal law-enforcement surge in the nation’s capital.

    A court filing late Thursday says the plaintiff, Sam O’Hara, will drop his lawsuit’s claims against the district and four Metropolitan Police Department officers within three business days of receiving the settlement payment. The filing doesn’t specify a dollar amount for the deal between the district and O’Hara, who is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia.

    In an email on Friday, an ACLU spokesperson referred to the settlement’s financial terms as “a significant amount” that O’Hara “is pleased with” but said they aren’t disclosing the dollar figure to protect his privacy. A spokesperson for D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s office declined to comment on the settlement.

    O’Hara’s agreement with the district doesn’t resolve his related claims against an Ohio National Guard member. Attorneys for the Guard member, Sgt. Devon Beck, have asked a judge to dismiss O’Hara’s claims against him.

    “He was there because that was his assigned duty,” Beck’s lawyers wrote. “This was not an accidental encounter or a one-time disagreement on a public sidewalk.”

    An earlier court filing, in February, said O’Hara had reached a settlement agreement “in principle” with the district. In response, a judge agreed to suspend the case while they negotiated terms.

    O’Hara sued the district last October, claiming police officers violated his First Amendment rights to free speech and his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizures and excessive force.

    The ominous orchestral music of “The Imperial March” from Star Wars movies was the soundtrack for O’Hara’s peaceful protests against President Donald Trump’s ongoing deployment of Guard members in Washington. Millions of TikTok users have viewed O’Hara’s videos of his interactions with troops, according to his lawsuit.

    O’Hara, an artist who works in the hospitality industry, says he didn’t interfere with the Guard troops during their Sept. 11, 2025, encounter on a public street. One of the troops summoned Metropolitan Police Department officers, who stopped O’Hara and kept him handcuffed for 15 to 20 minutes before releasing him without charges, according to the lawsuit.

    “The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from shutting down peaceful protests,” the suit says.

    Trump, a Republican, issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in Washington last August. Within weeks, hundreds of Guard troops and federal agents were helping police patrol the city. The surge inflamed tensions with residents of the heavily Democratic district. Hundreds of Guard members remain deployed in the district nearly a year later, with no clear end in sight.


  • 10 jurors said Palisades Fire suspect isn’t guilty. Now he faces an October retrial


    LOS ANGELES (AP) — The man accused of sparking last year’s deadly Palisades Fire will be tried again this fall after his first federal arson case ended in a mistrial Friday.

    Ten of the 12 jurors insisted Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, is innocent. Judge Anne Hwang quickly set an Oct. 19 retrial date and ordered him jailed until then.

    Rinderknecht has pleaded not guilty to starting one of the most destructive wildfires in California history, and feels encouraged that so many of the jurors “resoundingly found that the government’s case was not strong, and they did not have enough evidence to convict him,” defense attorney Steve Haney said.

    But First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said they have strong evidence and will seek a guilty verdict in a new trial.

    Prosecutors said Rinderknecht used a barbecue lighter on Jan. 1, 2025 to spark a blaze that burned undetected deep in root systems before flaring back up Jan. 7 and killing 12 people as it incinerated entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Malibu. Only 17 rebuilt homes in Pacific Palisades have been certified for occupancy since then.

    Prosecutors never provided direct evidence that Rinderknecht started the earlier blaze. They showed jurors he was in the area when it began and presented a digital trail to indicate he was motivated by a desire to take revenge on society.

    His defense said fireworks were the likely cause and that investigators had zeroed in too quickly on Rinderknecht without clear proof.

    “This is a big victory, and it feels so unfair that, given the circumstances, the government maintains my son in jail,” said his father, Joel Rinderknecht.

    The new trial will begin as voters decide whether to re-elect Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who has faced criticism over the city’s preparation and response. Meanwhile, the aftermath of the Palisades Fire and another wildfire that ravaged the community of Altadena continues to reshape the metropolitan area, with thousands of uprooted fire victims seeking insurance payouts and court judgments.

    “The state and the city have tried for the past year and a half to distract from their own shortcomings in their own liability,” civil attorney Alexander Robertson said.

    Digital records revealed Rinderknecht’s state of mind

    The trial featured a trove of digital records and eight days of testimony from investigators, experts and witnesses.

    Security camera recordings helped determine where the Jan. 1 fire is believed to have started: a mountainside spot off a trail in a neighborhood familiar to Rinderknecht. He dropped off his last Uber passenger in the same neighborhood, shortly before midnight, and later called 911 more than a dozen times. His phone’s geolocation data showed him at the clearing and walking down the trail as he reported the fire.

    Jurors saw records from his phone, email, Uber, social media accounts and OpenAI. Thousands of comments showed he regularly consulted ChatGPT.

    “Why am I so angry all the time?” he said in one exchange.

    He vented over wealth inequality and global warming

    Rinderknecht inquired about Luigi Mangione, who was charged with the murder of United Healthcare’s CEO, and on Reddit he searched “lets kill all the billionaires.”

    He also vented about being rejected by a woman he contacted to see if she had New Year’s Eve plans, and sent her angry and vile messages from another phone.

    Rinderknecht also recorded videos of firefighters battling the blaze, pausing to ask ChatGPT if someone would be responsible for a fire accidentally started by a cigarette. And he screen-recorded both the 911 calls and his ChatGPT prompt, which prosecutors said showed he was trying to mislead investigators.

    On Jan. 6, a day before powerful Santa Ana winds rekindled smoldering roots into a conflagration, he recorded a selfie video saying he was having a mental breakdown.

    Investigators interviewed him weeks after fire

    Rinderknecht also spoke for roughly eight hours with a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent in late January, before he was a suspect.

    ATF agent Matthew Beals drove with him to the site, so that Rinderknecht could identify his movements as the fire started — an account that conflicted with the place and time of his 911 calls, the agent testified.

    Rinderknecht became “agitated” when asked for details and speculated that someone frustrated by inequality might hypothetically target the wealthy neighborhood, the agent said.

    All such behavior is consistent with that of a “societal revenge motivated” arsonist, testified Kevin Kelm, an expert in arsonist behavior.

    His defense suggested a rush to judgment

    Haney said investigators never found any searches about arson, the best way to start a fire, or purchases of fire-starting materials. And while his DNA was found on a barbecue lighter in his car, they couldn’t prove a lighter sparked the blaze — only that it began with an “open flame,” he said.

    Fireworks were the most likely cause that New Year’s Eve, the defense argued. One firefighter recalled hearing fireworks in the area shortly before and after midnight. And two residents and a security guard testified they either saw flashes of light or heard fireworks. Two saw a group of teenagers running down the trail afterward.

    Former LA fire investigator Ed Nordskog accused the investigators of confirmation bias, noting that he often responded to dozens of fires on New Year’s Eve, most of them started by fireworks.

    “They’re choosing to look at information in a very sinister way when they should be a little more open about it,” Nordskog said.

    Defense witnesses also noted that the fire scene could have been compromised because access was not closed off until Jan. 14, nearly two weeks after the first blaze started.

    “Can you convict a man based on a crime scene that was destroyed? Stripped of all evidence? Evidence that could’ve proved his innocence?” Haney asked jurors during closing arguments.

    Juror explains why she voted against conviction

    Juror No. 4, who identified herself as Syrena and wouldn’t share her last name, said she voted not-guilty.

    “There’s just not enough proof,” she said. And even if he did start the Jan. 1 fire, she said he shouldn’t be considered responsible for the entire disaster given the negligence of other parties.

    “Shouldn’t the firemen, shouldn’t they have known?” she said.

    Rinderknecht’s attorney wanted to argue that the Los Angeles Fire Department had been negligent, but the judge ruled he couldn’t make that case in court.

    Juror No. 4 said there wasn’t enough evidence to make her believe the prosecution’s assertion that Rinderknecht was alone in the area before it started.

    As for his use of ChatGPT, she said he was “just being human” that she talks to ChatGPT frequently as well.

    “It made me angry that they were putting his character down,” she said.

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    Associated Press reporter Safiyah Riddle contributed to this report.


  • Trump threatens 100% tax on European imports if countries impose tax on digital services


    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday threatened a 100% tax on imports from any country that imposes a tax on digital services from United States companies.

    In a post on social media, Trump took aim at European countries that he said are discussing “imminent” implementation of taxes on American companies. The U.S. president has repeatedly sought to use tariffs as way to deter such taxes, but many countries are looking for revenues as their economies increasingly operate in digital realms that are dominated by American companies.

    “Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America,” Trump wrote.

    He added that the new tax would supersede any previously negotiated trade deals. Trump said the penalty would apply to any country that moves forward with such a tax, but he singled out European nations in his post.

    The move could lead to a larger showdown that could increase prices and hinder economic growth, possibly setting off a larger trade war if the 27-member European Union was compelled to retaliate.

    “Unilateral measures targeting such legitimate policies are unjustified. If pursued, the EU will respond swiftly and decisively to defend its rights and regulatory autonomy,” said Olof Gill, a spokesperson for the European Commission on Friday.

    He defended taxation on technology companies as “non-discriminatory” and applied equally to “all large companies, regardless of their origin.”

    Trump has repeatedly pushed against foreign efforts to tax or regulate American tech giants. Last year, he threatened new tariffs on any country that moved to do so. A post from last August said that digital taxes and regulation “are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology.”

    The threat comes ahead of Trump’s July 4 deadline for the European Union and the United States to start implementing a tariff deal that caps tariffs on most EU exports at 15%.

    The European Union in May finalized a trade deal with the United States that caps most tariffs on EU exports at 15%. The deal followed months of debate within the EU after European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen tentatively struck the deal last year while visiting Trump’s golf course in Scotland.

    Digital taxes were not part of the agreement and have remained a sticking point between the U.S. and the European bloc.

    The U.S. government has previously conducted tariff investigations into digital services taxes under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. But it was unclear how Trump would carry out his threat and whether he would apply the tariffs broadly or initially target certain nations.

    Britain, which is no longer part of the EU, has since 2020 levied a 2% digital services tax on revenues earned by search engines, social media sites and online marketplaces that “derive value” from U.K. users.

    The British government said in a policy document at the time that corporate tax rules for digital businesses had “led to a misalignment between the place where profits are taxed and the place where value is created.”

    The U.K. tax includes thresholds, so mainly large international companies will pay it. The tax was designed to “ensure the large multinational businesses in-scope make a fair contribution to supporting vital public services,” the document said.

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    AP reporters Sam McNeil in Brussels and Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this report.


  • Deniz Undav’s World Cup success for Germany lifts Yazidi and Kurdish pride


    KHIRBET AL-GHAZAL, Syria (AP) — Deniz Undav, one of the surprise stars of this World Cup, is playing for powerhouse Germany. Yet with his Yazidi and Kurdish heritage, the 29-year-old striker is representing two communities on the global stage with no realistic chance of having World Cup teams of their own.

    After entering as a substitute for Germany, Undav scored three goals and set up two more, putting him just behind top-scoring superstars such as Argentina’s Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé of France and Vinicius Jr. of Brazil on the leaderboard.

    Undav, who identifies as a Kurdish Yazidi, is the son of Yazidi refugees. His success is being celebrated by a small, insular community that has endured decades of oppression and violence, notably a 2014 onslaught in which thousands of Yazidis in Iraq’s Sinjar region were killed or abducted by militants from the Islamic State group who considered them to be heretics.

    Responding to a question at a news conference Wednesday, the German-born Undav said he hoped his performance would inspire fans everywhere, especially within the Yazidi community.

    “I always get the news from my parents how they view me, how they see me and it’s making me proud, you know, that we finally have somebody,” he said.

    Undav has fans across Syria, Germany and Iraq

    In the village of Khirbet al-Ghazal in northeastern Syria, a small group of Yazidis gathered Thursday night to watch the Germany-Ecuador match at the home of community leader Ismail Dalaf. Many residents are related to Undav’s mother, who is from a now-deserted nearby village whose residents left for economic reasons or fled during Syria’s long civil war that began in 2011.

    Dalaf said Undav’s World Cup performance has made him “a symbol that shows Yazidis can reach a higher position and be seen with respect.”

    “When people see a Yazidi entering the field, scoring goals and changing the result of matches, it changes public perception,” he said. “It tells the world that Yazidis have a role in the world.”

    The Kurds are among the largest stateless ethnic groups in the world, with roughly 30 million living as minorities in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking religious minority mostly found in Syria, Iraq and Turkey. There are around 235,000 Yazidis living in Germany today, according to Irfan Ortac, chair of the Central Council of Yazidis in Germany. Many arrived after the 2014 onslaught.

    “Until now, we have mostly been known as victims of violence,” Ortac said. “Whenever we spoke about Yazidis, we always had to talk about genocide, discrimination, and displacement. It makes us very proud and happy to be able to talk about something positive.”

    In Iraq — home to the largest concentration of Yazidis in the world and the location of their most holy site, the Lalish temple — members of the community also have embraced Undav’s success.

    “It makes me very happy to see a Yazidi bringing our name to the World Cup and playing in front of the whole world,” said Luqman Sleiman, spokesperson for the temple.

    Diyar Bakir, 29, a Yazidi from Sinjar, hopes to travel to Germany one day to see Undav play.

    His family “came from a place where his ethnicity and religion were not appreciated, yet he is now recognized and valued by a great team like Germany,” Bakir said. “He emerged from the womb of suffering, and we wish him every success.”

    Undav has faced abuse for his heritage, but his popularity surges

    At times, Undav has faced abuse over his heritage from spectators and on social media.

    When his club team Stuttgart played in Turkey at Fenerbahce last year, German media reported the outbreak of obscene chants about his mother. Two Kurdish anti-discrimination groups said social media insults were part of a growing campaign of “racist and ethnically motivated hostility.”

    Undav’s decision to represent Germany and not Turkey, as other eligible German-born players have done in the past, also resulted in some online hostility from Turkish fans. But now, his popularity is surging.

    Düzen Tekkal, a German documentary filmmaker and author of Kurdish Yazidi heritage, is from northwestern Germany, like Undav. She is the co-founder of Scoring Girls(asterisk), a nonprofit offering free soccer classes for girls from diverse backgrounds.

    “There definitely is a Deniz Undav effect and it’s very important,” she said, referencing children who can celebrate their heritage and feel they belong in Germany at a time when migration is often treated as a political problem.

    “It is no coincidence that he plays with this lightness and freedom,” Tekkal added. “People are asking how come he’s so good under pressure or he can cope with so much pressure? Because he doesn’t know it any other way. That is the DNA, that is the resilience. … That’s how he scores these goals because what is that pressure compared to being Kurdish or Yazidi?”

    When Undav scored one of those goals, against Curacao, he broke into a Yazidi-inspired jig with his hands clasped behind his back. He was joined by Antonio Rüdiger, a Black German soccer star who has faced racist and anti-Muslim abuse during his career, in what Tekkal called “one of the highlights, no matter how this World Cup goes from here.”

    “Dancing is a form of expressing resistance for us,” Tekkal emphasized. “We dance on the graves of our dead. Our mantra is that resistance is life. He’s dancing there for his forefathers who were oppressed.”

    Mahmoud Kanabi, a Kurd from Irbil, moved to Berlin in 2020 and works in a Kurdish restaurant. Because of Undav, he purchased a Germany jersey.

    “Unfortunately, for us Kurds, we don’t have a team because we don’t have a country,” he said. “Now, when a Kurdish player is in a team, we have to be fans of it. It doesn’t matter what team it is.”

    ___

    Martany reported from Irbil, Iraq; Fahey from Berlin and Ellingworth from Duesseldorf, Germany. AP Sports Writer Ron Blum in East Rutherford, New Jersey, contributed reporting.

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    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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    See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here


  • Ann Blyth, teen star of ‘Mildred Pierce,’ dead at 98


    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ann Blyth, a versatile Hollywood star who received an Oscar nomination at 17 as Joan Crawford’s wayward daughter in “Mildred Pierce,” sang opposite Mario Lanza and Howard Keel in such MGM musicals as ”The Great Caruso” and ended her film career before age 30, has died at age 98.

    Blyth died Wednesday of “natural causes” at her home in Rancho Santa Fe, California, according to her daughter, Eileen McNulty. Blyth’s family was at her side.

    One of the last surviving actors from the Hollywood studio system, Blyth appeared in youth movies as well as dramas such as “Another Part of the Forest,” and her co-stars included Bing Crosby, Tyrone Power, Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. Blyth had stopped appearing in films by the end of the 1950s when she chose to spend more time with her children. But she would work in TV musicals and dramas and tour in concerts and musicals from “Show Boat” to “The Sound of Music.”

    She was acting and singing from an early age and her first big break came at 13 when she was cast as Paul Lukas’s daughter in Lillian Hellman’s anti-Nazi play, “Watch on the Rhine,” which also starred Bette Davis. She stayed with the play for almost a year on Broadway and a year on the road.

    When “Watch on the Rhine” appeared in Los Angeles, Universal Studio signed her to a term contract starting at $175 a week. A dark-haired actor with a melodic singing voice, she appeared with a young Donald O’Connor in low-budget musicals such as “Chip Off the Old Block” and “Bowery to Broadway.” The loan-out to Warner Bros. for “Mildred Pierce” elevated Blyth’s career and led to grown-up roles.

    Good at being bad

    Like “Double Indemnity,” adapted for the screen by Billy Wilder in 1944, “Mildred Pierce” was a James M. Cain thriller about vengeance and calculation. Crawford won the 1945 Oscar as a waitress who rises to own a string of Los Angeles restaurants. Blyth was nominated in the supporting role as Mildred’s spoiled daughter, Veda, who seduces her mother’s second husband (Zachary Scott), then riddles him with bullets in a jealous rage.

    Directed by Michael Curtiz of “Casablanca” fame, “Mildred Pierce” was a memorable piece of film noir that took place mostly at night. For Blyth it was a major change from the cheery musicals she had been known for. It was also a stretch for an actor who was the subject of magazine articles entitled “Incorruptible!”, “Angelic Annie” and “Ann Blyth: Success Without an Enemy.”

    In 1946, Blyth broke her back in a toboggan accident, and it appeared her career might be over. She spent seven months in a body cast and another seven months in a wheelchair, relying on her Roman Catholic faith for courage.

    “The busy, exciting world I had known faded away, and my life slowed down to little things,” she later told The Associated Press. “But even here I found myself blessed, for a new sense of prayer began to unfold to me.”

    Once recovered, she appeared as the love interest for Sonny Tufts in “Swell Guy,” Howard Duff in “Brute Force” and Mickey Rooney in a prizefight movie, “Killer McCoy.” She displayed her dramatic skill as the young woman in love with a suspected wife-killer, Charles Boyer, in “A Woman’s Vengeance.”

    Her strongest role after “Mildred Pierce” came with “Another Part of the Forest,” Hellman’s prequel to her stage and film drama “The Little Foxes.” Blythe appeared as the young Regina Hubbard, created as an adult on Broadway by Tallulah Bankhead and in the film by Bette Davis.

    Add a little music

    Blyth’s career made a turn in 1951 when she starred with Mario Lanza in “The Great Caruso.” Her lilting soprano made an ideal match for his tenor, and they were cast in “The Student Prince.” But the temperamental Lanza dropped out after recording his songs, and British actor Edmund Purdom acted his role and mouthed the songs. Blyth co-starred with Howard Keel in “Rose Marie” and “Kismet.”

    Her other films included “Top o’ the Morning” with Crosby, “The World in His Arms” (Peck) and a reunion with O’Connor, “The Buster Keaton Story.” Her last film was in 1957, “The Helen Morgan Story,” which co-starred Paul Newman.

    Born in 1928 in Mount Kisco, New York, to an Irish mother and English valet father, she grew up in New York City. After the father left the family, Nan Blyth supported herself and two daughters by washing clothes and working in beauty parlors.

    She had high hopes for daughter Ann’s future as an actress, and at 5 the girl began appearing on a New York radio show. She continued as a radio performer and spent three years studying and performing with the San Carlo Opera Company.

    After becoming a movie star, Blyth admitted of her early career: “I’d become blue and despondent when I failed to get a job, and my mother’s encouraging words made me want to try again.” Before the actress’s breakout performance in “Mildred Pierce,” her mother died of cancer.

    In 1953, Blyth married Dr. James McNulty, brother of tenor-comedian Dennis Day. They had five children and remained married until McNulty’s death, in 2007. A few weeks before son Timothy was born in 1954, she made television history of a sort performing the song “Secret Love” at the Oscars — visibly pregnant as she sang, “Once I had a secret love … and my secret love’s no secret anymore.”

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    Thomas, a former Associated Press Hollywood correspondent who died in 2014, was the primary writer of this obituary.


  • Utah restricts fireworks, declares state of emergency as largest US wildfire grows


    Utah restricted fireworks and declared a state of emergency Friday ahead of July Fourth celebrations as the United States’ largest wildfire mushroomed in size. The National Weather Service issued a rare “Particularly Dangerous Situation” warning as dry, windy conditions provided fuel for more fires across the western U.S.

    The Cottonwood Fire in a sparsely populated area of southern Utah started Monday. It reached nearly 111 square miles (287 square kilometers) Friday and was uncontained, forestry officials said. One of six large wildfires burning in Utah, it severely damaged the Eagle Point ski resort in Beaver County, forcing mandatory evacuations.

    Smoke from the fire has been pushing to the east and northeast, meaning the air quality at popular vacation spots like Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks — located far south of the flames — hasn’t been significantly affected beyond some haze in the Bryce area. Still, visitors to Bryce have posted videos on social media showing the giant plume in the distance.

    The smoke could further be seen for hundreds of miles, all the way to Colorado, as authorities put roughly 1,300 residents in the towns of Marysvale, Junction and Circleville on notice that they should be prepared to leave if conditions worsen and the fire pushes further.

    “This is unlike anything we’ve seen in recent memory,” state forester Jamie Barnes said in a statement Thursday. “We’re seeing fires spread farther and faster under conditions that defy historical expectations. Some of the fires we’ve responded to this year are behaving in ways veteran firefighters simply haven’t seen before.”

    Bruce Brown, 76, accompanied the sheriff on Thursday to find that his cabin and others in the area were gone.

    “It looks a lot like the moon,” he said. “Just burned out. Power poles tipped over all up the canyon.”

    Alyssa Olsen, 27, said her family’s cabin also burned, including memorabilia from her grandfather’s time in the ski patrol. It was the last place they gathered for family photos with her grandmother before she died of cancer. Her brother was to get married there in two months.

    “That stuff you can’t just build back,” Olsen said.

    Fireworks will be limited in Utah through July 5

    Gov. Spencer Cox set the temporary fireworks restrictions through July 5 as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, saying “this year is different.”

    The weather service in Salt Lake City, for the first time in the office’s history, issued a “ Particularly Dangerous Situation ” warning for five Utah counties, including the area of the Cottonwood Fire. The rare alert was first used to warn of tornado conditions. A red flag warning also was issued for most of the state.

    “Prepare now for rapid fire growth,” it said.

    A similar “dangerous situation” warning had been issued for the 2025 Palisades Fire in Los Angeles. A federal judge declared a mistrial Friday in the arson case against Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man accused of sparking that fire. The jury said it couldn’t agree on a verdict.

    While the cause of the Cottonwood Fire in Utah was unknown, Cox’s order noted that humans have been the cause of most fires in the state so far this year.

    The governor’s order gives power to Barnes to restrict or prohibit fireworks displays in Utah’s cities and towns, instead of leaving those decisions to the communities.

    With extreme fire conditions persisting, Rocky Mountain Power issued a public safety power shut-off watch/warning for areas of central, southern and eastern Utah through the weekend.

    Crews also were battling the Iron Fire southwest of Salt Lake City. The flames on Thursday forced the temporary evacuation of Eureka, population 1,000.

    Wildfire danger prompts concern throughout the West

    Red flag warnings, which mean conditions such as low humidity, warm temperatures and strong winds can create an extreme wildfire risk, were in effect Friday for a large area that stretched from Idaho to southern Arizona and New Mexico.

    The warnings extended into Saturday, with forecasters predicting winds of 25 to 35 miles an hour (40 km/h to 56 km/h) and very low humidity levels. The worst conditions were expected from northern Arizona into central and southern Utah.

    Much of Utah already is experiencing severe to extreme drought, while parts of Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico are experiencing severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

    In New Mexico, firefighters were battling a blaze that had forced the evacuations of campgrounds and a YMCA summer camp in the Jemez Mountains.

    In Arizona, a wildfire prompted some evacuations last weekend near Sedona, burning about several hundred acres of steep and rugged terrain near Oak Creek Canyon.

    Nationally, nearly 3 million acres have burned since the start of the year, pushing the U.S. ahead of the 10-year average. The National Interagency Fire Center said firefighters are making progress on containing fires from Alaska to Florida.

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    Associated Press reporter Sudhin Thanawala contributed to this story.

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    This story has been corrected; the state forester’s first name is spelled Jamie, not Jaime.


  • Maple Leafs select Penn State forward Gavin McKenna with the No. 1 pick in NHL draft


    BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Gavin McKenna’s nerves finally eased when lifetime Maple Leafs fan and international pop icon Justin Bieber took the NHL draft stage to announce who Toronto was selecting No. 1.

    “He was looking at me and I kind of was thinking, maybe,” McKenna said with a laugh. “Crazy. Just crazy what’s going on right now.”

    With most of Yukon watching and a loud presence of Maple Leafs fans in the stands, Toronto chose the Penn State left winger, validating longstanding projections of McKenna being his age group’s top prospect. The 18-year-old from Yukon’s capital of Whitehorse has been a prolific scorer on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.

    And if Bieber’s appearance and taking the stage to the artist’s song “Yukon” wasn’t enough, McKenna was welcomed to the Maple Leafs with a video message from Toronto captain Auston Matthews.

    “Obviously he’s on the first line. I’m going to have to prove myself to be able to play with a player like that. But that’s my goal,” McKenna said about Matthews, who was chosen No. 1 by Toronto in the 2016 draft, which also happened to be held in Buffalo. “My game’s obviously a playmaker, he’s a shooter, so I think we could complement each other pretty well.”

    McKenna represents a major plank in in a rebuilding process for a team in transition under new general manager John Chayka. Toronto finished last in the Atlantic Division last season and missed the playoffs for the first time since Matthews’ arrival.

    Canucks select coach’s son, Caleb Malhotra

    The draft featured dueling cheers — and boos — between large contingents of Maple Leafs and Sabres fans, several surprises, nine trades and a poignant father-son moment when Vancouver selected center Caleb Malhotra with the No. 3 pick, joining a team coached by dad Manny Malhotra.

    “I hugged him right after, and we were happy,” said Caleb, who is from British Columbia and finished second among OHL rookies with 84 points with Brantford last season. “It’s the best feeling in the world. I’ve never felt anything like this. And that embrace was so comforting, and I’m so glad he’s here with me as dad.”

    Malhotra said his dad was not aware of the Canucks’ draft plans. And he now has bragging rights on his father in being selected four spots higher, after Manny went No. 7 to the New York Rangers in 1998.

    Run on defensemen

    After forwards went with the first three picks, including Sweden’s Ivar Stenberg second to San Jose, the expected run on defensemen began with five selected over the next six picks, and 10 overall.

    Buffalo selected Prince Albert blue-liner Daxon Rudolph at No. 4, followed by Latvia’s Alberts Smits going fifth to the Rangers. Chase Reid, who is from Michigan, went seventh to Seattle as the first American-born player selected.

    Smits split last season playing professionally in Finland and Germany, while also representing Latvia at the Milan Cortina Olympics. He became the highest drafted Latvian.

    Trades and more trades

    This was a much more active first round with picks traded for NHL players than the previous couple of years. The Rangers got Pavel Dorofeyev from Vegas for picks 26 and 92, and a 2028 first-rounder. Boston acquired JJ Peterka from Utah for a pair of first-rounders. And St. Louis traded two of its picks to Anaheim for Mason McTavish.

    The selections featured an international flavor with 10 Canadians, a first-round-record seven Swedes and seven Americans chosen. The first round ended with Ottawa selecting forward Jaxon Cover, who was born in Miami, raised on Grand Cayman where he played roller hockey, and developed his hockey skills in Toronto.

    And Bieber wasn’t the only music star to make a pick, with country music’s Luke Bryan on hand to announce Nashville’s selection of Wyatt Cullen before performing a concert a few blocks away.

    Rudolph was wowed watching his good friend McKenna being welcomed to the stage.

    “To see him be selected first and with Justin Bieber and everything, it was amazing,” Rudolph said. “I just remember talking to my mom and saying. ‘Wow, this is so cool,’ as I’m sitting there on the couch waiting to be picked.”

    McKenna accustomed to the spotlight

    McKenna is accustomed to the spotlight. He combined for 79 goals and 244 points in 133 games with Medicine Hat in the WHL. As a freshman at Penn State, he finished with 51 points, tied for fourth in the nation, last season.

    He became just the fifth NCAA player to go first, and third in six years, since Michigan defenseman Owen Power went No. 1 to Buffalo in 2021.

    McKenna also became the fifth Yukon-born player to be selected in the draft, and first to go No. 1. He now heads to a metropolis that is nearly 100 times larger than Whitehorse’s population of about 39,000.

    This was the NHL’s second straight decentralized draft, with teams making selections from their respective headquarters.

    Decentralized draft Part II

    Lacking in the new format is each draft pick joining his new team’s front office on stage. Last year, the NHL attempted to rectify that by having teams welcome their prospects by video conference call on stage at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. The interviews were widely panned for being awkward and glitchy, and contributing to the draft lasting nearly 4 1/2 hours.

    This year the NHL had the top prospects seated with their families in what resembled a lounge area, featuring plush couches, directly in front of the stage. After being selected, each player was interviewed on a couch on stage, with the backdrop representing the team in a first round that took about four hours to complete.

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    AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno and AP freelance writer Denis Gorman contributed to this report.

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


  • Who is Marina Mabrey? The feisty Tempo guard who tied the WNBA scoring record with 53 points


    Casual sports fans may not know much about Marina Mabrey. She doesn’t garner the national attention of other more well-known WNBA players.

    But the feisty and competitive Mabrey created a buzz with one of the best shooting perfomances in WNBA history, matching the league scoring record of 53 points in a win over Los Angeles on Thursday night.

    The total points probably raised a few eyebrows, but her 3-point barrage didn’t — the 6-foot-1 guard has been called “Money Mabrey” because of her shooting ability from beyond the arc.

    She was 17 of 28 from the field, including matching her own WNBA record of nine 3-pointers. She’s just outside the top 20 all-time in league history as she’s hit 500 3-pointers in her career.

    “I think tonight was just my night from the three-point line, and from honestly everywhere,” Mabrey said while laughing. “And then the fans, to end up chanting MVP, I don’t know that I ever imagined that. But it was really a good feeling.”

    Mabrey matched A’ja Wilson and Liz Cambage as the only players to score 53 points in a game.

    “I’ve been doing this for quite some time,” Toronto coach Sandy Brondello said. “I’ve never seen that. (Not even from WNBA icon) Diana Taurasi, and she could shoot it really well. I mean, to witness that was amazing.”

    The 29-year-old Mabrey is journeywoman playing on her fifth WNBA team since she was drafted in the second round in 2019 by the Los Angeles Sparks, who she scored the 53 points against. Mabrey been on a scoring binge lately. She has scored 113 points in her last three games while hitting 21 3-pointers.

    Some things to know about Mabrey:

    Mabrey has not been a first choice

    Mabrey wasn’t a first-round draft pack coming out of Notre Dame and was taken sixth by the Tempo in the expansion draft during the offseason. But she has continued to grind and currently is tied for fourth in the league in scoring, averaging 21.2 points a game. Coming into this season her career average was 12.5 points a contest. She has set her career high in points twice in the past week. Before Thursday night’s outburst, she had a career-best 37 against the Sun on June 19. She played in Connecticut the previous two seasons after getting traded to the Sun in July 2024. Before Connecticut, Mabrey also played in Dallas and Chicago.

    Tempo guard’s All-Star case

    Mabrey has never made a WNBA All-Star team in her career, although she is making a strong case this season — even before her historic 53-point effort. Mabrey competed in both the 3-point shootout and skills competition at the 2024 All-Star weekend. She was traded to Connecticut from Chicago that weekend and donned Sun jersey during those contests.

    Mabrey’s competitive nature, self accountability

    Mabrey, who is known for her competitive and fiery play, came up with the idea of a “crash out jar” while playing for Unrivaled this past year. Each outburst she had would cost her money as she would fine herself. Curse words were a dollar each, a scuffle could be as much as $40 and something like an insult to someone else would cost her $5.

    It is unknown how much money ended up in the “crash out jar.”

    The jar debuted right before Mabrey scored an Unrivaled record 47 points in the league’s stop in Philadelphia on Jan. 30. that was a special night for Mabrey, who is from Belmar, New Jersey, and was able to play close to home in that game.

    Mabrey said before the season started that the jar would come with her to Toronto.

    Notre Dame record holder

    Mabrey helped Notre Dame win a national championship and graduated as the school’s all-time leader in 3-pointers made (274). She scored 1,896 points during her career at Notre Dame, which is ninth all-time in the Irish record books.

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


  • Caitlin Clark sidelined vs the Sparks as she recovers from back injury


    Caitlin Clark will miss Saturday’s game against the Los Angeles Sparks while she recovers from a back injury she suffered against Phoenix on Wednesday.

    Indiana coach Stephanie White said Friday morning that Clark wouldn’t play. Indiana doesn’t play again after Saturday until visiting the Las Vegas Aces on July 5.

    “She’s OK. She’s going to be out on Saturday. She’s doing all right,” White said. “Obviously, it’s a good time as we have all week next week. Take this opportunity to get her treatment, get her healthy and get her back on the floor and see what happens.”

    Clark only played in 13 games last season because of a variety of injuries. She’s missed one game this season because of her back. Clark is tied for fourth in the league with 21.2 points a game. She had 19 points in 20 minutes against Phoenix.

    “Long-term health and wellness is the most important thing,” White said. “I think we want her to be healthy physically, mentally, emotionally. When you’ve gone through injury and the traumatic aspect of injury that she had last year, it’s ups and downs physically, mentally and emotionally. Making sure that she’s 100% ready to go is the most important thing.”

    Clark was also hit in the throat Wednesday by Phoenix’s Alyssa Thomas. While no foul was called, the Mercury forward was suspended by the league for a game on Thursday for that play.

    Clark is currently second in All-Star fan voting that was released Wednesday behind teammate Aliyah Boston. The All-Star Game is July 25 in Chicago.

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