Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — State investigators began searching a secluded ranch in New Mexico on Monday where financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein once entertained guests amid allegations that the property may have been used for sexual abuse and sex trafficking of young women.
The office of state Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced that the search was being done with the cooperation of the current ranch owners.
Torrez last month reopened an investigation of the ranch. New Mexico’s initial case was closed in 2019 at the request of federal prosecutors in New York, and state prosecutors say now that “revelations outlined in the previously sealed FBI files warrant further examination.”
Epstein purchased the sprawling Zorro Ranch in Stanley, New Mexico, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Santa Fe, in 1993 from former Democratic Gov. Bruce King and built a hilltop mansion with a private runway.
The property was sold by Epstein’s estate in 2023 — with proceeds going toward creditors — to the family of Don Huffines, a candidate in Texas for state comptroller who won the Republican primary last week.
“The New Mexico Department of Justice appreciates the cooperation of the current property owners,” the agency said in a statement. Prosecutors “will continue to keep the public appropriately informed, support the survivors, and follow the facts wherever they lead.”
Additionally, New Mexico state legislators have established a new commission to look into past activities at the ranch.
Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in 2019 on charges that he sexually abused and trafficked dozens of underage girls.
Epstein never faced charges in New Mexico, but the state attorney general’s office in 2019 confirmed that it had interviewed possible victims who visited Epstein’s ranch.
HOUSTON (AP) – The hourslong security lines at a handful of U.S. airports this week highlight the potential problems when a government shutdown coincides with the busy spring break travel season.
Houston’s secondary airport weathered the worst problems, with lines consistently lasting over three hours for much of Sunday and Monday. Passengers also had to wait more than an hour to get through security at several other airports, including in New Orleans and Atlanta.
The surge of millions of travelers as schools take spring breaks would put pressure on even a fully staffed airport system. With the staffing problems that tend to accompany a government shutdown, some airports are are beginning to feel more pressure. Still, most airports have not experienced significantly long security lines.
The longer Transportation Security Administration officers have to work without pay during the partial shutdown, the more likely it is that some will miss work as they take on second jobs to pay for necessities like gas and child care and their other bills. Many may still be rebuilding finances after the 43-day shutdown last fall, the longest in history.
Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of the TSA union’s bargaining unit, said workers will miss their first full paychecks this weekend since the shutdown began Feb. 14. He said morale among the workforce “has taken a severe hit.”
“Over the last 15 months, TSA officers have went through three government shutdowns,” he told The Associated Press.
Jones, who also works as a TSA agent, said it took months for him to financially recover from the 43-day shutdown.
“I refilled my water buckets and now I’m starting to empty them again. Some people were not so fortunate to be able to refill their water buckets,” he said.
This current shutdown has only affected the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats in Congress refused to fund the department because they objected to its immigration enforcement tactics. Democratic lawmakers have said DHS won’t get funded until new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year.
The TSA and Homeland Security have consistently blamed Democrats for the long security lines.
“This chaos is a direct result of Democrats and their refusal to fund DHS. These political stunts force patriotic TSA officers, who protect our skies from serious threats, to work without pay,” said Lauren Bis, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Homeland Security. “These frontline heroes received only partial paychecks earlier this month and now face their first full missed paycheck, leading to financial hardship, absences, and crippling staffing shortages.”
Chris Sununu, president and CEO of the Airlines for America trade group, reiterated his plea for Congress to end the shutdown.
“More than 2.7 million people cleared through TSA yesterday, but too many had to wait in extraordinarily long—and painfully slow—lines at checkpoints,” Sununu said in a written statement Monday. “It’s unacceptable to have wait times of 2 or 3 hours. And it’s unacceptable that TSA officers will have $0 in their paychecks this week.”
But Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee rejected the notion that they were to blame for TSA officers going unpaid.
“FACTS: Democrats introduced a clean bill to fully fund TSA with no conditions. Republicans blocked it,” the Homeland Democrats group said on X. “Republicans would rather disrupt our travel than rein in ICE. It’s shameful.”
The country’s longest security lines have been reported at the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, with wait times topping three hours. Video from New Orleans on Sunday showed the security line stretching out of the terminal and across a parking garage as the wait there peaked at 77 minutes.
The lines at both those airports had eased by Monday afternoon, but Hobby airport was still reporting a two-hour wait for security and officials were urging travelers to get to the airport at least three or four hours ahead of their flights. The wait time in New Orleans was reported at 10 minutes in the late afternoon.
But more problems could pop up if a security shift is short on screeners when it’s busy.
Neither the Houston airport authority nor TSA would answer questions Monday about why Hobby airport is so prone to long delays during the shutdown. Hobby is smaller than George Bush Intercontinental Airport, which handles roughly three-quarters of all the passengers passing through Houston. But Hobby still handled nearly 15 million passengers in 2024.
TYLER — Goodwill Industries of East Texas is helping to put more money back into East Texans’ pockets with their free tax preparation services. According to our news partner KETK, Goodwill’s free tax preparation services are offered through their Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program which is made possible by their IRS-certified volunteer tax preparers.
“This means MORE money back in YOUR pocket with no fees, fast e-filing, and direct deposit refunds. Perfect for low-to-moderate income households with simple tax returns,” Goodwill Industries of East Texas said.
All that’s required for those using VITA program services is to bring the following items: Read the rest of this entry »
TYLER — This year Tyler residents may notice some new bold messaging on the side of Tyler ISD school buses. Messages like “This Seat Changes Lives” and “Be the First Smile of the Day” or even “Not Just a Bus Driver. A Route Model” will now be displayed on Tyler ISD buses as the district attempts to attract 20 new bus drivers.
“We’re hoping it sparks interest to maybe be that water cooler conversation where somebody might be sitting at home thinking, ‘Oh, I might want a few extra hours or something that’s flexible’, and a bus driver might be the perfect job for them,” Jennifer Hines with Tyler ISD said.
Tyler ISD will pay for new drivers’ CDL training, the role’s starting pay is $18.36 and drivers will have flexible hours, including time off during the school day.
“Our bus drivers are often the first smile students see in the morning and the last smile they see at the end of the school day,” Hines said. “We wanted this campaign to capture the heart behind the role. When you think about it, this seat truly changes lives. Our drivers help students arrive safely, consistently, and ready to learn.” Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump promised that 2026 would be a bumper year for economic growth, but instead it has kicked off with job losses, rising gasoline prices and more uncertainty about America’s future.
In his State of the Union address less than two weeks ago, the Republican president confidently told the country: “The roaring economy is roaring like never before.” The latest batch of data on jobs, pump prices and the stock market suggests that Trump’s roar has started to sound far more like a whimper.
There is a gap between the boom that Trump has predicted and the volatile results he has produced — one that could set the tone in this year’s midterm elections as he tries to defend his party’s majorities in the House and Senate. With Trump’s tariffs drama ongoing, the war in Iran has suddenly created inflationary concerns regarding oil and natural gas. To the White House, it is still early in the year and stronger growth is coming.
“WOW! The Golden Age of America is upon us!!!” Trump posted on social media Feb. 11 after the monthly jobs report showed gains of 130,000 jobs in January.
Since then, the job market has evaporated in worrisome ways.
Friday’s employment report showed job losses of 92,000 in February. The January and December figures were revised downward, with December swinging to a loss of 17,000 jobs. Monthly data can be rocky, but a trend has emerged that shows an enduring weakness. Without the health care sector, the economy would have shed roughly 202,000 jobs since Trump became president in January 2025. Still, his administration notes that construction job gains outside of the housing sector point to future hiring growth.
Trump often brags that jobs are going to people born in the United States, rather than to immigrants. But the latest report punctured some of that argument.
The unemployment rate for people born in the U.S. has climbed over the past 12 months to 4.7% from 4.4%. This means a greater share of the people who Trump said would get jobs because of his immigration crackdown are, in fact, searching for work.
“Slashing energy costs is among the most important actions we can take to bring down prices for American consumers,” Trump said in a February speech in Texas just before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. “Because when you cut the cost of energy, you really cut — you just cut the cost of everything.”
The president has repeatedly told Americans that keeping gas costs low would be key to defeating inflation. He has talked up the decline, citing figures that were far below the national average to assure the public that driving was getting cheaper.
But the strikes against Iran that began Feb. 28 have, for the moment, crushed that narrative. Prices at the pump have jumped 19% over the past month to a national average of $3.45, according to AAA. The investment bank Goldman Sachs warned in an analyst note that, if higher oil prices persist, inflation could rise from its 2.4% reading in January to 3% by the end of the year.
The administration is banking on plans to contain any energy price increases, essentially betting that either the conflict will end shortly or the administration can succeed in getting more tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
“The president has been clear about short term disruptions due to Operation Epic Fury even as U.S. and allied forces make stunning progress against the Iranian terrorist regime,” said White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai. “The long run trend, however, has been clear: President Trump’s economic agenda continues to unleash robust private sector job, investment, and economic growth that’s driving America’s resurgence.”
“You know, we set the all-time record in history with the Dow going to 50,000,” Trump said Thursday at the White House.
This frequently repeated talking point has grown stale. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of Trump’s preferred measures of success, has dropped 5% over the past month. Stocks are up during his presidency, just as they were previously when Democrat Joe Biden was president. The recent decline could be reversed if the war with Iran ends and companies see solid profits over the next year and beyond. The recent dip, however, should be a warning sign as the administration has stressed the importance of more people investing in the stock market through vehicles such as “Trump accounts” for children.
The stock market has become a barometer of how people feel about the economy, with stock investors tending to have more confidence and those without money in the markets being more pessimistic.
Joanna Hsu, the director of the University of Michigan’s surveys of consumers, noted that in February a “sizable” increase in sentiment among people owning stocks “was fully offset by a decline among consumers without stock holdings.”
Trump can point to a win in that the economy has become more productive — generating more value for each hour of work. That is a positive sign for long-term growth in the U.S. and a reflection of its strong tech sector.
Business sector labor productivity climbed 2.8% in the fourth quarter of last year, the Labor Department reported Thursday. But the challenge is that the gains might not be spread to workers in the form of higher pay as labor’s share of income last year fell to the lowest level on record, noted Mike Konczal, senior director of policy and research at the Economic Security Project, a nonprofit aligned with liberal economic issues.
“Under the Biden administration, America was plagued by the nightmare of stagflation, meaning low growth and high inflation — a recipe for misery, failure and decline,” Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.
The scoreboard tells a far different story, one that makes Biden’s track record in 2024 look better than Trump’s performance last year. The U.S. economy grew at a 2.8% pace during Biden’s last year, compared with 2.2% under Trump in 2025.
As for inflation, the primary measure used by the Federal Reserve is the personal consumption expenditures price index. It was 2.6% in both 2024 and 2025.
Trump has staked his economic argument on doing better than Biden. But while he has avoided the inflation spikes that haunted Biden’s presidency, he has not delivered stronger growth or more hiring.
NEW MEXICO (AP) – The Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Administration agreed to conduct anti-drone laser tests in New Mexico after the military’s deployment of the lasers led the FAA to suddenly close airspace in Texas twice in the last month.
The newly announced testing was being carried out to “specifically address FAA safety concerns,” the military said Friday in a statement. It was to take place Saturday and Sunday at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
Lawmakers were concerned about an apparent lack of coordination after the Pentagon allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to use an anti-drone laser in early February without notifying the FAA. The federal agency that ensures safety in the skies decided to close the airspace over El Paso for a few hours, stranding many travelers.
The Trump administration said it was working to halt an incursion by Mexican cartel drones, which are not uncommon along the southern border.
On Feb. 26 the U.S. military used the laser to shoot down a “seemingly threatening” drone flying near the U.S.-Mexico border. It turned out the drone belonged to Customs and Border Protection, lawmakers said.
The incident led the FAA to close the airspace around Fort Hancock, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of El Paso.
“We appreciate the coordination with the Department of War to help ensure public safety,” the FAA said of the testing, in a separate statement. “The FAA and DOW are working with interagency partners to address emerging threats posed by unmanned aircraft systems while maintaining the safety of the National Airspace System.”
The military is required to formally notify the FAA when it takes any counter-drone action inside U.S. airspace.
Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the ranking member on the Senate’s Aviation Subcommittee, called previously for an independent investigation after the two February incidents.
UNION CITY, Mich. (AP) — Authorities searched through rubble and debris in southern Michigan on Saturday after suspected tornadoes tore through the region and killed four people, including a 12-year-old boy, during powerful storms also blamed for two deaths in eastern Oklahoma.
First responders from multiple agencies in the Union Lake area near Union City looked for more possible victims and worked to clear roads, authorities said. Photos and videos posted on social media showed flattened homes and downed trees in a lakeside neighborhood.
The National Weather Service said an initial assessment confirmed that an EF3 tornado with winds of at least 150 mph (241 kph) struck the Union Lake area Friday.
The weather service also reported seven preliminary tornado tracks in eastern Oklahoma that same day, according to the state’s emergency operations center.
The threat of severe weather continued Saturday in the nation’s midsection, with tornado watches posted in the afternoon for eastern Ohio, northern West Virginia and western Pennsylvania and New York.
Severe thunderstorms that began in northern Indiana appeared to spawn multiple tornadoes in southern Michigan the previous day, said meteorologist Lonnie Fisher of the National Weather Service, which sent teams to the region to evaluate the damage and confirm tornadoes.
“Mostly likely there were three distinct tornadoes, but we won’t know 100% for sure until they finish the survey,” Fisher said, adding that the storms intensified rapidly in southern Michigan after hitting northern Indiana.
Three people were killed and 12 were injured in the Union Lake area, according to the Branch County Sheriff’s Office. It was the second tornado to hit Union City in two years. An EF1 tornado with 95 mph (153 kph) winds touched down briefly in May 2024 and destroyed a machine shed.
Lisa Piper stood on her back deck and took video of a terrifying scene that played out on the other side of frozen Union Lake as a funnel cloud formed and then dropped toward the ground Friday. Trees were torn from their roots, and debris flew into the air.
“It’s lifting houses!” she said. As the devastation continued, she exclaimed: “Oh my heart is pounding. Oh, I hope they’re OK.”
Dan Taylor raced home to Union City from his cleaning job at a nearby hospital that day to find his brother and two dogs safe. But a tree fell on his home of 20 years, and portions of the roof of a house across the street blew into his yard.
“I didn’t know what to say. I was lost for words,” he said Saturday. “I’m just thankful that my brother’s all right, my dogs, because it could have turned bad. We’re not guaranteed of anything.”
About 50 miles (81 kilometers) southwest of Union Lake, a 12-year-old boy died and several other people were injured during a possible tornado, the Cass County Sheriff’s Office said. Sheriff Clint Roach said in a Facebook post that Silas Anderson’s parents found him injured and provided first aid, but he later died at a hospital.
Disaster relief workers went door to door in the Union City and Three Rivers areas to offer meals and cleanup supplies. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she would declare a state of emergency in Branch, Cass and St. Joseph counties.
In Beggs, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a tornado was blamed for the deaths of two people in a house on Friday, the Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office said. Two others were taken to a hospital.
The tornado cut a roughly 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) path of damage in Okmulgee County including Beggs, said Jeff Moore, the county’s emergency manager. Large trees toppled and power outages were reported.
Suspected tornadoes also were reported in northern parts of Tulsa, where a building at the Tulsa Tech Peoria campus was damaged.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt declared a state of emergency in several counties to free up support and resources.
The Oklahoma deaths came a day after storms killed a 47-year-old woman and her 13-year-old daughter in their vehicle in Fairview, in the western part of the state.
The spring storms come near the start of what many call tornado season, which generally begins at various times in different parts of the U.S. Experts recommend a few simple safety steps to take before tornadoes hit, including having a weather radio and a plan for where to take shelter.
In parts of the South, the weather pattern was expected to usher in extremely warm temperatures for this time of year by the weekend.
NEW YORK (AP) — Ford has issued two recalls affecting nearly 1.74 million of its cars in the U.S., due to software issues that impact the vehicles’ rearview camera displays.
According to notices published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration this week, an internal component inside the infotainment system of certain 2021-2026 Ford Broncos and 2021-2024 Ford Edges may overheat and shut down — preventing the rearview image from displaying when drivers are going in reverse. Meanwhile, some 2020-2022 Ford Escapes and Lincoln Corsairs, as well as 2020-2024 Lincoln Aviators and Explorers, may show a flipped or inverted rearview image.
The recalls cover 849,310 Broncos and Edges as well as 889,950 Escapes, Corsairs, Aviators and Explorers. Ford estimates that all of these vehicles have the defects. But the company is not aware of any injuries or accidents spanning from either recall, NHTSA documents show.
Still, the NHTSA is warning drivers that both issues could increase crash risks.
For impacted Bronco and Edge owners, Ford is offering a free software update for the vehicles’ Accessory Protocol Interface Module (APIM). Owner-notification letters will be mailed out at the end of the month, with the fix available either at a dealer or through an “over-the-air” update.
But a remedy is still under development for the recall impacting the Escapes, Corsairs, Aviators and Explorers, this week’s recall announcement noted. In the meantime, interim letters to notify owners of the safety risks are set to be mailed out in the coming months.
The Associated Press reached out to Michigan-based Ford for further comments on Saturday.
For more information, drivers can visit the NHTSA website and Ford’s online recall lookup using their vehicle’s VIN number, or call the company’s customer service line at 1-866-436-7332.
NEW YORK (AP) — The price of oil surged higher and showed no signs of halting its rapid climb a week after the U.S. and Israel launched major attacks on Iran that escalated into a war in the Middle East.
The conflict, in which nearly every country in the Middle East has sustained damage from missiles or drone strikes, has left ships that carry roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day stranded in the Persian Gulf, unable to safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Gulf that is bordered on its north side by Iran.
The shipping disruption and damage to key Middle East oil and gas facilities has interrupted supplies from some of the world’s largest oil producers. Kuwait, for example, said on Saturday that it would reduce its oil production as a “precautionary” measure due to the war, which could jolt global energy markets even further.
Oil prices surpassed $90 a barrel Friday, with American crude settling at $90.90, up 36% from a week ago, and Brent, the international standard, climbing 27% over the course of the week to land at $92.69.
The fallout is ratcheting up what consumers and business will pay for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, with some drivers already feeling it at the pump.
“It’s crazy. It’s not needed, especially at a time when people are already struggling, but not unexpected from all this turmoil that’s going on,” said Mark Doran, who was pumping gas in Middlebury, Vermont Friday. “I don’t think there’s been an end in sight to any Middle East conflict that’s been started by us, so the fact that they say that there’s going to be an end that quickly is not believable, and the Middle East is, you know, a place that the U.S. is not going to solve.”
President Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. expected its military operations against Iran to last four to five weeks but has “ the capability to go far longer.” On Friday, Trump appeared to rule out talks with Iran absent its “unconditional surrender.”
“The more news we get, the more it seems like this is going to last a really long time,” said Al Salazar, head of macro oil and gas research at Enverus.
In the U.S., a gallon of regular gasoline rose to $3.41 on Saturday, up about 43 cents from a week ago, according to AAA motor club. Diesel was selling for $4.51 a gallon Saturday, up about 75 cents from last week.
The price shocks were felt even more heavily in Europe and Asia, markets that rely more heavily on energy supplies from the Middle East. Diesel prices doubled in Europe, and jet fuel prices rose by close to 200% in Asia, according to Claudio Galimberti, chief economist at Rystad Energy.
Energy prices climbed throughout the week as Iran launched a series of retaliatory attacks, including a drone strike on the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia, and the conflict widened. Iran also hit a major refinery in Saudi Arabia and a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Qatar, halting flows of refined products and taking about 20% of the world’s LNG supply offline.
“We keep seeing news of vessels being hit or refineries or pipelines, so the list is very long,” Galimberti said. As a result, roughly 9 million barrels of oil per day are off the market because of facilities being hit or producers taking precautionary measures, he said. “Right now, with all of this shut in, we are in a situation of extreme deficit.”
The U.S. is a net exporter of oil, but that does not mean it is immune to increases in the price of oil or gasoline, or that its producers can just make up the difference.
Oil is traded on global markets, so even the oil produced in the U.S. has risen in price based on what’s happening in the Middle East. And for many American oil producers, “if you put more wells in the ground, there’s about a six-month lag before you get that production uplift,” Salazar said.
In addition, the U.S. can’t simply turn all of its crude oil into gasoline. That’s because most of the oil produced in the U.S. is light, sweet crude, and refineries on the East and West coasts are primarily designed to process heavier, sour crude. As a result, the U.S. exports some of its crude oil and imports some refined products such as gasoline.
Jerry Dalpiaz of Covington, Louisiana, said he started filling up his cars and gas cans on “the day that they announced that the United States has started military operations against Iran” because he assumed gas prices would climb.
“I can weather the storm because I’m in good financial position, but I feel sorry for my fellow citizens who are living paycheck to paycheck because they have to drive to get to work and they have to change their oil and all those things,” Dalpiaz said. “And they need some relief and it doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.”
Trump issued a plan Friday to insure losses up to approximately $20 billion in the Gulf region, aiming to restore confidence in maritime trade, help stabilize international commerce and support American and allied businesses operating in the Middle East.
But some energy experts said extra insurance won’t solve the problem.
“The problem is that in the oil trading, oil shipping world, people are worried about counterterrorism,” said Amy Jaffe, director of the Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab at New York University, adding that they’re worried about automated drone speedboats, weapon-carrying, flying drones and mines or other devices. “In order for the United States to create the atmosphere that undoes the current bottleneck at the Strait of Hormuz, there has to be some credible demonstration of solutions to the counter-terrorism problem.”
Salazar wondered what the “new normal” would look like if the Strait of Hormuz was effectively re-opened, and what effective security would look like.
“All it takes is one individual with a RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) to stand on the shore and take out a tanker, right?” Salazar said. “And this is forever, do you know what I mean?”
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil shot to its highest price since 2023 after surging again Friday because of the Iran war, and a weak update on the U.S. job market knocked stocks lower to cap Wall Street’s worst week since October.
The S&P 500 dropped 1.3% after a report showed U.S. employers cut more jobs last month than they created and after oil prices spiked above $90 per barrel. The combination of a weak economy and high inflation is a worst-case scenario for investors because the Federal Reserve has no good tool to fix both problems at the same time.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged as many as 945 points before finishing with a loss of 453, or 0.9%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.6%.
“You can’t sugarcoat this report,” according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management. “A negative payrolls number combined with a big jump in oil prices will have traders worrying about stagflation risks.”
Stagflation is what economists call the miserable mix of a stagnating economy with high inflation, and a separate report released Friday added to the sourness after showing that U.S. retailers made less money in January than economists expected. It raised the disconcerting possibility that spending by U.S. households, the main engine of the economy, may be stretched near its maximum.
Usually when the economy is unsteady and the job market is weakening, the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates to give things a boost. Lower rates can make it easier for households to get mortgages and for companies to raise money to expand, while also lifting prices for stocks and other investments. The Fed cut its main interest rate several times last year and had indicated more were to come this year.
But lower interest rates can also make inflation worse. And the Fed’s hands may be increasingly tied because spiking oil prices are pushing inflation higher due to disruptions for the energy industry.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, leaped another 8.5% to settle at $92.69. It briefly rose above $94 to touch its highest level since September 2023.
A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude breached the $90 level for the first time since 2023 and jumped 12.2% to $90.90.
Oil prices have surged, with Brent up from near $70 late last week, as the war has expanded and included areas critical to the production and movement of oil and gas in the Middle East. Much will depend on what happens with the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s coast, where roughly a fifth of the world’s oil typically sails.
The U.S. government gave details Friday about a plan President Donald Trump announced earlier to offer insurance to ships crossing the strait, but it had little effect on the market.
If oil prices spike further, like to $100 per barrel, and stay there, some analysts and investors say it could be too much for the global economy to withstand.
To be sure, the U.S. stock market has a history of bouncing back relatively quickly following conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, as long as oil prices don’t jump too high for too long. Uncertainty about just how high oil prices will go this time around and for how long caused frenetic swings across financial markets this past week, sometimes hour by hour.
On Monday, the S&P 500 tumbled to an immediate 1.2% loss at the start of trading but made it all back and ended the day with a tiny gain.
Trump’s most recent signal on the war was that he wants an “unconditional surrender” of Iran, apparently ruling out negotiations.
In the bond market, Treasury yields wavered, with higher oil prices pushing upward on them and the discouraging updates on the U.S. economy pulling downward.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury initially rose toward 4.19% before pulling back to 4.14%. That’s up from 4.13% late Thursday and just 3.97% a week earlier.
Smaller companies often feel the bite of high borrowing costs more because many need to borrow to grow. Smaller companies can also be more dependent on the strength of the U.S. economy for their profits than big multinational rivals, and the smallest stocks on Wall Street took Friday’s sharpest dives.
The Russell 2000 index of small stocks fell a market-leading 2.3%.
Among the big companies in the S&P 500, companies with high fuel bills helped lead the way lower. Old Dominion Freight Line sank 7.9%, cruise line Carnival fell 5% and Southwest Airlines lost 5.3%.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 90.69 points to 6,740.02. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 453.19 to 47,501.55, and the Nasdaq composite sank 361.31 to 22,387.68.
In stock markets abroad, indexes slumped in Europe following a better finish in Asia. London’s FTSE 100 fell 1.2%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.7%.
South Korea’s Kospi was nearly unchanged after plunging 12.1% Wednesday for its worst loss in history and then rebounding 9.6% Thursday.
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A private jet that crashed in Maine in January, killing all six people aboard, remained on the ground 8 minutes longer than it should have after receiving a deicing treatment in a snowstorm, according to a preliminary report issued Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The plane should have waited no more than 9 minutes from the start of when the deicing treatment began before taking off in those cold and snowy conditions, according to Federal Aviation Administration guidelines. But the NTSB report said 17 minutes passed before takeoff.
The cockpit voice recorder captured the pilot commenting that it was “standard” to have 14 to 18 minutes and that if the wait was more than 30 minutes, they would return to the ramp to have the plane retreated, and the copilot concurred, the report states. Aviation safety consultant John Cox said that comment “makes me wonder if they actually ran the time” because the guidelines make it clear they didn’t have that much time.
The report does not identify the cause of the crash, which won’t come until the final report is done sometime next year. But aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti, who used to investigate crashes for both the NTSB and FAA, said the preliminary report “removes some of the mystery of what happened here.”
“There is no doubt in my mind that the loss of control at liftoff — which was accompanied with an aerodynamic stall warning and sudden right bank — was likely due to snow and ice contamination on the right wing,” Guzzetti said.
He said the pilots’ comments about how long they could wait before getting a second deicing treatment raises questions about how much experience the Texas-based crew had with flying in cold weather. The NTSB will examine that as well as the procedures the airport used in the deicing process, the quality of the chemicals applied and every other factor that could have contributed to the crash.
The FAA guidelines on how long a plane can wait before taking off are an estimate of how long the deicing treatment will keep the wings free of ice, which is crucial to allowing it to fly. Regulations dictate that pilots should never take off with ice on their wings because countless crashes have been caused by ice buildup.
The deicing process includes treating a plane with two different chemicals. The first one is designed to remove any ice from the plane. The second chemical helps prevent ice from accumulating again. The FAA calculates the recommended holdover time from the start of the application of the second anti-icing chemical, which happened at 7:27 p.m. before this crash. The plane didn’t try to take off until 7:44 p.m.
The plane actually sat at the deicing pad for almost five minutes after it was treated while it restarted its engines. And even after it reached the runway it sat for almost four more minutes before the pilots told the tower they were ready to takeoff.
“We know this much. The airplane exceeded the holdover time chart,” said Cox, who is the CEO of Safety Operating Systems and a former airline pilot
The luxury Bombardier Challenger 600 jet that was owned by a Texas law firm had stopped in Bangor to refuel en route to Paris amid light snow, mild winds and near-zero temperatures as a massive storm began to reach Bangor. Another plane had just aborted takeoff, radioing to the tower that they chose not to fly because visibility wasn’t great and they would need another application of deicing fluid.
The snow would eventually accumulate to about 9.5 inches, but it was only beginning at the time of the crash. Investigators, who were initially hampered by the extreme weather conditions, recovered the cockpit voice and data recorders for analysis.
After it crashed, the plane landed upside down on the runway and burst into flames. The airport remained closed for several days afterward.
“There were multiple airport CCTV cameras that captured the airplane during the takeoff,” the report states. “Several of these cameras showed the airplane impact the ground followed by multiple explosions as the impact sequence progressed.”
More than two decades ago there were two other fatal crashes involving ice buildup on a Bombardier Challenger 600 like this one in Birmingham, England; and Montrose, Colorado. There have been several other incidents involving this plane model where icing contributed to an unexpected roll on takeoff in cold weather but pilots were able to recover in those cases.
The FAA published new rules afterward to make clear to pilots and airports that even a small amount of frost on the wings can be a problem. The agency also clarified the standards for deicing to make certain that all frozen particles are removed from the wings, and it required a combination of tactile and visual inspections.
Bombardier was also required to add a cold weather operations warning to the plane’s flight manual, but more than 1,000 of these Challenger 600s have been delivered, and the plane maker said they are designed to be safe.
The four passengers and two pilots had stopped to refuel in Bangor as they traveled from Houston to France on Jan. 25. The passengers included Houston lawyer Tara Arnold, 46, and three people who worked for her luxury travel company.
The other victims were event planner Shawna Collins, 53, of Houston; chef Nick Mastrascusa, 43, and sommelier Shelby Kuyawa, 34, both of Hawaii; and pilots Jacob Hosmer, 47, of Pearland, Texas, and Jorden Reidel, 33, of Texas.
The international airport in Bangor, about 235 miles north of Boston and 130 miles north of Portland, is one of the closest in the U.S. to Europe and is often used to refuel private jets flying overseas. The Bombardier was headed for the Champagne region of France when it crashed.
AUSTIN (AP) — The abrupt decision by U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales to not seek reelection clears the path for a self-described gun rights “absolutist” to secure the Republican nomination in a sprawling Texas congressional district.
Brendan Herrera, 30, originally gained notoriety by posting videos of himself shooting weapons, calling himself “The AK Guy.” He lost a close contest to Gonzales two years ago but forced him into a runoff in Tuesday’s primary.
Gonzales dropped out of the race on Thursday night after having admitted to an affair with a former staff member who later died by suicide, meaning Herrera suddenly has no competition for the Republican mantle in the state’s 23rd congressional district. Democrats hope to pull off an upset by casting Herrera as a fringe figure from the hard right, but it will be a challenge in a deep red district that stretches 800 miles along the border with Mexico.
“I appreciate Tony Gonzales for making the appropriate decision,” Herrera said in a statement. “I look forward to being the voice of TX23 that our district deserves.”
Herrera moved to Texas from North Carolina in 2020, and he built a following of millions with YouTube videos about guns that he tested on a shooting range. He describes himself as a “Second Amendment Absolutist” and he sharply criticized Gonzales’ support for gun safety legislation after the Robb Elementary school shooting in Uvalde, which is in the district.
He has also faced criticism for comments about the Holocaust. In a 2022 video, Herrera described a German submachine gun as “the original ghetto blaster,” and he goose-stepped to German songs.
While firing the weapon at a can of White Claw, another man wearing a mask asks Herrera if he is “hiding any White Claw underneath the floorboards?”
Herrera says yes and then shouts, “Gestapo right there!” before shooting a case of drinks. Then he adds, “they did not see that coming,” pronouncing “not see” like “Nazi.”
Later in the video, Herrera said, “I’m not really a big fan of fascism,” and said he was making jokes about history.
The Democratic nominee for the district, attorney and former schoolteacher Katy Padilla Stout, swiftly criticized Herrera over that particular video on Friday morning.
“Parents I talk to in #TX23, particularly those in Uvalde, are disgusted that this man could represent our families in Congress,” Padilla Stout posted on social media.
Yet Republicans have no fear of losing the district, and dismiss Democratic hopes of snatching the seat with Herrera as the nominee.
“Texas’ 23rd District is deep red, and Democrats know it,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Christian Martinez. “While they talk a big game in Washington, they don’t even have a credible recruit and are too busy defending their own vulnerable members across Texas to compete here.”
Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist in Texas, said his party has to decide whether Herrera is worth the “headache” during a difficult midterm election cycle.
The party wants to feel like the district is “in the bag and off the board,” he said, but “it probably won’t be.”
“They’re going to take a look at this one,” Steinhauser said. “Does it hurt the Republican Party to support this particular candidate?”
The district is the second-largest in the country and was one of Congress’ perennial battlegrounds before it was redrawn in 2021. It was a Republican stronghold in 2024 when President Donald Trump carried the district by nearly 15 points.
Trump had previously endorsed Gonzales. Last month, a lawyer representing the president sent Herrera’s campaign a “cease and desist” letter accusing it of sending deceptive mailers with Trump’s image.
But support for Gonzales began to evaporate during the scandal over his affair and the woman’s subsequent suicide, and House Republican leadership urged him to end his campaign.
However, Gonzales said he would serve out his current term, helping his party maintain its slim majority in the House.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Newly released videos showing the fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by a federal immigration agent in Texas last year call into question assertions by the Department of Homeland Security that a driver intentionally rammed an agent with his car immediately before he was killed.
The videos, including from officer body cameras, offer the first visual account of the shooting of Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, during a beach trip last year. Hours of footage and other law enforcement records were released Friday following a public records request from The Associated Press and other news outlets.
Martinez’s death was the earliest of at least six fatal shootings by federal agents since President Donald Trump launched a nationwide immigration crackdown in his second term, and is among several cases in which video has called into question the administration’s initial narratives.
The Texas Rangers closed their investigation into the March 15, 2025, shooting after a grand jury declined last week to file any criminal charges against Homeland Security Investigations Supervisory Special Agent Jack Stevens, who fired the fatal shots, according to records released by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
In a written statement included in the files, Stevens said he fired to protect his fellow agents, police officers and the public from what he feared was a potential terrorist attack intended to cause mass casualties. A DHS spokesperson said last month the HSI agent fired defensive shots after the driver “intentionally ran over” his fellow agent, “resulting in him being on the hood of the vehicle.”
The newly released body camera videos, taken from behind Martinez’s car, do not clearly show the vehicle striking an agent.
Another video shows Joshua Orta, who was riding in the car with Martinez, telling investigators that his friend had not intended to harm federal officers but had “panicked” because he feared getting arrested for driving while intoxicated.
“He didn’t know what to do. Like he definitely didn’t want to go to jail,” Orta said. “But as far as like running over an officer … he wouldn’t do that.”
Spokespersons for DHS did not respond to requests for comment about the videos.
While local media reported at the time the shooting involved a police officer, DHS did not publicly disclose its agents were involved until after the AP and other media outlets reported it last month.
Martinez was just days past his 23rd birthday when he and Orta drove from their hometown of San Antonio down to South Padre Island, a popular spring break party destination. They drank with friends and smoked marijuana before heading back out on the town, Orta told investigators.
Martinez was driving his blue Ford sedan when, shortly after midnight, they came upon the scene where South Padre police officers were directing traffic around a two-car collision at a busy intersection. Also at the scene were three HSI agents from a maritime border security task force redirected to conduct immigration enforcement, according to documents.
In body camera footage captured by two of the island’s police officers, Martinez’s car can be seen slowly approaching the intersection, appearing to go straight as vehicles were being instructed to turn left. Martinez’s car slows to a crawl — nearly a full stop — for pedestrians in the crosswalk. Once the pedestrians are out of the way, the car slowly pulls into the intersection before stopping again as the HSI agents approach, shouting instructions for the driver to stop.
One of the HSI agents, identified in documents as Special Agent Hector Sosa, moves in front of the car. Stevens is on the driver’s side and reaches toward the door.
“Get him out, get him out,” one of the officers can be heard shouting.
Martinez’s car begins slowly moving forward and turning to the left, where other vehicles were traveling. Stevens, on the driver’s side of the car, is keeping pace and appears to be leaning in toward the open driver’s side window. As officers yell for Martinez to stop, Stevens pulls his weapon and rapidly fires three shots through the window before quickly backing away.
“Shots fired, shots fired,” one of the police officers wearing a camera yells into his radio.
The entire incident transpires in about 15 seconds.
The blue Ford quickly comes to a full stop and Martinez is pulled from the vehicle and handcuffed by multiple officers. Orta is also pulled from the passenger seat and handcuffed.
Martinez remains in cuffs and on the ground, unmoving, for about a minute before paramedics already on the scene of the earlier traffic accident begin to provide medical aid.
An autopsy report shows all three shots fired by Stevens hit Martinez, with bullets traveling through his left arm before entering his torso and piercing his heart, lungs, liver and other organs. The autopsy report also showed that Martinez’s blood alcohol level was 0.12%, well above the legal limit to drive in Texas of 0.08%.
In a three-page written statement provided to the Texas Rangers almost two months after the shooting, Stevens said he fired his weapon as Martinez “accelerated forward, striking Special Agent Sosa who wound up on the hood of the vehicle.” He also said he narrowly avoided being run over, being struck by the driver’s side and “causing the mirror to break off of the vehicle.” A photo from the scene showed the mirror damaged, but still on the car.
As he fired, the agent said that “still fresh on his mind” were recent domestic and international events, including a man who had driven a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans weeks earlier.
“The driver’s eyes were open widely, fist clenched to the steering wheel, and he was looking past the officers on scene as he failed to comply with the loud and repeated verbal commands of multiple law enforcement officers,” Stevens wrote. “This is a behavior I have observed in my training and experience as a pre attack indicator and sign of noncompliance as the suspect is looking in the path of their intended movement and is not indicative of compliance. This path of movement, if left unmitigated, would, using the vehicle as a weapon, have resulted in numerous casualties.”
As reported by AP last month, an internal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation said the agent struck by the car was treated for an unspecified knee injury at a nearby hospital and released. The newly released videos show the agent after the shooting arresting Orta and walking without any visible injury or limp.
Orta said Martinez had been drinking earlier that night — several shots and a beer — and smoked marijuana when he approached the traffic checkpoint where a vehicle accident had occurred earlier.
One officer spotted an open alcoholic beverage near Martinez but directed the car to keep moving and turn to the left. Instead, Martinez continued straight, toward the accident and more officers.
“That’s when he panicked and turned the wheel, and he didn’t floor the gas but we kind of went a little bit and I guess they thought he was like trying to run the cop over or something,” Orta said.
Orta said that their car came to a “full stop” at first. Then Martinez turned to the left with the car “barely moving.”
“I saw the officer kind of get on the hood. Like he didn’t hit him, but like he kind of like, you know what I mean, caught his feet,” Orta said. “It was just slowly moving and they started shooting.”
Orta died Feb. 21 in a car accident in San Antonio.
Lawyers representing Martinez’s mother, Rachel Reyes, said in a statement the newly released videos and other evidence showed his car was barely moving when Stevens fired at point-blank range.
“This batch of evidence shows no justification for Ruben’s killing,” lawyers Charles M. Stam and Alex Stamm said. “Still, our pursuit of full transparency will continue until we have all the facts. We, and the public, have yet to see all of the evidence held by the government.”
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk continued to defend his actions in the months leading up to his 2022 purchase of Twitter in court Thursday as he faces a class action lawsuit claiming he misled investors and caused them to lose millions of dollars.
The civil trial in San Francisco centers on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk took control of Twitter, a social media service he renamed X, in October 2022, six months after agreeing to buy the embattled company for $44 billion, or $54.20 per share.
The case, which represents Twitter shareholders who sold the stock between May 13 and Oct. 4, 2022, revolves around allegations that Musk violated federal securities laws while taking a series of calculated steps to drive down the company’s stock price in an attempt to either blow up the deal or wrangle a lower sales price.
This includes Musk’s claims about the number of bots on Twitter. Taking the stand for the second day, Musk continued to double down on his assertion that Twitter had a much higher number of fake and spam accounts than the 5% it disclosed in regulatory filings.
The problem of bots and fake accounts on Twitter wasn’t new at the time Musk negotiated the deal. The company had paid $809.5 million in 2021 to settle claims it was overstating its growth rate and monthly user figures. Twitter also disclosed its bot estimates to the Securities and Exchange Commission for years, while also cautioning that its estimate might be too low.
But Musk said the number was much higher, at least 20%, according to some analysts. Saying the bot number was at least this high was like “saying the grass is green or the sky is blue,” Musk said.
Musk was only on the stand briefly, followed by expert witnesses and Twitter’s former CEO, Ned Segal. Much of the testimony Thursday centered on the 5% spam accounts number. Asked if Twitter ever filed false filings to the SEC that misstated its spam numbers, Segal said it did not. He mentioned that the company once restated finances after it became aware of a mistake in its calculation of daily users. In 2017, Twitter said it had been overstating its monthly user numbers by mistake because it was including users of a third-party app it should not have.
Asked about the 5% spam account rate, Segal said the number was actually closer to 1%. On Wednesday, Musk said Twitter “lied” about the number of bot accounts on its platform, and that the actual number was much higher.
DALLAS (AP) – James Talarico rode viral video fame to the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Texas. Now Republicans want to turn years of candid on-camera musings against him.
Conservatives are digging through Talarico’s social media history and finding a trove of progressive commentary on hot-button cultural issues like race, gender, religion and immigration. They hope it will torpedo his candidacy in a red state like Texas that Democrats have spent decades struggling to turn blue.
Talarico was a state legislator barely known outside his district before he started building a national profile by making himself ubiquitous. He sat for lengthy podcast interviews and posted heavily on social media. The grandson of a Baptist preacher and a seminary student himself, Talarico often makes a Biblical case for progressive policies, using a gift of gab that many Democrats believe will help him connect with voters across Texas.
It’s also given his critics hours and hours of material to mine. And after he defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, conservatives started uploading an arsenal of video clips.
“God is nonbinary,” Talarico once said during a legislative floor speech. He later explained that he was being “a little provocative” to make the theological point that “God is beyond gender.”
“Our southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front,” Talarico said in a clip that cuts off the rest of his sentence — “and a lock on the door.”
“Radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country,” Talarico wrote five years ago in a post lamenting mass shootings targeting Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans.
Republican consultant Chris LaCivita shared that post on social media and suggested it was “great ad copy” for his party. LaCivita is working for a super PAC supporting incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who faces state Attorney General Ken Paxton in a runoff for the Republican nomination.
President Donald Trump even joined in, telling Politico in an interview that Talarico is “a terribly weak candidate” who is “more woke than even the very highly untalented Jasmine Crockett.” He predicted Talarico would be “much easier than her” to defeat in a general election.
“He is radically out of touch with Texans and they will not vote for this in November,” said Samantha Cantrell, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
During a victory speech Wednesday, Talarico primed his supporters for the onslaught of criticism, which he blamed on billionaires and political elites desperate to hold onto power.
“They’re going to throw everything they have at us,” he said. “They’re going to call me a radical leftist. They’re going to call me a fake Christian. They’ll call our movement un-Texan, un-American. They’ll call us a threat.”
The criticism is coming, Talarico said, “because we’re a threat to their corrupt system.”
“Our campaign is building a movement poised to change the politics of this state and take power back for working people,” said Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis. “While they lob stale attacks to mislead Texans, we are uniting the people of Texas to win in November.”
Democrats are hoping that Republican runoff voters will favor Paxton, who has weathered allegations of corruption and infidelity and has his own history of controversial remarks.
Trump has promised to make an endorsement in the race, but he hasn’t said when he’ll announce a decision or who it will be. Republican leaders want him to line up behind Cornyn, who is seeking a fifth term.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign provides a recent model of a Democrat who overcame intense scrutiny for progressive statements that became a political liability. Mandani went on Fox News and apologized to New York Police Department officers for past criticism, such as a calling to “defund this rogue agency” in 2020.
Still, New York and Texas are worlds apart politically. Trump won Texas by nearly 14 points and lost the state of New York by nearly as much.