Today is
Wednesday June 03, 2026
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A museum in Georgia’s oldest city on Wednesday welcomed a truckload of treasures from the earliest period of U.S. history — 17 cannons that experts believe sank to the bottom of the Savannah River during the American Revolution and remained undiscovered for nearly 240 years.
Workers carefully hoisted the big guns one-by-one from the back of a truck and wheeled them inside their new home at the Savannah History Museum, which will put them on display just in time for the Fourth of July celebration of America’s 250th birthday.
“They look brand new,” said Andrea Farmer, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers archaeologist who was part of the team that researched and preserved the cannons. “They could pretty much be fired if someone wanted to.”
The artifacts were discovered in 2021 when a dredge scooping sediment from the riverbed as part of an Army Corps project to deepen Savannah’s shipping channel pulled up a cannon in its metal jaws. The crew soon dug up two more.
In the course of just over a year, a total of 19 cannons were hoisted from the location just downstream from Savannah, which is where Georgia was founded in 1733 as the last of Britain’s 13 American colonies.
After being pulled from the river, most of the cannons left Georgia for several years to undergo cleaning and preservation work at a Texas lab.
Archaeologists initially assumed the cannons likely dated to the Civil War. But further research indicated they’re likely almost a century older and sank during the buildup to the American Revolution’s bloody siege of Savannah.
Savannah was under British occupation in the fall of 1779, when colonists planned an attack to retake the city with help from French allies.
When French ships carrying troops were spotted off the Georgia coast, British forces scuttled at least six ships in the Savannah River downstream from the city to block the French vessels.
The land battle that followed was one of the bloodiest of the war. British forces killed nearly 300 colonial fighters and their allies, and wounded hundreds more.
The Savannah History Museum sits right next to the battlefield. Its staff on Wednesday hoisted the cannons, weighing up to 1500 pounds (680 kilograms) apiece, onto custom display mounts that staffers likened to giant wine racks.
The cannons will be part of a new exhibit on Savannah’s role in the American Revolution, which is scheduled to open Fourth of July weekend, said Samantha Moss, the museum’s curator.
“Our great team has been prepping for months — building mounts and planning how we can safely display these very large, very special artifacts,” she said.
Cleaning the crusty cannons took years
Each of the iron cannons emerged from the river covered by a thick crust of mud and minerals.
Two were left in that raw state and put on display at the museum. The other 17 were sent to Texas A&M University, which has a lab that specializes in preserving underwater artifacts. Its staff spent years painstakingly cleaning the big guns and coating them in paint and wax to prevent rusting and corrosion.
“A lot of them have scour marks on the side from anchors or dredging, so there’s some scarring on the cannons,” said Chris Dostal, a professor of nautical archaeology who leads Texas A&M’s Conservation Research Lab. “But most of them look pretty exceptional.”
Most of the cannons arrived with wooden plugs still sealing their bores, which remained packed with cannonballs and gunpowder charges.
Dostal said radiocarbon dating of the wooden stoppers placed them roughly in the late 1700s. His team shared the cannons’ measurements and other details with experts in London, who concluded three of them were very likely forged by the British military.
The rest appeared to be of French design but bore no telltale markings. Dostal said he suspects those guns may have been cast in America around the time of the war.
Other artifacts found with the cannons included pieces of anchors and a portion of a ship’s bronze bell. Like the cannons, none of them bore engravings indicating which ship they came from.
That means many details of the cannons’ origins remain a mystery.
“You don’t have all of the information,” Farmer said. “You’re trying to piece it together as best as you can.”
AUSTIN (AP) – The two biggest conferences in college sports released a statement Tuesday saying they do not support the current version of a bipartisan bill designed to regulate an industry struggling for answers in a quickly changing era in which some players make millions.
The Southeastern and Big Ten conferences said the “bill leaves critical issues unresolved,” including not “meaningfully” preempting state laws with a federal one, which has long been considered a key element for a measure to get support from the NCAA and the conferences.
In an interview last week, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who drafted the bill with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told The Associated Press “the bill is drafted to preempt state laws that conflict with the provisions in this bill.”
The SEC-Big Ten statement came out less than 24 hours before a scheduled hearing about the bill in front of the Senate Commerce Committee. Cruz chairs the panel and Cantwell is the ranking Democrat.
The legislation has received support from the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conferences, but the Big Ten and SEC, as the two richest leagues that also have decision-making power over the future of the College Football Playoff, hold the biggest cards.
One of the bill’s key provisions would give conferences an option to pool their media rights — an idea the Big Ten and SEC have long claimed would not result in a financial windfall that proponents suggest. The leagues’ statement did not speak to that issue.
A spokesperson for the Commerce Committee that Cruz chairs acknowledged the Big Ten-SEC position.
Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston has to create a detransition clinic for transgender patients by this summer and keep a list of “potential” gender affirming care patients, according to new details released Monday by the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
According to a 10-page list of settlement terms, requested by The Texas Tribune, Texas Children’s has 90 days from the effective date of the settlement to set up the detransition clinic. The attorney general announced the settlement two weeks ago but because a final settlement has not been signed there is no effective date agreed upon yet.
The $10 million settlement, first announced on May 15, is the result of a 2023 investigation by the attorney general’s office into Texas Children’s. That same year, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 14 that bars transgender children from receiving puberty blockers and hormone therapies. Previously, all that was known about the settlement was that the hospital agreed to pay $10 million to the state and permanently revoke the medical privileges of three current doctors and two former ones.
The settlement terms released Monday are the first details about the unusual agreement between the nation’s largest pediatric hospital and the attorney general that would set up the nation’s first “detransitioning clinic.” Detransitioning is the stopping or reversal of transitioning care by social, medical or legal means, and it is rare for people to regret transitioning after taking hormone therapy and surgical interventions.
Common reasons for detransitioning include lack of family support, financial barriers and social pressure.
Per the settlement, Texas Children’s must also create a website for the detransition clinic and create a donate page so those individuals wanting to donate money toward the detransition clinic’s efforts, can do so. The hospital must keep a “Potential GAC Patient List” that includes all diagnostic codes detailed by the AG and conduct an internal review of the list to confirm compliance with state and federal laws and the settlement agreement.
According to Texas Children’s, they have not been asked to share the list and noted to do so would not be legally permissible. “We abide by HIPAA and protecting patient privacy is one of our top priorities,” the hospital said in a statement.
The attorney general’s office released to the Tribune a “Settlement Term Sheet” and not the complete settlement document between the two parties, as originally requested because one has not been signed. “We’ve aligned on a term sheet and the next step is to finalize the settlement agreement per standard practice,” Texas Children’s said in a statement.
Other requirements include the removal of all hospital press releases from the Texas Children’s website related to gender transition services. The clinic will provide multiple services including access to endocrinology, surgery, primary care, fertility counseling, psychiatry and psychotherapy.
As previously announced, TCH must bar any gender-affirming care procedures, what the Texas attorney general’s office calls “sex-rejecting” procedures in the settlement, defined as pharmaceutical or surgical interventions that “attempt to align an individual’s physical appearance or body … that differs from the individual’s sex.” This includes puberty blockers and hormone treatments. Also previously announced was the permanent revoking of medical privileges to three current doctors and two former ones.
The hospital previously issued a statement insisting it complied with all laws and decided to settle to close a legal chapter that has been, in their words: “wrought with falsehoods and distractions.” The hospital also noted earlier that the services demanded as part of the settlement were already offered at the hospital. Late Monday, they emphasized that fact. “The detransition clinic will formalize the supportive, multidisciplinary services we already deliver to all patients who need our care,” the hospital statement said. “This simply provides structure and a name for the services we currently provide.”
A 2024 study of private insurance by Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that less than 1% of minors are transgender and received puberty blockers or hormone treatments.
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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
DALLAS (AP) – The artist who painted a giant mural on a building in downtown Dallas of life-sized swimming whales has filed a $25 million lawsuit against soccer’s international governing body and others, saying they illegally painted over his work to promote the city’s upcoming World Cup matches.
The artist Wyland says he hand-painted the sprawling mural that covered roughly 17,000 square feet (1,580 square meters) across two of the building’s walls.
The mural stood for nearly three decades before workers began painting over it last month, causing an uproar among residents who admired the mural’s grand scale and message of ocean conservation.
The area’s World Cup organizing committee said in a statement that, in place of Wyland’s mural, new artwork is planned “that captures this current historical moment and reflects the energy, unity, and global spirit surrounding the World Cup 2026.” It said a portion of Wyland’s mural would be preserved.
Wyland filed suit Monday in U.S District Court in Dallas saying that World Cup organizers, along with the building’s owner and management company, painted over his mural without his consent or even notifying him. He says their actions violated a 1990 federal law passed to protect visual artists from destruction of publicly displayed works.
Wyland is seeking at least $25 million in damages. His lawsuit says world soccer’s governing body, FIFA, and other defendants “hastily and irrevocably destroyed a civic landmark” to promote the World Cup.
“Though FIFA claims they were working to develop art for the host city, in truth, they defaced an historic fixture of the host city,” the artist’s lawsuit says.
A FIFA spokesperson said Tuesday the federation “has no involvement in this whatsoever” and referred a reporter to the tournament’s local organizing committee.
A spokesperson for the North Texas FWC Organizing Committee declined to comment. The committee isn’t named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
A spokesperson for Slate Asset Management, which manages the building where the mural was painted over, said in a statement that local World Cup organizers asked Slate in March to donate the mural space for “a new public art installation.”
“Slate is not being compensated in any way for the use of the wall space and was told by the local groups that Mr. Wyland had been notified,” the management company’s spokesperson said in an email.
Dallas is hosting more World Cup matches than any of the other sites in the event co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with nine matches set to be played at AT&T Stadium in suburban Arlington, home of the Dallas Cowboys.
Wyland’s Dallas mural, titled “Whaling Wall 82,” was finished in 1999 and is among more than 100 similar murals known as Whaling Walls the artist painted around the world to promote the conservation of ocean life.
An online petition protesting the mural’s destruction and calling for protecting of public artwork in Dallas has received more than 2,600 signatures.
Wyland’s lawsuit alleges violations of the Visual Artists Rights Act, a 1990 federal law that protects artwork of “recognized stature” even if someone else owns the physical artwork.
A judge cited that law in 2018 when he ordered a property owner to pay a group of New York graffiti artists $6.7 million for whitewashing dozens of their spray-painted murals on buildings that once housed a factory in Queens. The ruling was upheld on appeal.
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Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.
LUFKIN, Texas (KETK) – The Lufkin City Council voted on Tuesday in favor of advancing a proposed ordinance that will work to keep children protected from registered sex offenders.
The ordinance, which was discussed at Tuesday’s city council meeting, is designed to restrict certain registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of locations where children frequently gather.
If the ordinance is passed, registered sex offenders whose victims were under 17 would be prohibited from living near schools, parks, childcare facilities, and churches.
According to the Texas Public Sex Offender Website, there are roughly 138 registered sex offenders within the City of Lufkin.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Controversial U.S. Senate hopefuls Ken Paxton, a Republican from Texas, and Graham Platner, a Democrat from Maine, are in the nation’s capital Tuesday to shore up support within their respective parties, with Paxton’s itinerary including a White House huddle with President Donald Trump.
The campaign pilgrimage by the two candidates, one from each end of the political spectrum, comes with both men facing concerns they could cost their parties winnable races in the November midterms, with control of the Senate at stake for the final two years of Trump’s second presidency.
Paxton’s planned meeting with Trump comes after he won the president’s coveted endorsement ahead of trouncing Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas runoff last month. The scheduled meeting was confirmed by a person with knowledge of the president’s plans but who was not authorized to discuss them publicly.
Senate Republicans feared that Paxton, the Texas attorney general, would be a weaker candidate against James Talarico, the Democratic nominee, in the fall. Paxton has endured an indictment, an impeachment and public disclosure of martial infidelity.
He also is expected to meet with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who backed Cornyn. Senate Republicans’ campaign arm excoriated Paxton during the primary campaign, accusing him of “repulsive and disgusting” behavior and quoting his estranged wife saying she filed for divorce “on biblical grounds.”
Platner will meet with several Democratic senators days after disclosure that he and his wife have had marital difficulties and sought counseling after he reportedly sent sexually explicit text messages to other women.
Both candidates are scheduled to attend fundraisers as well.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, who is set to meet with Platner, said he doesn’t believe Maine voters are focused on Platner’s marriage. Asked if Platner still has a shot in the race, Heinrich said “we’ll have to see” and “I suspect so.”
Platner and Paxton are pressing ahead with few apologies
Platner and his wife have criticized media coverage of their marriage, framing it as a private matter that should not shape the campaign. Still, the latest personal issues added fuel to some Democrats’ skittishness about Platner, who already faced scrutiny over online posts that were dismissive of sexual assault and a tattoo that is recognized as a Nazi symbol. Platner has apologized for the posts and covered up the tattoo.
Paxton has offered no apologies for his baggage. He framed his win over Cornyn as a “Texas-sized message to Washington,” and thanked Trump — who himself has endured repeated personal and political scandal to win two national elections — for his support.
Like Paxton, Platner was not the choice of his party’s Senate brass, with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backing Maine Gov. Janet Mills. But Platner effectively became the presumptive nominee after Mills suspended her campaign weeks ago because of fundraising difficulties.
Maine’s primary is June 9, and Platner would face Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who is running for a sixth term, in November. Defeating Collins is crucial to Democrats’ attempts to regain control of the Senate. Democrats have repeatedly tried to unseat Collins, but she has always survived. In 2020, Collins won reelection even though Democrat Joe Biden carried the state over Trump by nine percentage points.
In Texas, some Republicans fear they will need to divert critical resources to boost Paxton over Talarico, who has become a national fundraising phenomenon.
Although Republicans have dominated Texas for decades, prominent party leaders have said the race could be genuinely competitive this time. Eight years ago, during the midterm election of Trump’s first presidency, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won reelection over another Democratic fundraising juggernaut, Beto O’Rourke, by less than 3 points.
Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate advantage and earlier in the campaign cycle were heavily favored to maintain their majority. But as Trump’s popularity fades and primary fights yield nominees, Democrats have become more confident in their prospects.
Most Democrats and Republicans are taking their usual sides
With control of the Senate on the line, most partisans have generally lined up behind Platner and Paxton, even if begrudgingly because of their political baggage. Tuesday’s fundraising events were the latest evidence. The event for Paxton, with a $1,000 minimum donation required, according to the invitation, is being co-hosted by seven senators, including Cruz. The fundraiser for Platner is being co-hosted by former Biden White House chief of staff Ron Klain.
“My priority is to make sure that Republicans control the majority so we can continue the agenda that we’re on,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, on Tuesday. “Ken Paxton is absolutely necessary as far as keeping that majority. I have faith that the people of Texas will support him, and he’ll get across the finish line.”
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive, said her top concern is Platner’s prospective constituents.
“I want to hear from him about the economy,” she said ahead of their meeting. “And more about what he talks to the people of Maine about.”
That echoes another leading progressive who, like Warren, has endorsed Platner. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he still supports Platner as part of the left’s economic populism.
“Of course,” Sanders told reporters Monday. “Why would I not?”
But not all Democrats are on board, including one who first came to the Senate with an outsider persona. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat who has earned a reputation for speaking and voting against his party, even appeared to relish Platner’s newest controversy, calling him “phustle,” a reference to Platner’s apparent profile uncovered on Kik, a popular, private messaging app.
“So much bizarre and tacky and gross stuff that you lose count. It’s like you need to have a bingo card,” Fetterman said.
The senator stopped stopped short of calling on Platner to drop out, but he echoed some Democrats’ private concerns.
“I mean, what’s next?” he said.
He later said, “I’m not going to carry water for that guy.”
ATLANTA (AP) — Hurricanes, wildfires, floods and other extreme weather can also kick up storms of anxiety.
Thankfully, there are several ways to reduce that stress, according to mental health experts who have helped people who have experienced disasters. One of the most important things to do is have a plan, they say.
“Preparation is always one of the most powerful tools that I can imagine — not just for safety, but also for mental health,” said Ruben Juarez, a health economist at University of Hawaii professor who directed the Maui Wildfires Exposure Study, which looked at health and social impacts of the deadly 2023 fires.
And when the disaster is over, they say, try to restore a sense of normalcy by seeking out support, returning to routines and helping others.
Kevin Westmoreland, who co-owns The Corner Kitchen in Asheville, North Carolina, learned meditation techniques and breathing exercises to deal with the stresses that the restaurant industry can present. When the remnants of Hurricane Helene unleashed torrents of rain on the state two years ago, water and mud poured into the restaurant and “everything was tossed around inside the building as if it was in a blender,” he recalled.
“All you could do to get through it is try to take a breath and move forward, step by step,” he said.
Plan ahead for unpredictable weather
One way to ease anxiety is to prepare as best you can ahead of time, including hashing out a plan for what to do during a disaster.
Making an evacuation plan and putting together an emergency kit can provide a sense of control, said Melissa Brymer, a psychologist and director of terrorism and disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.
She recommends a step-by-step guide for families at ready.gov/plan. The American Red Cross also has extensive guides for hurricane preparedness. Make sure to consider special preparations for anyone with disabilities, special needs, new mothers and expectant mothers, Brymer advises. Also make sure that pets are included in disaster plans.
Weather is unpredictable, so it helps to accept that there are things you won’t be able to control.
AUSTIN (AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN) – In the litigation from false claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a government hoax, attorneys for Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems LLC, the Austin-based parent business of his Infowars media platform, returned to state court to contest collection efforts. In order to postpone efforts to sell or license Infowars assets to pay the Sandy Hook families, his counsel argued that the judge should impose a nominal bond. According to decisions in Connecticut and Texas, Jones owes the families around $1.5 billion.
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of the State District Court in Austin stated that in order to continue delaying an order to start paying them, he must post a $4.3 million bond. The Onion, a satirical media site, may be able to purchase or license Infowars if he is unable to make the bond. However, the Texas 3rd Court of Appeals will make that determination. Last month, it ordered stays on collections in both the Connecticut and Texas rulings.
The judge rejected the testimony of Jones’s and the company’s attorneys last week that he has a negative net worth of $1.35 billion. In her decision on Friday, she stated that she “had no faith in the integrity of evidence given by (Free Speech Systems) as to its own net worth.”
EL PASO (AP) – An investigation by KFF Health News and The Associated Press has found that hundreds of detainees across at least 33 states allege immigration detention facilities are failing to provide adequate medical care.
Detainees allege they didn’t receive medications on time — or at all — for conditions including high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, epilepsy, Parkinson’s and HIV. Requests for help went unanswered for weeks. Blood sugars rose. Infections festered. Cancers remained untreated. Detainees collapsed and had seizures.
U.S. jails and immigration detention centers have long struggled to meet the medical needs of the people in their charge. But the system is sagging under an influx of detentions since President Donald Trump returned to office: More than 75,000 immigrants were being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as of mid-January, up from around 40,000 a year earlier.
KFF Health News and AP asked the Department of Homeland Security to respond to the findings six days before publication but it did not provide comment. DHS acting chief medical officer, Sean Conley, previously said “it is both policy and longstanding practice for aliens to receive timely and appropriate medical care from the moment they enter ICE custody” and that the department recruits healthcare professionals to maintain high standards. “This is better, more responsive healthcare than many aliens have ever received in their entire lives,” he has said.
Individual facilities and private prison companies contracting with DHS that responded to requests for comment on this story said they follow ICE standards and detainees receive adequate medical care when it is required. Some said they were unfamiliar with the allegations outlined in court documents; others blamed the detainees themselves for lapses in their medical care.
KFF Health News and AP analyzed thousands of court cases filed since Trump’s second inauguration that use a legal route known as habeas corpus to argue people are being held illegally by ICE. The records offer a rare window into how those detained say — often under penalty of perjury — ICE is handling their medical needs. Reporters also interviewed more than 50 detainees, family members and lawyers.
The investigation revealed that medical neglect is alleged across the sprawling detention system, including in offices not designed to house people, county jails and quickly staged sites with nicknames such as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
The full story can be read here. Here are the takeaways:
Previously, detainees with serious medical needs would likely have been released on humanitarian parole, in part to avoid the cost of their care, Vermont attorney Andrew Pelcher said.
Now, under “mandatory detention,” people are staying locked up with serious — and expensive — conditions.
A Romanian citizen underwent several heart surgeries, including an emergency triple bypass in April 2025, before he was arrested in July. As part of his recovery, the 52-year-old was required to take 16 daily medications. While detained by ICE in Baltimore, his court filings allege, he went two days without any medication before officials moved him to a facility in New Jersey.
The AP and KFF Health News are not naming anyone identified in court documents without their consent.
He was hospitalized three times with chest pains, in part because the detention center did not provide all his medications despite “countless requests,” medical records and court documents say. Hospital discharge papers cited by his lawyer show he received only eight of the 16 medications after his second release from the hospital.
Several weeks later in August, he had a stroke while on a video call with his daughter, according to court filings. “He was struggling to breathe, and was pointing at his chest where he was again experiencing pain, and suddenly stopped speaking.” His daughter screamed for help through the video monitor, according to his petition. “Eventually an officer came in to assist him and cut the feed.”
The man lost his ability to speak for four days, the document says. He was returned to detention, where he remained until a federal judge ordered his release in November.
Detainees receiving inadequate healthcare have little recourse. The Department of Homeland Security last year gutted the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. In early May, they shut the office entirely arguing that Congress didn’t fund it.
Ombudsman staffers used to help facilitate medical care or investigate complaints of neglect, according to Matt Boles, an immigration attorney in Georgia. Now, he said, there’s no one to call.
Meanwhile, detainees’ families said they feel helpless, making desperate calls to facilities, the government and their legislators while watching their loved ones deteriorate.
Riya Khan saw her mother get sicker at the California City Detention Facility, which is owned by CoreCivic, a private prison company. When she visited a week after her mother arrived at the facility in the Mojave Desert, Riya said, the 64-year-old woman was shaking as she stumbled into her seat. Her breathing was labored.
Masuma Khan came to the U.S. from Bangladesh in 1997. Like 70% of those in detention, Khan has no criminal history. She was detained in October when she showed up for her regular ICE check-in.
For the month she was detained, according to her daughter, she only intermittently received her medications for conditions including high blood pressure, hypothyroidism and prediabetes.
CoreCivic treats chronic conditions in line with applicable medical standards, spokesperson Brian Todd said.
“Nothing matters more to CoreCivic than the health, safety and well-being of the people in our care,” Todd said.
Khan said she got her asthma medication for the first time two days before she was released and her eye drops for glaucoma never arrived. Staffers told Khan she needed to buy some of her medications from the commissary but it didn’t stock them, her daughter said.
Dora Schriro, who worked for ICE and now serves as a special adviser to the American Bar Association, said case law requires the government to treat people in immigration detention with the same care it affords those in traditional jails awaiting trial. But administrators are granted discretion and medical care standards vary.
Detainees are frequently moved across the country, often without warning, interrupting treatment. A woman from El Salvador said she missed a week of HIV medication when she was transferred from Colorado to a county jail in Wyoming.
A Russian man wrote that, while detained in Texas, he saw a gastroenterologist about his painful gallstones and scheduled an appointment with a surgeon. “Unfortunately, I never got to see him, due to my being moved around various detention centers.”
Advocates say that even obvious disabilities, like legal blindness, are ignored.
A detainee who lost one eye and had severe glaucoma in the other required twice-daily drops to maintain what vision remained. But, he said, some days the drops never came.
He wrote that his vision was quickly deteriorating, and he was scared he’d lose it entirely and never be able to see his infant son again.