Brittney Griner made an emphatic and emotional return to the WNBA's midseason showcase event.

Video above: Brittney Griner is Getting Her Own Comic book

She scored 18 points, including her team's first six, and put down two dunks in the league's All-Star Game on Saturday night.

The sellout crowd roared when Griner was introduced and, clearly moved by the ovation, she tapped her chest over her heart with her right hand. There was no doubt that a year after being forced to miss this event while detained in Russia, Griner was the star of the show.

"To have that ovation and all those little memories that I can cherish now, it means the world," Griner said. "So it was no question I was going to come and play. They have never wavered in their support."

Griner led Team Stewart, captained by the New York Liberty's Breanna Stewart, to a 143-127 victory over Team Wilson, led by the Las Vegas Aces' A'ja Wilson. The 143 points and 270 combined points are All-Star Game records.

Team Stewart's Jewell Loyd of the Seattle Storm broke the All-Star Game scoring record with 31 points, setting the mark on a pass from Griner. Maya Moore and Kelsey Plum shared the previous record of 30 points. Loyd earned MVP honors for the game.

"I played hard because of my parents; I didn't get them a gift for their anniversary," Loyd said. "So I think this was acceptable. I hope it is."

Plum actually tied her own record with 30 points, one of four Aces competing for Team Wilson, who received loud ovations from the home crowd in pregame introductions. Plum, who also had five assists, said sponsors pledged to donate $1,000 to a Las Vegas charity for each basket and assist.

"So I was gunning," Plum said. "I mean 17 shots in 21 minutes is wild."

She raised $16,000.

Griner, at this time last year, was being held in Russia on drug charges, sparking international outrage that she was being wrongfully detained. The WNBA named her an honorary starter, with every player wearing her No. 42 jersey in the second half of last year's game.

This year, Griner was in the starting lineup — the only one wearing that jersey number — overshadowing almost everything that happened on the court.

Team Stewart made Griner the focal point from the beginning. She delivered a dunk with 3:50 remaining in the first quarter off an outlet pass from Stewart. Griner also had a dunk 25 seconds into the second half.

"I called my knees and talked to them and gave them a little pep talk," the 32-year-old Griner said of her dunks.

She displayed that same jumping ability afterward, leaping up on the riser for the postgame news conference.

Griner at one point in the first quarter challenged Team Wilson point guard Chelsea Gray of the Aces, but Gray drove past the nine-time All-Star from the Phoenix Mercury and dropped in a reverse layup from high off the glass. It was one of the few plays that didn't work out for Griner.

At the first media timeout, Griner was shown on the video board as she sat on the bench with the words, "WELCOME BACK BRITTNEY GRINER" on the screen below her face.

Griner was among the players who wore microphones during the game, joking after missing a 3-pointer that she "got something in my eye."

The game was played with a 20-second shot clock rather than the usual 24, two 4-point spots on each side of the court were added and there were no free throws. The teams combined to hit 12 4-point shots.

New York's Sabrina Ionescu, representing Team Stewart, made all three of her attempts from 4-point range in the first half, carrying over her extraordinary shooting from the previous day. Ionescu set a WNBA and NBA record with 37 of a possible 40 points in the 3-point contest. She finished with 18 points.

Sue Bird, Seimone Augustus and Sylvia Fowles were among the ex-WNBA players in attendance, with Fowles wearing Napheesa Collier's Minnesota Lynx jersey.

Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis and Dwyane Wade were among those with NBA ties watching. Wade is buying an ownership stake in the Chicago Sky.

Carlos Alcaraz said he wanted another shot at Novak Djokovic and said it would make winning a Wimbledon championship more special. Well, Alcaraz got his chance to face Djokovic. And he beat him.Alcaraz put aside a poor start and surged down the stretch to end Djokovic's 34-match winning streak at the All England Club by edging him 1-6, 7-6 (6), 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 in an engaging, back-and-forth final on Sunday, claiming his first championship at Wimbledon second Grand Slam trophy overall.The No. 1-ranked Alcaraz prevented Djokovic from what would have been a record-tying eighth title, and fifth in a row, at the grass-court tournament. Djokovic also was kept from claiming his 24th career major.Instead of Djokovic, a 36-year-old from Serbia, becoming the oldest male champion at Wimbledon in the Open era, Alcaraz, a 20-year-old from Spain, became the third-youngest. The age gap between the two was the widest in any men's Slam final since 1974.So Alcaraz had youth on his side, which he also did, of course, when they met at the French Open last month. That one was extraordinary for two sets before Alcaraz cramped up and faded. This time, he had the stamina and the strokes to get past Djokovic.Alcaraz is faster and capable of more power — serves topping 130 mph, forehands topping 100 mph — but Djokovic is equipped with an abundance of talents and so much muscle memory. He's been there, and done that, in ways Alcaraz, for now, can only dream of.But if this victory on a windy and cloudy day at Centre Court, where Djokovic last lost in the 2013 final, was any indication, Alcaraz is on his way to achieving quite a bit himself.Still, this is all relatively new to him: Djokovic's record 35th Grand Slam final was Alcaraz's second.Yet it was Alcaraz who won a 32-point, 25-minute mini-masterpiece of a game on the way to taking the third set. And it was Alcaraz who moved out front for good by breaking to go up 2-1 in the fifth with a backhand passing winner. Djokovic, who fell during the point but quickly popped back up, reacted by slamming his racket into the net post, letting go on impact. He destroyed his equipment and earned a code violation from chair umpire Fergus Murphy.They would play on for another 24 minutes, bringing the total to more than 4 1/2 hours, but Alcaraz never relented, never gave way. And it was Alcaraz, not Djokovic, receiving the trophy in the evening.

Is there anything Steph Curry cannot do?

We’ve become accustomed to him wowing us with his skills from long distance with a basketball, but on Saturday the NBA star did so with a golf ball.

Curry made a sublime hole-in-one on the par-3, 152-yard seventh hole at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course on day two of the American Century Championship celebrity tournament in Stateline, Nevada.

The Golden State Warriors point guard hit a pitching wedge from the tee. His ball landed just a few feet from the hole, bouncing once before dropping in.

It sparked jubilant scenes of celebration, particularly from Curry himself who ran from the tee to the hole with his arms aloft before doing a lap of the green as he milked the applause from the crowd.

“That was wild,” Curry said afterwards, per ESPN. “It was good contact, right at the stick, but even if you’re painting the flag and it looks good, you never really expect it to go in.

“I just saw a bunch of hands go up, and then you just kind of black out.”

After his round, Curry posted a clip of the ace and a picture of his glove, scorecard and ball alongside the caption: “Shooters Shoot!!! Hole In One vibes out here in Lake Tahoe. That’s (peace sign).”

The hole-in-one helped Curry rise up the rankings at the event, which uses the Modified Stableford format whereby points are awarded by score per hole.

After two rounds, Curry sits atop the standings with 50 points, three points ahead of former US tennis player Mardy Fish and NHL player Joe Pavelski.

The American Century Championship features more than 80 sports stars from across US sports, including Hall of Famers and current athletes. It also includes Hollywood actors, comedians and entertainers.

Alongside Curry, the tournament features such sporting luminaries as current NFL stars Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Aaron Rodgers, Derek Carr and Davante Adams.

The competition takes place over three days and 54 holes, and includes a $600,000 purse, with $125,000 going to the winner, plus a charity component for local and national non-profits.

Remember these words: Rose, Chair, Hand, Blue, Spoon. Draw a clock. Name as many animals as you can in one minute. What’s the date today? List words that start with the letter F. Recall the first five words.

Since the 1980s, memory tests like these, often taken with paper and pencil and scored by clinicians trained to read the results, have been the mainstay of the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, a brain disorder that erodes memory and thinking, eventually leaving a person unable to perform basic tasks. The condition affects an estimated 6.7 million Americans over age 65, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

While these symptom-based tests are very good at determining when a person’s memory and thinking aren’t normal, they’re not great at helping doctors suss out the cause of those impairments—which can include everything from vitamin and hormone deficiencies to small strokes, to tumors, to infections, to related disorders like Parkinson’s and Lewy body disease.

Symptom-based tests are cited as one reason for the failures of early amyloid-clearing drugs for Alzheimer’s. Reviews of patient data following the clinical trials for two drugs—bapineuzumab and solanezumab–found as many as one-third of patients who were enrolled didn’t have the disease they were being treated for—the buildup of sticky pieces of beta-amyloid and tau proteins in the brain, which is the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

But doctors’ reliance on symptom-based testing could soon change. Under new draft guidelines for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, unveiled on Sunday at a large international gathering of physicians and researchers, these memory tests would take a backseat to biomarkers—proteins and other signals that can be detected in blood, spinal fluid, and on brain scans—that are telltale signs of the disease process unfolding in the brain.

Such tests have been available to doctors and clinical trial participants but have not been widely applied to patients in clinical practice. Now, with expensive and risky new drugs coming to market that promise to slow the progression of the disease, there’s a new urgency for improved diagnosis.

Getting the diagnosis right

“Getting the diagnosis right is absolutely critical to be able to provide these new therapies to the right patients,” said Dr. Gil Rabinovici, who directs the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of California at San Francisco.

Dr. Rabinovici led a large study, published in 2019 in the journal JAMA, that showed just how impactful these biomarkers can be.

Over two years, researchers gave brain imaging positron emission tomography, or PET, scans that use radioactive tracers to light up deposits of beta amyloid in the brain to more than 11,000 patients diagnosed with early memory and thinking changes with an uncertain cause.

PET imaging of the brain changed the diagnosis for 35% of patients in the study—ruling out Alzheimer’s for 25% who were initially thought to have it and determining that Alzheimer’s was the cause for 10% of people whose deficits had initially been ascribed to a different cause.

“And this was in specialty memory clinics,” Rabinovici said.

The scans changed how doctors managed patients a whopping 60% of the time—typically prompting them to prescribe or discontinue memory-enhancing drugs such as donepezil, or Aricept, and memantine.

Beyond drug treatments, a biomarker-based diagnosis can also improve a patient’s quality of life, says Dr. Charlotte Teunissen, a professor of neurochemistry at Amsterdam University Medical Center.

Teunessin says emerging research shows that precise diagnosis by biomarkers leads to lower healthcare costs and less institutionalization. It keeps people at home in normal care for longer. “So it leads to less burden and also less healthcare costs,” said Teunissen, who is a co-author of the new guidelines.

Rabinovici cheered the move to a biological basis for diagnosis.

“This is a long-awaited advance for our field, where we are elevating care to start to apply some of these biomarkers that had been in the pipeline and have been in research and start to apply them to the care of patients in the real world. And I think that’s just that’s great progress,” said Rabinovici, who was not involved in the development of the new guidelines.

The amyloid PET scans Rabinovici used in his trial have been FDA approved for more than 10 years, but while Medicare covered the cost of these scans for patients enrolled in research studies, the agency declined to cover the cost of the scans for most routine clinical evaluations.

Now, with the first FDA approved medication—Leqembi—on the market, which requires evidence of beta amyloid build-up in the brain, Medicare is reportedly set to expand coverage for the amyloid PET scans that are required to see those deposits.

New blood tests to diagnose Alzheimer’s

Testing all patients suspected of having Alzheimer’s with invasive spinal taps and expensive brain scans made sense for research, but “it’s just no way to solve a mass public health problem,” said Dr. Clifford Jack, a neuroradiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who studies the use of brain imaging for the diagnosis of memory disorders.

Jack is also a co-author of the new guidelines which are being developed on behalf of the Alzheimer’s Association and the National Institute on Aging. They were presented Sunday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2023, which is being held in Amsterdam.

They build on 2018 guidelines for diagnosing Alzheimer’s in patients participating in clinical trials. They mark the first updates to the type of diagnosis used in clinical care since 2011.

After the proposed guidelines are presented, they will be posted on the Alzheimer’s Association website for public comment for 30 days. After the public comment period, the study authors will revise them again and resubmit them for approval, which could come by the end of the year, Jack said.

“We’re updating these criteria to modernize them to the modern era, where it is completely feasible to diagnose the disease biologically at a mass scale,” Jack said, “And two, there’s something you can actually do about the disease.”

For the first time, the guidelines will direct doctors to use blood tests to detect signs of Alzheimer’s in the brain. Research shows these blood tests which have been developed alongside powerful new amyloid and tau-clearing therapies, are now nearly as accurate gold-standard tests for measuring Alzheimer’s proteins in spinal fluid.

“In head-to-head comparisons, they’re basically equivalent,” Jack said.

While some of these blood tests are available to doctors now through specialized labs that analyze them, none of them has yet received FDA approval, though Dr. Constantine Lyketsos, director of the Memory and Alzheimer’s Treatment Center at Johns Hopkins, expects some will clear that hurdle within the next year.

“It’s a huge advance,” Rabinovici said. “It’s something that five years ago I would have thought was science fiction that we can measure these brain proteins in the blood.”

Blood tests will do several important things, Jack said, they will make the cost of diagnosis less expensive and more easily accessible to patients who can’t easily get to specialized memory centers and specialists.

They will also allow doctors to better stage the disease, Jack said, since markers for Alzheimer’s disease show up in the blood before there’s evidence of disease on brain scans—something that will help doctors determine where a patient is in the progression of the disease.

A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s before symptoms?

The new guidelines propose a 6-stage classification where people are diagnosed first on the basis of biomarkers and later on the basis of symptoms.

If the new guidelines are adopted as proposed, a person could soon be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease on the basis of abnormal blood testing alone, even without any noticeable memory loss. That would be Alzheimer’s disease, stage 1.

Jack said he knows that idea will not sit well with all of his colleagues.

“This is a big controversy in the field,” Jack said.

Right now, in order to start taking the new amyloid-clearing monoclonal antibodies, patients have to have evidence of beta-amyloid buildup in their brains, through tests of spinal fluid and brain scans. They also have to have symptoms of impaired memory and thinking that are judged to be in an early and treatable stage.

There are clinical trials now underway testing whether these drugs can stop or significantly delay the development of memory loss in people who have evidence of amyloid in their brains, but who do not yet have symptoms. The results of those trials are still a few years away.

“So in our new criteria, when we say, ‘Can Alzheimer’s disease be diagnosed in someone who is asymptomatic?’ The answer is an emphatic yes, from us,” Jack said. “Symptoms are the consequence of the disease. They’re not the definition of the disease.

Jack points to the example of type 2 diabetes. The vast majority of people who are diagnosed with diabetes on screening blood tests for fasting blood sugars don’t have any symptoms.

“Does that mean they don’t have diabetes? Because they’re not yet blind or they don’t have kidney failure? No, of course not. They have the disease,” Jack said.

Making decisions about treatment

Evidence from autopsies shows that some people with normal thinking and memory die with loads of beta-amyloid in their brains.

Jack believes eventually, everyone with beta-amyloid buildup in their brains will have impaired cognition, as long as they don’t die of something else—a broken hip followed by pneumonia; a heart attack, cancer—first.

“In older people, you can name any disease that can be diagnosed in asymptomatic people, and there will be some people who will die of other causes,” Jack said.

He says that doesn’t mean that people with Alzheimer’s disease don’t deserve a good diagnosis and good care.

For some people, going through all the steps to find out if they qualify to take the new drugs may not be worth it for the estimated benefit, which can be difficult for patients and caregivers to see or measure, said Lyketsos, at Johns Hopkins. Lyketsos noted he’s having about a dozen of these conversations each week with his patients right now, driven by curiosity about the new drugs.

He says right now, after patients demonstrate some early difficulty in thinking and memory on those paper and pencil tests, he might order some simple tests to rule out other things like vitamin deficiencies and low thyroid hormone.

If he still suspects Alzheimer’s, he talks to them about getting a spinal tap or brain scan to get a better understanding of what’s causing their symptoms.

If those tests suggest beta-amyloid may be driving their problems, he next looks at genetics—people who have a gene called APOE4, can be more vulnerable to dangerous brain swelling while taking monoclonal antibodies to clear amyloid.

Doctors also have to see if patients need other medications—such as blood thinners for atrial fibrillation—that might further complicate the use of amyloid-clearing drugs.

Finally, while people may have biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease, it may not be the only condition causing their dementia. A brain MRI scan would be needed, Jack said, to rule out other problems like bleeding in the small blood vessels of the brain or other types of memory-stealing disorders.

“And the patient would then be presented with a choice,” Jack said. “You know, we could do all this screening assessment. And if everything looks good, you can go on treatment. Or maybe you’re just not interested in the screening assessment, and we’ll skip the whole thing. So that’s how that’s how it’s going to have to work for patients right now,” he said.

Rabinovici said there is increased interest in from patients in getting a diagnosis and doing it earlier than they might have before.

“I think for many years, people had a bit of a nihilistic approach, including doctors about diagnosing Alzheimer’s because they felt like there was little that we could offer patients and families,” he said, noting that he didn’t agree with that. He thinks any information that can help patients plan and guide their care is valuable.

“But now that we actually have therapies… I think that will really catalyze the field and elevate care,” Rabinovici said.

Meg Tirrell contributed reporting

Authorities in Pennsylvania said Sunday they discovered “small stockpiles or campsites” in wooded areas they believe are associated with self-taught survivalist and prison escapee Michael Charles Burham.

Pennsylvania State Police said the discovery was made in wooded areas around Warren, a small city in northern Pennsylvania about 60 miles from Lake Erie.

Authorities continue to search for Burham, described as a “dangerous” inmate with survivalist skills and military experience, who they say escaped Warren County Prison by elevating himself on exercise equipment and using tied-up bedsheets to descend from the roof, according to a county spokesperson.

Police in the city of Warren said Friday in social media posts officials discovered Burham – who was being held on arson and burglary charges and was a suspect in a homicide investigation – had escaped.

Warren police said Burham “was also associated with the prior carjacking and kidnapping of a local couple while trying to escape capture.”

Federal, state and local agencies were involved in an expanded search beyond Warren on Saturday as Burham’s whereabouts remained unknown, according to an update from police.

Authorities say Burham may be hiding in the woods near Warren, which is about 18 miles from Jamestown, New York. The city is just outside the Allegheny National Forest.

“Pennsylvania State Police have assumed incident command due to geographical jurisdictions and resources as the search expands throughout the county and into areas of NY,” the Saturday update posted on Facebook said.

Officials are offering a reward of nearly $10,000 for information leading to Burham’s apprehension, including a $7,500 reward from the US Marshals Service and $2,000 from Warren County Crime Stoppers.

Authorities launched a similar manhunt Sunday morning in California, after an inmate accused of murder escaped a medical center.

State police believe Burham may have obtained a firearm during his escape.

Authorities said Sunday they have no reason to believe Burham has left the county, but law enforcement is constantly re-evaluating.

‘We don’t want people engaging with him’

Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens asked “people nationwide” to familiarize themselves with Burham’s picture and to contact police if they believe they’ve spotted the escaped inmate.

“We ask that anyone who thinks they may see him not approach him,” Bivens said at a press conference Sunday afternoon.

Although Burham was last seen wearing an orange and white striped jumpsuit, denim jacket and crocs, he may have swapped out of his prison attire, Bivens has said previously.

In addition to searching on foot and with K-9 units, law enforcement also used all-terrain vehicles, utility terrain vehicles, drones and an aircraft, Warren County spokesperson Cecile Stelter said.

“Right now, I believe that all of the resources are being concentrated on recapture and keeping the public safe,” Stelter said. “We do not want people engaging with him in any way.”

Residents in Warren County were advised to check their homes and surveillance cameras for any footage taken between Thursday at 11:30 p.m. to Friday at 12:30 a.m. and reach out to police if they see anything suspicious, Stelter said. Hunters should check their game cams, authorities said.

Bivens said during Sunday’s news conference it is possible Burham may have received help from one or more individuals.

“We ask residents to be very much aware that they’re locking their homes, that they’re securing their cars and valuables and that they make it hard for him to acquire supplies, shelter or (a) vehicle to get out of the area,” Bivens said.

He added police are hoping the mounting pressure in the manhunt for Burham will work to their advantage.

“We’re pushing hard, trying to locate him,” Bivens said. “If he’s here, he’s out here in the woods and we’ll continue to push hard.”

When reached by phone, a representative from Warren County Prison declined to comment.

As little as 20 minutes of moderate activity a day for five days a week can significantly lower the risk of depressive symptoms for people over 50 who have conditions often linked to depression, such as diabetes, heart disease and chronic pain, a new study found.Video above: Cardio linked to reduced risk in men developing some cancersPeople with diabetes have twice the risk for depression, according to Diabetes UK, and a 2017 study found heart disease patients are twice as likely to die if they develop depression after their diagnosis. Up to 85% of people with chronic pain experience severe depression, according to a different 2017 study.People without chronic disease in the study, however, needed to do moderate to vigorous exercise two hours a day to see improvement in depressive symptoms, according to lead study author Eamon Laird, a researcher at the Physical Activity for Health Research Centre at the University of Limerick in Ireland.Moderate physical activity is typically defined as an activity that “takes your breath” so that it is hard to speak while doing it. Examples include brisk walking, bicycling, dancing, playing tennis, or running up and down stairs. If the exercise level is increased to vigorous — such as jogging or running, during which breathing is fast and the heart rate rises — the time spent exercising can be reduced, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“What is unique (about this study) that it is the first and largest investigation of a longitudinal cohort — with and without chronic disease — to try and work out what was the lowest minimal dose to observe a difference in depression,” Laird said.“We do not advocate for reduced activity levels in any population, but these findings suggest that even doses lower than recommended may well protect mental health over time in older adults,” he added. “These doses may be more achievable as many older adults may find it difficult to undertake physical activity for a large number of reasons.”A 10-year studyThe study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open, followed more than 4,000 Irish adults with an average age of 61 for 10 years. The participants, who were part of the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, were evaluated every two years. They were asked about their physical activity and exercise levels and given tests to determine the number of depressive symptoms they displayed — if the symptoms were excessive, they were classified as having major depression.“Examples of symptoms from the questionnaire included: I had trouble keeping my mind on what I was doing; My sleep was restless; I felt I could not shake off the blues even with the help from my family and friends; etc,” Laird said in an email.People who had suffered a major depressive episode during the past 12 months were also put into the major depression group. An episode is defined as a period of two weeks or longer in which the person experienced fatigue, feelings of sadness and hopelessness, a loss of interest in activities or sleeping problems, weight gain or loss, or thoughts of suicide.The study found that the more time people spent exercising, the better. People who moderately exercised for 20 minutes a day, five days a week, had a 16% lower rate of depressive symptoms and a 43% lower risk of major depression compared with those who did not exercise, the study said.Those who exercised two hours a day benefitted the most, with a 23% reduction in depressive symptoms and a 49% lower risk of major depression, according to the study.“The higher the physical activity dose, the greater the mental health benefits for depression,” Larid said.Unfortunately, the overall rate of depression for the entire group rose over the 10 years, from an average of 8% to 12%, while antidepressant use increased from about 6% to 10%. However, rates of exercise also declined by about 10% for the group over the study’s duration.Not a surpriseThe study’s findings were not surprising, Larid said, noting extensive past research that shows a strong link between exercise and reducing depression. A systematic review and meta-analysis published in 2022 found brisk walking for just 2.5 hours a week cut depressive symptoms by 25%. The same study also found that doing half that amount lowered the risk of depression by 18%.Another large review published in February found that getting physical is 1.5 times more effective at reducing stress, anxiety and mild-to-moderate symptoms of depression than antidepressant medications or cognitive behavior therapy, which is considered a gold standard treatment.Exercise does more for a person’s health than just ease depression. It keeps the body in tip-top shape, allowing it to function efficiently and do a better job at warding off diseases of all kinds.“Physical activity is just absolutely magnificent,” Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, Colorado, told CNN in a prior interview.“If you blend that with eating a more plant-based diet, de-stressing, sleeping enough and connecting with others — that’s your magic recipe,” he added. “It’s the fountain of youth, if you will.”

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues with no end in sight, NATO's much-celebrated unity faces fresh strains when leaders gather for their annual summit this week in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Video above: Biden Meets With Swedish Prime Minister in Support of NATO Bid

The world's biggest security alliance is struggling to reach an agreement on admitting Sweden as its 32nd member. Military spending by member nations lags behind long-standing goals. An inability to compromise over who should serve as NATO's next leader forced an extension of the current secretary-general's term for an extra year.

Perhaps the most difficult questions are over how Ukraine should be eased into NATO. Some maintain admitting Ukraine would fulfill a promise made years ago and be a necessary step to deter Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. Others fear it would be seen as a provocation that could spiral into an even wider conflict.

"I don't think it's ready for membership in NATO," President Joe Biden told CNN in an interview airing Sunday. He said joining NATO requires countries to "meet all the qualifications, from democratization to a whole range of other issues."

He said the United States should provide long-term security assistance to Ukraine — "the capacity to defend themselves" — as it does with Israel.

Bickering among friends is not uncommon, and the current catalog of disputes pales in comparison with past fears that Donald Trump would turn his back on the alliance during his presidency. But the current challenges come at a moment when Biden and his counterparts are heavily invested in demonstrating harmony among members.

"Any fissure, any lack of solidarity provides an opportunity for those who would oppose the alliance," said Douglas Lute, U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is eager to exploit divisions as he struggles to gain ground in Ukraine and faces political challenges at home, including the aftermath of a brief revolt by the Wagner mercenary group.

"You don't want to present any openings," Lute said. "You don't want to present any gaps or seams."

By some measures, the war in Ukraine has reinvigorated NATO, which was created at the beginning of the Cold War as a bulwark against Moscow. NATO members have poured military hardware into Ukraine to help with its counteroffensive, and Finland ended a history of nonalignment to become NATO's 31st member.

"I think it's appropriate to look at all the success," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told The Associated Press. "So I think the invasion has strengthened NATO — exactly the opposite of what Putin anticipated."

He noted Germany's shift toward a more robust defense policy as well as increase in military spending in other countries.

The latest test of NATO solidarity came Friday with what Biden said was a "difficult decision" to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine. More than two-thirds of alliance members have banned the weapon because it has a track record for causing many civilian casualties. The U.S., Russia and Ukraine are not among the more than 120 countries that have not signed a convention outlawing the use of the bombs.

As for Ukraine's possible entry into NATO, the alliance said in 2008 that Kyiv eventually would become a member. Since then, little action has been taken toward that goal. Putin occupied parts of Ukraine in 2014 and then tried to capture the capital in 2022 with his invasion.

"A gray zone is a green light for Putin," said Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland who is now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, called for a unified signal from NATO on Ukraine and for his country to join the alliance.

"It would be an important message to say that NATO is not afraid of Russia," Zelenskyy said through a translator in an ABC interview, when asked whether he would come to Vilnius. "Ukraine should get clear security guarantees while it is not in NATO. And that is a very important point. Only under these conditions our meeting would be meaningful. Otherwise, it's just another politics."

The U.S. and Germany insist that the focus should be on supplying weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, rather than taking the more provocative step of extending a formal invitation to join NATO. Countries on NATO's Eastern flank — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — want firmer assurances on future membership.

NATO could decide to elevate its relationship with Ukraine, creating what would be known as the NATO-Ukraine Council and giving Kyiv a seat at the table for consultations.

Also in the spotlight in Vilnius will be Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the main obstacle to Sweden's attempts to join NATO alongside neighbor Finland.

Erdogan accuses Sweden of being too lenient on anti-Islamic demonstrations and militant Kurdish groups that have waged a long insurgency in Turkey.

Sweden recently changed its anti-terrorism legislation and lifted an arms embargo on Turkey. But a man burned a Quran outside a mosque in Stockholm last week, and Erdogan signaled that this would pose another hurdle. He equated "those who permitted the crime" to those who perpetrated it.

Turkey and the U.S. are also at an impasse over the sale of F-16 fighter jets. Erdogan wants the upgraded planes, but Biden says Sweden's NATO membership has to be dealt with first. McConnell said in the AP interview that he supports the sale of the fighter jets to Turkey "provided that the membership of Sweden is settled."

It's not the first time that Erdogan has sought to use a NATO summit for Turkish gain. In 2009, he held up the nomination of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as secretary-general but agreed to the move after securing some senior posts for Turkish officials at the alliance.

Max Bergmann, a former State Department official who leads the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said there's growing frustration among allies toward Erdogan, building on concerns about his ties to Putin, democratic backsliding and sanctions evasion.

"They've tried playing nice," Bergmann said. "The question is whether it's time to get much more confrontational."

Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, is also delaying his country's approval of Sweden's membership. In response, Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is blocking a $735 million U.S. arms sale to Hungary.

"We don't want members who aren't interested in doing everything possible to strengthen the alliance rather than the pursuit of their own or individual interests," Risch said. "I'm just sick and tired of it."

But he rejected the idea that these disagreements are a sign of weakness within NATO.

"These are kinds of things that always arise in an alliance," he said. "The fact that we've been able to deal with them and will continue to deal with them proves that this is the most successful and strongest military alliance in the history of the world."

At least one potentially difficult issue is off the summit agenda. Rather than seek consensus on a new NATO leader, members agreed to extend the tenure of Jens Stoltenberg, who's held the job since 2014, for a year. It's his fourth extension.

Most members wanted a woman to be the next secretary-general, and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had been considered a favorite. But Poland insisted on a candidate from the Baltic states because there had already been two Nordic secretaries general in a row. (Stoltenberg was a Norwegian prime minister and Rasmussen was a Danish prime minister.)

Others are skeptical of accepting a nominee from the Baltics, whose leaders tend to be more provocative in their approach to Russia, including supporting Ukraine's desire to rapidly join NATO.

More disagreements loom over NATO's updated plans for countering any invasion that Russia might launch on allied territory.

___

Cook reported from Brussels. Associated Press writer Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.

A solar storm forecast for Thursday is expected to give sky gazers in 17 American states a chance to glimpse the Northern Lights, the colorful sky shows that happens when solar wind hits the atmosphere.Northern Lights, also known as aurora borealis, are most often seen in Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia, but an 11-year solar cycle that's expected to peak in 2024 is making the lights visible in places farther to the south. Three months ago, the light displays were visible in Arizona, marking the third severe geomagnetic storm since the current solar cycle began in 2019.The Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks has forecast auroral activity on Thursday in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Indiana, Maine and Maryland.Auroral activity also has been forecast for Canada, including Vancouver.Light displays are expected to be visible overhead in Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Helena, Montana, and low on the horizon in Salem, Oregon.; Boise, Idaho; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Annapolis, Maryland; and Indianapolis, according to the institute.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center said people wanting to experience an aurora should get away from city lights and that the best viewing times are between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time.Northern Lights occur when a magnetic solar wind slams into the Earth's magnetic field and causes atoms in the upper atmosphere to glow. The lights appear suddenly and the intensity varies.A geomagnetic index known as Kp ranks auroral activity on a scale from zero to nine, with zero being not very active and nine being bright and active. The Geophysical Institute has forecast Kp 6 for Thursday's storm.

HOUSTON —

The case of a Texas man who was reported missing as a teenager in 2015 and found alive last week at a church took an unexpected turn Thursday when police revealed it all was a hoax — the man was only gone for a day, but he and his mother maintained the ruse for eight years by using false names.

Prosecutors did not file any charges against Janie Santana and her son, Rudolph "Rudy" Farias IV, but the investigation is continuing, Houston police detectives said. They gave a few other details about where they believe the case could lead.

Santana's family said they suspected Farias was not missing and blamed Santana for keeping him away from them all these years.

"We're upset that (authorities) are not going to do anything," Pauline Sanchez Rodriguez, Farias' aunt, said as she and other family members stood outside Houston police headquarters.

Santana did not return a telephone call seeking comment Thursday.

The announcement came a week after police said they found Farias after receiving a call about a person lying on the ground in front of a southeast Houston church.

Authorities had not previously said where Farias spent the past eight years since he was reported missing as a 17-year-old who took his two dogs for a walk near his family's home in northeast Houston and never came back. Now 25, he was hospitalized after police found him last week, and detectives interviewed him and his mother on Wednesday.

Investigators concluded Farias returned home the day after he was reported missing but "the mother, Janie, continued to deceive police by remaining adamant that Rudy was still missing," Lt. Christopher Zamora said during a news conference.

During the past eight years, Farias and his mother had various interactions with officers, police said.

"During these contacts, fictitious names and date of births were given — misleading the officers — and Rudy would remain missing," Zamora said.

After Farias was reported missing, Houston police and Texas Equusearch, a civilian search and recovery team, looked for him without success, although his dogs were later found.

In the years following, there were several possible sightings of Farias, according to a private investigator hired by Santana a few months after he went missing. They included one sighting in 2018 that police responded to, but the investigation remained open as a missing person case.

Rodriguez said her late mother, Rosa Sosa Rodriguez, had been living with Santana and kept telling relatives that Farias was living in the house with them.

"My mom would always tell me, 'Rudy is here ... He's there. He's in that room,'" Rodriguez said. "And Janie said, 'No she's lying, she's losing it.'"

Zamora said Santana claimed the person friends and family were seeing was not Farias but her nephew, but "we disputed that."

Rodriguez and other family members also accused Santana of not presenting an accurate picture of herself to people and of not caring about family members.

Court records show Santana has used at least three different names and was accused of mistreating her mother while they lived together. During a 2020 dispute over her mother's guardianship, Santana's sisters accused her of forcing their mother to live in a home that had "animal urine and feces throughout" and causing her to have "significant bed sores" because she "did not have a bed and slept on the couch."

In a 2011 affidavit filed in a court case in which Santana's marriage was declared "null and void" because a judge concluded she was married to another man at the time, Rodriguez said her sister "has always been a pathological liar. She lies about everything."

Rodriguez said she and other family members have yet to speak with Farias and they remain worried about him.

"I just want him safe," said Sylvia Sanchez Lopez, another aunt of Farias.

But Zamora, with the police department's Missing Persons Unit, said Farias was safe and he had decided to stay "with his mother by choice."

Police Chief Troy Finner said when Farias was reported missing, he was 17 years old, which is considered an adult in Texas. Now in his twenties, Farias is "a grown man," he said.

After police announced that Farias had been found, Santana released a statement saying, he "is receiving the care he needs to overcome his trauma, but at this time, he is nonverbal and not able to communicate with us." She also asked for privacy.

Finner declined Thursday to answer questions about the mental health of Farias or his mother and would not say what might have motivated their actions. He said police are "right at the beginning" of their investigation into what happened.

Police also said patrol officers responded to a burglary call Wednesday night at the family's home and that it is now part of their investigation.

___

Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

The U.S. State Department says it is not expecting to reduce passport processing times to pre-pandemic levels until the end of the year, news that is likely to frustrate travelers who have had their summer travel plans disrupted by having to factor in waiting months to get a new passport before going abroad.

"We are working hard to get back to our pre-pandemic processing times by the end of calendar year 2023," a State Department spokesperson said. "We will update our website with the current processing times as we make progress towards this goal."

In March, the department increased the processing time for new passports to 10 to 13 weeks for routine processing and seven to nine weeks for expedited processing, which costs an additional $60. The wait time before the pandemic was two to three weeks for expedited cases and six to eight weeks for routine passport applications.

Factoring in major passport processing delays is just one of many obstacles hitting the travel plans of Americans this summer. CNN has reported on thousands of flights being canceled across the U.S. and they are more expensive, as are hotels and rental cars, than prior to the pandemic.

The State Department – which says that it is meeting the current promised processing times in "the vast majority of cases" – has been putting additional resources towards meeting the challenge of a major increase in applications.

"We are focused on hiring, training, and retaining staff to address the current surge in demand. We have increased staffing levels and have hundreds of additional staff in the hiring pipeline," the spokesperson said. "Our staff is working tens of thousands of hours of overtime a month. In fact, from January through June, we authorized 30,000-40,000 overtime hours each month."

Secretary of State Tony Blinken has addressed the "unprecedented demands" for passports. He told Congress earlier this year that the department is "getting 500,000 applications a week for passports," which is 30% to 40% more applicants this year than last year.

Blinken also said that the department had launched a pilot online renewal platform so Americans who already have a passport can renew online, but added that it was halted to fine-tune and improve it before being rolled out.

Now, the spokesperson says that the department expects an online passport renewal system to be available to the public at the end of the year.

"Once fully launched, we expect five million customers to be eligible to use this platform each year to renew their passports. We estimate this would represent two-thirds of all renewals and roughly 25% of all applications received. In time, OPR (online passport renewals) will save Americans time and effort, making it more convenient to renew their passports," the spokesperson said.

Joey Chestnut ate 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes to win the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest for a record 16th time, and Miki Sudo downed 39.5 dogs to win the women’s competition for the 9th straight time in an Independence Day event marked by a lengthy weather delay.

Chestnut said afterward it was a roller coaster of a day due to the severe weather.

“They told us it was canceled,” Chestnut said. “We weren’t sure we were gonna eat today. I’m just happy. It’s the 4th of July, I got to eat some hot dogs and get a win.”

“I feel great,” he added. “I’ve got leftover room, so I’ll be having some beers later.”

Geoffrey Esper took second place with 49 hot dogs, and Australia’s James Webb came in 3rd with 47.

The gluttonous Independence Day event brought thousands of people to Coney Island, New York, on Tuesday to watch competitive eaters scarf down as many hot dogs as their stomachs allow in just 10 minutes.

A major rain and lightning storm hit Coney Island around noon, shortly before the men were set to come out to compete, scattering the crowds to shelter. The weather delay lasted for about two hours, and the event began again at 2 p.m. ET.

The National Weather Service issued a special weather statement warning of “strong thunderstorms” and “frequent cloud to ground lightning” in parts of Brooklyn, specifically mentioning Coney Island.

A possible injury due to lightning may have occurred on Coney Island, according to a preliminary storm report from the National Weather Service. The FDNY said they responded to a call of an “electrocution” just before noon on Coney Island and transported a person to Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn.

A spectacle of gluttony

Chestnut was the heavy favorite on the men’s side and has now won 16 of the last 17 Independence Day contests, including 63 hot dogs last year. He set a competition record with 76 dogs downed in 2021.

Speaking to CNN on Monday, Chestnut said he was ready to push himself to an “extreme” limit at the contest.

“I know that after this time I’m not going to feel great,” he said. “It’s going to take about four days to feel really normal, and the first 12 hours after the contest I’m going to feel like garbage. I go in knowing that and I’m willing to go through that because it’s an amazing contest, it’s the Fourth of July, and I’m going to do what it takes to get number 16.”

The women’s competition appeared close to the end between Sudo, the No. 1-ranked female competitive eater, and rookie Mayoi Ebihara. But a review from officials determined Ebihara finished 33.5 dogs, while Michelle Lesco took third with 24.5.

Sudo won last year’s title with 40 hot dogs and holds the women’s world record for eating 48.5 hot dogs in 10 minutes. After winning this year’s title, she expressed disappointment in her final tally.

“Thirty-nine is a lower number, though, I’m sorry guys,” she told the crowd.

The aspiring hot dog champs faced off at Nathan’s Famous flagship restaurant at the corner of Surf and Stillwell avenues in Coney Island on the edge of south Brooklyn in New York City.

The event began with pre-show festivities, including music and dance performances, according to the Professional League of Eating Contests, which sanctions the event.

Eaters need to be 18 or older to enter and must have participated in a qualifying event in May or June. Nathan’s hosted four qualifying events for the big show, with the top male and female finishers from each receiving invitations to the July 4 showdown.

Each contestant has their own scorekeeper to monitor their running total, according to CNN affiliate WABC. Water and other beverages, as well as condiments, are allowed. Penalties can be issued for “messy eating and regurgitation,” reports WABC.

The top eater in each category takes home $10,000, according to WABC. Second place takes $5,000, third place gets $2,500, fourth place gets $1,500, and fifth place wins $1,000. Each champion also receives the coveted Mustard Belt.

Australia is now the first country to allow psychiatrists to prescribe certain psychedelic substances to patients with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Video above: Colorado legalizes the use of psychedelic mushrooms

Beginning Saturday, Australian physicians can prescribe doses of MDMA, also known as ecstasy, for PTSD. Psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, can be given to people who have hard-to-treat depression. The country put the two drugs on the list of approved medicines by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Scientists in Australia were surprised by the move, which was announced in February but took effect July 1. One scientist said it puts Australia "at the forefront of research in this field."

Chris Langmead, deputy director of the Neuromedicines Discovery Centre at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said there have been very few advancements in the treatment of persistent mental health issues in the last 50 years.

The growing cultural acceptance has led two U.S. states to approve measures for their use: Oregon was the first to legalize the adult use of psilocybin, and Colorado's voters decriminalized psilocybin in 2022. Days ago, President Joe Biden's youngest brother said in a radio interview that the president has been "very open-minded" in conversations the two have had about the benefits of psychedelics as a form of medical treatment.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration designated psilocybin as a "breakthrough therapy" in 2018, a label that's designed to speed the development and review of drugs to treat a serious condition. Psychedelics researchers have benefited from federal grants, including Johns Hopkins, and the FDA released draft guidance late last month for researchers designing clinical trials testing psychedelic drugs as potential treatments for a variety of medical conditions.

Still, the American Psychiatric Association has not endorsed the use of psychedelics in treatment, noting the FDA has yet to offer a final determination.

And medical experts in the U.S. and elsewhere, Australia included, have cautioned that more research is needed on the drug's efficacy and the extent of the risks of psychedelics, which can cause hallucinations.

"There are concerns that evidence remains inadequate and moving to clinical service is premature; that incompetent or poorly equipped clinicians could flood the space; that treatment will be unaffordable for most; that formal oversight of training, treatment, and patient outcomes will be minimal or ill-informed," said Dr. Paul Liknaitzky, head of Monash University's Clinical Psychedelic Lab.

Plus, the drugs will be expensive in Australia — about $10,000 (roughly $6,600 U.S. dollars) per patient for treatment.

Litnaitzky said the opportunity for Australians to access drugs for specific conditions is unique.

"There's excitement about drug policy progress," he said, "... about the prospect of being able to offer patients more suitable and tailored treatment without the constraints imposed by clinical trials and rigid protocols."

The first of four supermoons to rise in 2023, July’s lunar display will appear to be brighter in the night sky than any other full moon event that has occurred this year.

The full moon will rise on Monday, July 3, and reach peak illumination below the horizon at 7:39 a.m. ET, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. Local weather conditions allowing, you can view the celestial event by looking to the southeast after the sun sets.

“A supermoon is when the moon appears a little bit bigger in our sky,” said Dr. Shannon Schmoll, director of the Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University. “As the moon goes around the Earth, it’s not a perfect circle. So, there are points in its orbit where it’s a little bit closer or a little bit farther from the Earth.”

When the orb reaches its full moon phase at a point in its path where it is closer to the Earth, it appears to be slightly larger and a supermoon occurs, Schmoll explained. While the size difference between a supermoon and a typical full moon may not be immediately apparent to the naked eye, The Old Farmer’s Almanac says the first full moon of summer will be more luminous and 224,895.4 miles (361,934 kilometers) from Earth.

This month’s moon is also known as the buck moon. July is typically when male deer’s antlers grow during an annual cycle of shedding and regrowth, according to the almanac.

There are several other names for the buck moon that come from Native American peoples, according to Western Washington University. Names like hot moon refer to summer weather while terms like raspberry moon and ripe corn moon signify the best times for harvesting fruit and other crops.

Full moons and supermoons

While most years have 12 full moons, 2023 will have 13 of these lunar events. There will be two supermoons in August, including a blue moon, which will be the closest moon to Earth this year, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. The fourth and final supermoon in 2023 will rise on September 29.

Here are the full moons remaining in 2023, according to the Farmer’s Almanac:

● August 1: Sturgeon moon

● August 30: Blue moon

● September 29: Harvest moon

● October 28: Hunter’s moon

● November 27: Beaver moon

● December 26: Cold moon

Lunar and solar eclipses

People across North, Central and South America will be able to see an annular solar eclipse on October 14. During the solar eclipse, the moon will pass between the sun and Earth at or near its farthest point from Earth. The moon will appear smaller than the sun and encircled by a glowing halo.

To avoid damage to the eyes, viewers should wear eclipse glasses.

A partial lunar eclipse will also take place on October 28. Only part of the moon will pass into shadow as the sun, Earth and moon will not completely align. This partial eclipse will be viewable in Europe, Asia, Australia, parts of North America and much of South Africa.

Meteor showers

Each of the nine remaining meteor showers expected to peak this year will be most visible from late evening until dawn in areas without light pollution. Here are the events’ peak dates:

● Southern Delta Aquariids: July 30-31

● Alpha Capricornids: July 30-31

● Perseids: August 12-13

● Orionids: October 20-21

● Southern Taurids: November 4-5

● Northern Taurids: November 11-12

● Leonids: November 17-18

● Geminids: December 13-14

● Ursids: December 21-22

The window for local, state and tribal governments to challenge their 2020 census figures closes after Friday, and with it the opportunity to correct mistakes in population totals that could cost them millions of dollars in federal funding.

As of this week, almost 160 challenges had been filed through two programs the U.S. Census Bureau started to give governments opportunities to appeal their population totals. Those 2020 census figures help determine how $2.8 trillion in federal government spending is distributed each year.

Some cities like Brookhaven, Georgia, found out this month that their challenge was successful. Officials in the city of more than 57,000 residents in metro Atlanta said new parcels were annexed in late 2019 but the 1,200 residents living in them weren't counted toward the city's figures during the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident, which started three months later.

The U.S. Census Bureau conceded the error, a victory Brookhaven city officials estimate will be worth $10 million in funding streams over this decade.

"This final action ensures that all of Brookhaven's residents were indeed counted as our own," Brookhaven Mayor John Ernst said two weeks ago after receiving a letter from Census Bureau Director Robert Santos confirming the numbers were being revised.

Dozens of other cities like Las Vegas still have their cases pending. Officials in Nevada's largest city, with more than 656,000 residents, believe the census missed two homeless shelters with under 1,000 residents during the count.

Group quarters — including homeless shelters, dorms and prisons — were among the most difficult to count as campuses closed and prisons and nursing homes were locked down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which coincided with the start of the 2020 census. The Census Bureau created a separate program to handle these challenges.

Other cities, like Milwaukee, are still awaiting an answer despite filing their challenges many months ago. Milwaukee officials in a challenge filed last December said 16,500 residents were overlooked in houses and apartments, primarily in communities of color. The 2020 census put Wisconsin's largest city at 577,222 residents, down about 3% from 2010.

City spokesperson Jonathan Fera said in an email that there was "no frustration" surrounding the delay and that "Milwaukee will continue to await a response from the U.S. Census Bureau."

Milwaukee succeeded with another, separate claim that more than 800 jail inmates were missed, part of a challenge organized with other Wisconsin municipalities.

While any changes to the numbers after a successful challenge will be applied to population estimates used for the rest of the decade in determining federal funding, they can't be used to change how many congressional seats each state was allotted during the apportionment process nor for the data used for redrawing political districts.

A final tally on the success of challenges won't be known for several months because of the pending cases. The 2020 census put the U.S. population at 331.4 million residents.

"It will take several months to complete processing and to notify those who have submitted" a challenge, the Census Bureau said Wednesday.

Challenges to 2020 census numbers were less frequent than the nearly 250 requests made for 2010 census figures — a surprise given the hurdles the most recent count faced.

The 2020 census was one of the most difficult in recent memory. Its start coincided with the U.S. spread of the coronavirus in spring 2020, but census-takers during the home-visits phase also contended with wildfires in the West and hurricanes in the Gulf Coast. Some advocates also believe the Trump administration's failed efforts to add a citizenship question and keep people in the U.S. illegally from being counted for apportionment dissuaded some from participating.

Some cities waited until the last minute to ask for a review of their numbers. Marquette, Michigan, located on the shores of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula, filed a challenge that only was received by the Census Bureau on Monday. Officials in the city of more than 20,700 residents believe 1,000 students living in dorms and other student housing at Northern Michigan University were missed, an oversight that could cost the city $70,000 in state revenue sharing.

"We watched the process play out in other places and chose to take advantage of it when we did," said Sean Hobbins, assistant city manager. "It wasn't like we were trying to run up against the deadline."

The warnings have been sounded for more than a year: A recession is going to hit the United States. If not this quarter, then by next quarter. Or the quarter after that. Or maybe next year.

Video above: Here are some ways to start saving money right now

So is a recession still in sight?

The latest signs suggest maybe not. Despite much higher borrowing costs, thanks to the Federal Reserve's aggressive streak of interest rate hikes, consumers keep spending, and employers keep hiring. Gas prices have dropped, and grocery prices have leveled off, giving Americans more spending power.

The economy keeps managing to grow. And so does the belief among some economists that the United States might actually achieve an elusive "soft landing," in which growth slows but households and businesses spend enough to avoid a full-blown recession.

"The U.S. economy is genuinely displaying signs of resilience," said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY, a tax and consulting firm. "This is leading many to rightly question whether the long-forecast recession is really inevitable or whether a soft-landing of the economy" is possible.

Analysts point to two trends that may help stave off an economic contraction. Some say the economy is experiencing a "rolling recession," in which only some industries shrink while the overall economy remains above water.

Others think the U.S. is experiencing what they call a "richcession": Major job cuts, they note, have been concentrated in higher-paying industries like technology and finance, heavy with professional workers who generally have the financial cushions to withstand layoffs. Job cuts in those fields, as a result, are less likely to sink the overall economy.

Still, threats loom: The Fed is all but certain to keep raising interest rates, at least once more, and to keep them high for months, thereby continuing to impose heavy borrowing costs on consumers and businesses. That's why some economists caution that a full-blown recession may still occur.

"The Fed will keep pushing until it fixes the inflation issue," said Yelena Shulyatyeva, an economist at BNP Paribas.

On Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell reinforced that message, saying the central bank's key rate hasn't been restraining the economy for "very long" and that "the bottom line is that policy hasn't been restrictive enough for long enough."

Powell spoke at a global conference in Sintra, Portugal, along with three other central bank leaders whose economies are also struggling with persistently high inflation. The Bank of England last week raised its key rate a substantial half-point, which could send the U.K. into a recession, while Europe's economy has stagnated in the past six months.

Here's how it could all play out in the United States:

It's a rolling recession

When different sectors of the economy take their turns contracting, with some declining while others keep expanding, it's sometimes called a "rolling recession." The economy as a whole manages to avoid a full-fledged recession.

The housing industry was the first to suffer a tailspin after the Fed began sending interest rates sharply higher 15 months ago. As mortgage rates nearly doubled, home sales plunged. They're now 20% lower than they were a year ago. Manufacturing soon followed. And while it hasn't fared as badly as housing, factory production is down 0.3% from a year earlier.

And this spring, the technology industry suffered a slump, too. In the aftermath of the pandemic, Americans were spending less time online and instead resumed shopping at physical stores and going to restaurants more frequently. That trend forced sharp job cuts among tech companies such as Facebook's parent Meta, video conferencing provider Zoom and Google.

At the same time, consumers ramped up their spending on travel and at entertainment venues, buoying the economy's vast service sector and offsetting the difficulties in other sectors. Economists say they expect such spending to slow later this year as the savings that many households had amassed during the pandemic continue to shrink.

Yet by then, the housing may have rebounded enough to pick up the baton and drive economic growth. There are already signs that the industry is starting to recover: Sales of new homes jumped 12% from April to May despite high mortgage rates and home prices far above pre-pandemic levels.

And other sectors should continue to expand, providing a foundation for overall growth. Krishna Guha, an analyst at Evercore ISI, notes that some areas of the economy — from education to government to health care — are not so sensitive to higher interest rates, which is why they are still hiring and probably will keep doing so.

If the U.S. economy achieves a soft landing, Guha said, "we think these rolling sectoral recessions will be a big part of the story."

It's a 'richcession'

Affluent Americans aren't exactly suffering, particularly as the stock market has rebounded this year. Yet it's also true that the bulk of high-profile job losses that began last year have been concentrated in higher-paying professions. That pattern is different from what typically happens in recessions: Lower-paying jobs, in areas like restaurants and retail, are usually the first to be lost and often in depressingly large numbers.

That's because in most downturns, as Americans start to pull back on spending, restaurants, hotels and retailers lay off waves of workers. As fewer people buy homes, many construction workers are thrown out of work. Sales of high-priced manufactured goods, such as cars and appliances, tend to fall, leading to job losses at factories.

This time, so far, it hasn't happened that way. Restaurants, bars and hotels are still hiring they have been a major driver of job gains. And to the surprise of labor market experts, construction companies are also still adding workers despite higher borrowing rates, which often discourage residential and commercial buildings.

Instead, layoffs have been striking mainly white-collar and professional occupations. Uber Technologies said last week that it will cut 200 of its recruiters. Earlier this month, GrubHub announced 400 layoffs among the delivery company's corporate jobs. Financial and media companies are also struggling, with Citibank announcing that it will have shed 1,600 workers in the April-June quarter. On Tuesday, Ford Motor Co. said it was laying off several hundred engineers, after having cut 3,000 white-collar jobs last year.

Many of the affected employees are well-educated and likely to find new jobs relatively quickly, economists say, helping keep unemployment down despite the layoffs. Right now, for example, the federal government, as well as employers in the hotel, retail, and even railroad industries are seeking to hire people who have been laid off from the tech giants.

Tom Barkin, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, notes that affluent workers typically have savings they can draw upon after losing a job, enabling them to keep spending and fueling the economy. For that reason, Barkin suggested, white-collar job losses don't tend to weaken consumer spending as much as losses experienced by blue-collar workers do.

"It's easy to imagine that this might be a different sort of softening labor market ... that has a different kind of impact, both on demand and on things like the unemployment rate than your normal weakening," Barkin said in an interview with The Associated Press last month.

Or maybe no recession

The most optimistic economists say they're growing more hopeful that a recession can be avoided, even if the Fed keeps interest rates at a peak for months to come.

They point out that a range of recent economic data has come in better than expected. Most notably, hiring has stayed surprisingly resilient, with employers adding a robust average of roughly 300,000 jobs over the past six months and the unemployment rate, at 3.7%, still near a half-century low.

Manufacturing, too, is defying gloomy expectations. On Tuesday, the government reported that companies last month stepped up their orders of industrial machinery, railcars, computers and other long-lasting goods.

Many analysts have been encouraged because some threats to the economy haven't turned out to be as damaging as feared — or haven't surfaced at all. The fight in Congress, for example, over the government's borrowing limit, which could have triggered a default on Treasury securities, was resolved without much disruption in financial markets or discernible impact on the economy.

And so far, the banking turmoil that occurred last spring after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has largely been contained and doesn't appear to be weakening the economy.

Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, said this month that the ebbing of such threats led him to mark down the likelihood of a recession within the next 12 months from 35% to just 25%.

Other economists point out that the economy doesn't face the types of dangerous imbalances or events that have ignited some recent recessions, such as the stock market bubble in 2001 or the housing bubble in 2008.

"The risk of recession is receding, rapidly," said Neil Dutta, an economist at Renaissance Macro. Whether we are having a rolling recession or "richcession," he said, "If you have to call it different names, it's not a recession."

Meta is adding new safeguards and monitoring tools for teens across its social platforms: parental controls on Messenger, suggestions for teens to step away from Facebook after 20 minutes, and nudges urging young night-owl Instagrammers to stop scrolling.

The features announced Tuesday come as Meta and other social media platforms face heightened pressure from lawmakers over the impact that their platforms have on younger users, who can be just 13 when they sign up for Meta's apps.

Messenger, Meta’s instant-messaging app, is adding parental supervision tools for the first time that are similar to those that exist on Instagram already: Parents and guardians can see how much time their teens spend on the chat tool, view and receive updates on their contacts list, and get notified if their teen reports someone.

Another new feature is the ability for parents and teens to have discussions directly through notifications if their accounts are synced up.

“We heard from parents and teens about the value they’re seeing from how a two-way dialogue can foster and encourage discussions,” Diana Williams, who oversees product changes for youth and families at Meta, told CNN in an interview.

On Facebook, Meta will start to nudge teen users to take time away from the app after 20 minutes.

Instagram will add introduce a new nudge that suggests teens close Instagram if they’re scrolling Reels videos for too long during nighttime hours. The effort builds on existing Instagram features like Quiet Mode, which temporarily holds notifications and lets people know if you’re trying to focus.

In addition, Instagram is testing a feature that limits how people interact with non-followers. Users must now send an invite to connect with someone if they’re not a follower, and they cannot call the recipient or send photos, videos or voice messages or make calls until the user accepts their request. The feature aims to cut down on unwanted content from strangers, particularly for women, the company said.

It’s the latest in a series of new tools and guardrails for teens from Meta, following the release of leaked internal documents that found Instagram can negatively impact the mental health of its young users. Instagram, for example, has since introduced an educational hub for parents with resources, tips and articles from experts on user safety.

The company said it’s also taking a “stricter approach” to the content it recommends to teens and will actively nudge them toward different topics, such as architecture and travel destinations, if they’ve been dwelling on any type of content for too long.

Few changes have been made to Facebook and Messenger until now. Facebook does, however, have a Safety Center that provides supervision tools and resources, such as articles and advice from leading experts.

Amid peak summer travel, thousands of air travelers faced flight cancellations and delays this weekend and Monday as thunderstorms rolled in across the U.S. East Coast and Midwest.

In addition to bad weather, a technology failure also contributed to airline disruptions. The Federal Aviation Administration briefly paused operations at Washington, D.C.-area airports Sunday evening due to a problem with the communications system at a major air traffic control facility. Departures resumed after repairs were completed.

Beyond D.C., a chain of flights were also delayed or halted at other major travel hubs — including New York, Chicago and Atlanta — as thunderstorms moved across the country.

Nearly 2,000 U.S. flights were canceled on Saturday and Sunday combined, according to flight tracking service FlightAware, and more than 1,100 U.S. flights had been canceled as of noon ET Monday. Thousands of additional travelers experienced delays.

Staying calm — and knowing your rights — can go a long way if your flight is canceled, experts say. Here's some of their advice for dealing with a flight cancellation:

My flight was canceled. What next?

If you still want to get to your destination, most airlines will rebook you for free on the next available flight as long as it has seats, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

If you want to cancel the trip, you are entitled to a full refund, even if you bought non-refundable tickets. You're also entitled to a refund of any bag fees, seat upgrades or other extras.

Kurt Ebenhoch, a consumer travel advocate and former airline executive, has stressed that travelers are eligible for a refund, not just vouchers for future travel. If you do take a voucher, make sure you inquire about blackout dates and other restrictions on its use.

Can I ask to be booked on another airline's flight?

Yes. Airlines aren't required to put you on another airline's flight, but they can, and sometimes do, according to the DOT. Jeff Klee, CEO of CheapAir.com, previously recommended researching alternate flights while you're waiting to talk to an agent. Agents are typically under a lot of pressure when a flight is canceled, so giving them some options helps.

Ebenhoch also suggested looking for alternative airports that are close to your original destination.

Is the airline required to give me a hotel room, or other compensation?

No. As announced last month, the Biden Administration is seeking to require that airlines compensate travelers and cover their meals and hotel rooms if they are stranded for reasons within the carrier's control — but, as of now, each airline still has its own policies about providing for customers whose flights are canceled, according to the DOT.

Many airlines do offer accommodations, so you should check with their staff. The DOT also has an online dashboard that allows travelers to compare the cancelation and delay policies of major carriers.

I'm facing a long wait to rebook. What should I do?

If someone in your traveling party is at a higher level in a frequent flier program, use the number reserved for that level to call the airline, Ebenhoch said. You can also try calling an international help desk for the airline, since those agents have the ability to make changes.

How can I avoid this in the future?

Ebenhoch said nonstop flights and morning flights are generally the most reliable if you can book them. If you're worried about making it to the airport in time for a morning flight, he said, consider staying at a hotel connected to the airport the night before. And consider flying outside of busy dates.

Klee recommended comparing airlines' policies on the DOT's service dashboard. He also suggests reserving multiple flights and then canceling the ones you don't use, as long as the airline will refund your money or convert it into credit for a future flight.

Are flight cancelations trending lower in 2023?

Flight cancellations trended lower throughout the spring of 2023 than last year, according to data from the FAA.

Industry officials argue that carriers have fixed problems that contributed to a surge in flight cancellations and delays last summer, when 52,000 flights were nixed from June through August. Airlines have hired about 30,000 workers since then, including thousands of pilots, and they are using bigger planes to reduce flights but not the number of seats.

Still, officials warn of lingering staffing shortages, notably among key air traffic controllers. The FAA is training about 3,000 more controllers, but they won't be ready for this summer's travel. The agency resorted to nudging airlines to reduce flights in the New York City area this summer, and it opened 169 new flight paths over the East Coast to reduce bottlenecks.

In a government audit published last week, the Transportation Department's Office of Inspector General found that the FAA has made "limited efforts" to have adequate staffing at critical air traffic control facilities, noting that the agency "continues to face staffing challenges and lacks a plan to address them, which in turn poses a risk to the continuity of air traffic operations."

Do you yearn for long days and short nights? Then this could be the best day of the year for you and fellow sunlight seekers.

The summer solstice is Wednesday, June 21. It’s the longest day and shortest night in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s also the first official day of summer.

Our ancient ancestors certainly took note of the yearly occasion. Some of their monuments were aligned to precisely mark the summer solstice light (looking at you Stonehenge).

Pagan celebrations of the day carry on into modern times. Today’s events include gatherings at Stonehenge in England, the Midsummer Eve celebration in Sweden and Ivan Kupala Night in parts of Eastern Europe.

The solstice is historically linked to fertility – both the plant and human variety – in destinations worldwide.

The science of the solstice and its traditions have fascinated people for millennia.

Summer solstice science

Is summer solstice all over the world? No. It’s only in the Northern Hemisphere, where almost 90% of the world’s population lives. People south of the equator in places such as Chile, South Africa and Australia are having their winter solstice and the shortest day of the year there.

When is the 2023 summer solstice exactly? It will fall at 14:58 UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) on June 21. Your time zone in relation to UTC determines the time and even the date that the solstice happens for you. For instance, that’s 7:58 a.m. in Los Angeles, 10:57 a.m. in New York City, 3:57 p.m. in London and 11:57 p.m. in Tokyo. Earthsky.org has a handy time zone conversion tool.

Who gets the most sunlight? The differences in how much daylight you get become very dramatic as you get closer to the poles and farther from the equator. In Ecuador’s capital Quito, barely north of the equator, people barely notice the difference. They get a measly extra six and a half minutes of daylight.

But residents of northerly Helsinki, Finland, will get a 3:54 a.m. sunrise and almost 19 hours of daylight. Even the night doesn’t get that dark. The denizens of Fairbanks in central interior Alaska can scoff at those 19 hours. They’ll get almost 22 hours of daylight, and blackout curtains might be in order.

Why don’t we just get 12 hours of daylight all year? Folks all over the planet actually did get nearly equal doses of day and night back during the spring equinox. But the amount of sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere has been increasing daily ever since. That’s because the Earth is aligned on an axis, an imaginary pole going through the center of our planet. But this axis tilts – at an angle of 23.5 degrees.

“As Earth orbits the sun [once each year], its tilted axis always points in the same direction. So, throughout the year, different parts of Earth get the sun’s direct rays,” explains NASA. When the sun reaches its apex in the Northern Hemisphere, that’s the summer solstice.

Is this also the hottest time of year? Generally, it’s not. “On average, the vast majority of the United States experiences its warmest temperatures in July or early August,” says CNN Senior Weather Producer Taylor Ward.

“Temperatures essentially continue to rise after the summer solstice because the amount of energy coming in from the sun continues to be greater than the amount of energy lost at night – so it is basically an accumulation of warmth until the daylight gets short enough that this changes,” says Ward. “The only area of the country that actually sees their warmest temperatures in June, coinciding with the longest daylight of the year, is portions of the Southwest” because of the timing of the cloudy monsoon season there in July and August.

The same general temperature pattern holds true in places such as Japan and much of Europe.

How to celebrate summer solstice

What does Stonehenge have to do with the summer solstice? The ancient stones of the monument in Southwest England dating to around 2500 BC were aligned by its makers astronomically.

The central axis of Stonehenge was aligned with the sunrise at the summer solstice and sunset at the winter solstice so that the stones precisely frame the rising and setting sun when days were at their longest and shortest. And it still works like clockwork in modern times.

The English Heritage Society organizes gatherings at Stonehenge for the summer solstice and produces a live stream of the sunrise.

What other cultural traditions surround the summer solstice? In Sweden, the Midsummer Eve celebration is tied to the solstice, always being held on a Friday that lands anywhere from June 19 to June 25. Maypoles, folk dancing and romantic rituals are the order of the day.

In Ukraine and some other places in Eastern Europe, the summer solstice is connected with Ivan Kupala Night – a holiday with romantic connotations for many Slavs. People dance, place flowered wreaths on the water and gather around bonfires.

In India, the birthplace of the ancient practice of yoga, the summer solstice is traditionally celebrated with mass yoga sessions throughout the nation. And the United Nations’ International Yoga Day falls each year on the summer solstice.

Roughly 200 years ago, a Belgian mathematician and statistician named Adolphe Quetelet, seeking to characterize a “normal man,” observed that adults’ body weight in kilograms is roughly proportional to the square of their height in meters – a measurement that came to be referred to as the Quetelet index.

Video above: Everything you need to know about new breakthrough weight loss drugs

It wasn’t until 1972, when physiologist Dr. Ancel Keys proposed it as an estimate of body fat, that it got its more recognizable name: the body mass index, or BMI.

Now it’s everywhere, most specifically as a screening tool for obesity: A BMI of less than 18.5 is “underweight,” “healthy weight” is up to 24.9, “overweight” is 25 to 29.9, and “obesity” is a BMI of 30 and above.

And for a metric designed to be applied broadly across the general population, it’s taken on outsized significance for individuals, even sometimes called a “scarlet letter.”

“It is noted in every medical record,” said Dr. Jamy Ard, a professor of epidemiology and prevention at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. “It is part of the consideration for life insurance; your employer may use BMI to offer certain wellness programs to you.”

BMI is used to determine eligibility for weight loss medications, and it can affect access to joint-replacement surgery and fertility treatment.

“It is easy to calculate and essentially costs nothing,” Ard wrote in an email, “so this makes it very hard to replace.”

But a movement to shift away from BMI as a measure of individual health risk alone is gaining steam: Last week, the American Medical Association adopted a new policy on the index, noting “significant limitations associated with widespread use of BMI in clinical settings” and citing its “historical harm” and “use for racist exclusion.”

“BMI is based primarily on data collected from previous generations of non-Hispanic white populations,” the AMA wrote. And while it’s “significantly correlated with the amount of fat mass in the general population,” the association said, it “loses predictability when applied on the individual level.”

To some clinicians, the need to focus on more than BMI for individuals is old news.

“This is almost like somebody announced that we’ve just figured out that people are going to be using cell phones,” said Dr. Ethan Weiss, a preventive cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco and entrepreneur in residence at venture capital firm Third Rock. “It’s like, ‘Oh, really? That was 20 years ago.’ ”

Dr. Shannon Aymes, an assistant professor of medicine focused on weight management at the UNC School of Medicine, said she uses BMI along with other criteria like the Edmonton Obesity Staging System, combined with up to an hour-long patient visit, to come up with a plan for each patient.

“Obesity, like all disease, is complex and cannot be captured with a single measurement,” she said, pointing out that there are different severity levels. “There are people with elevated BMI who have no evidence of disease typically associated with higher weight such as hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea and type 2 diabetes.

“But there are some people with modestly elevated BMI,” she continued, “who have metabolic disorders that are potentially responsive to weight loss.”

The AMA’s new policy acknowledges those limitations, noting that BMI doesn’t differentiate between lean and fat body mass, and points out that it doesn’t account for differences between racial and ethnic groups, sexes and people at different ages.

Women tend to have more body fat than men, for example, and Asian people have more body fat than white people, according to a report supporting the AMA’s policy change.

BMI also doesn’t account for where people carry fat, something that’s become a clear marker of health risk over the past few decades, Weiss said.

“If you carry a lot of fat in your abdomen and around your organs, or visceral fat, basically, that’s bad,” he explained. “If you carry fat in your hips and your legs, your thighs and your rear end, that’s actually not only not bad, it’s good.”

Put another way, he said, having an “apple-shaped” body “is much more of a risk factor than pear-shaped.”

And different groups tend to carry fat differently: Black women, Ard said, tend to carry more body fat around the hips and thighs compared with white women, who carry fat more centrally around the waist, raising the risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes, at the same BMI.

This is where dependence on BMI can disadvantage certain groups, he explained.

“If BMI is used to help determine life insurance rates, for example, you might have women of color who have a larger body size but are metabolically healthy get higher premiums compared to other women who might have a lower BMI but have body fat in different regions,” Ard said.

“I do not believe that BMI as a measure itself is racist,” he continued. “In general, it is not good science to extrapolate results from one group to another without validating the science in the target population.”

The AMA suggests that other measurements of health risk be used potentially along with BMI, like waist circumference, measurements of visceral fat, body composition, and genetic and metabolic factors.

“More important than BMI, in my opinion, is whether any individual patient has the metabolic syndrome,” said Dr. Willa Hsueh, a professor of medicine and director of the Diabetes and Metabolism Research Center at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. She cited elevated triglycerides, low levels of so-called good cholesterol, diabetes or prediabetes, high blood pressure or excess liver fat.

“These components increase cardiovascular risk including heart attack, stroke and heart failure,” she said, noting that a high BMI can prompt a physician to check for those factors and provide treatment.

And although BMI’s limitations are well-understood, some doctors say it will be hard to displace completely.

“There are other ways of assessing body fat,” said Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at Weill Cornell Medicine, but “they’re not as easy and as inexpensive as BMI.”

“I’m not sure we can throw out BMI until we have other measures that are as easy to use,” he said.

Aronne said BMI shouldn’t be the gatekeeper for weight-loss treatment, though, for people with “overweight” or even “normal” BMI who have high waist circumference or lab findings suggesting metabolic risk. People in that category, he argued, “should qualify for obesity treatment.”

And the AMA’s move shouldn’t be taken as directed for individuals to dismiss BMI completely, Ard said.

“The thing I don’t want to happen as a result of this is that people of color and black people in particular ignore BMI and discussing excess body weight with a health care professional because they misunderstand the intent here,” he said in the email. “The goal is to personalize how BMI is used in medical decision-making and to move away from blanket generalizations that can lead to stigma and bias.”

For years, the demo tape that launched Prince’s storied career had been tucked away in an attic of the home of the music executive that first signed him.

Video above: Town made famous by 'Purple Rain' unveils a life-sized statue of Prince

Now, music enthusiasts and Prince fans worldwide have a chance to own the tape that landed the Minneapolis superstar his first record contract as it goes up for auction, according to Boston-based auction house RR Auction.

The demo, recorded in 1976 and still in its original custom packaging, is part of the Marvels of Modern Music auction that ends on Thursday.

It contains unreleased versions of the songs “Just As Long as We’re Together” and “My Love is Forever,” as well as the never-released “Jelly Jam.”

Prince was just 18 years old when he recorded the tracks – all written, sung, arranged and played by himself – at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis, RR Auction said in a news release.

“It is the original tape, so this is the birth of who became known as Prince,” Bobby Livingston, RR Auction’s executive vice president of public relations, told CNN.

“It’s incredible because it comes from the record executive whom it was sent to, so it has this unbroken chain of custody,” Livingston said.

The special artifact was discovered by Jeff Gold, a former Warner Bros. Records executive vice president and general manager who was friends with music industry executive Russ Thyret.

Thyret, who later served as the record company’s CEO and chairman, signed Prince to Warner Bros. on June 25, 1977, shortly after his 19th birthday.

Gold, who today runs an online business selling high-end collectibles and helps artists value their archives, said he received a call from Thyret’s widow, who lives in Los Angeles. Thyret died in 2021.

“(She said), ‘Russ saved a lot of stuff and it’s all up in the attic of our house – would you come take a look and help me figure out what to do with it, and buy anything you’re interested in?’” Gold told CNN.

He said he came across a couple of boxes containing tapes in the attic.

“When I saw (the demo tape), I knew exactly what it was,” Gold said. “I was very excited when I saw it, but guardedly so, because you never know if the tape’s going to be playable or if the tape has the wrong thing in the box – but happily, this one had the right thing.”

The demo tape up for auction comes with a plexiglass display case, a business card belonging to Thyrett, a CD transfer of the tape’s audio and a letter of provenance from Gold, according to RR Auction.

Several other Prince items are being auctioned, including the lace glove he wore on stage during the Purple Rain tour and a sealed first pressing of “The Black Album,” the auction house said.

Previously auctioned Prince items have sold for big price tags. The original lyrics of his song, “Nothing Compares 2 U,” sold for $150,000, according to Livingston.

At least one juvenile was killed and nine others injured on Sunday in an overnight shooting in downtown St. Louis, according to Mayor Tishaura Jones.

The shooting took place downtown just after 1 a.m. CT, inside a building at 14th and Washington streets where a party was being held. The space usually serves as an office space.

A 17-year-old suspect is in custody, police Chief Robert Tracy said during a news conference Sunday.

“This Father’s Day, families across the St. Louis region woke to the news of yet another mass shooting,” Jones said.

“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare, tenfold,” Jones said. “My heart goes out to all of the families in pain today. All those attending will carry with them the scars, physical and mental, from the gun violence that tore into their lives.”

The victim who died was a 17-year-old male, according to Tracy.

The injured victims’ ages range between 15 and 19 years old, the chief said. A 17-year-old female was also trampled running from the scene and has serious spinal injuries, he added.

Police recovered multiple firearms from the scene, including an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun, Tracy said.

Police are investigating who had authority over the office building and who was responsible for the party.

“Wrap your arms around your children today as we mourn because I will wrap my arms around mine,” Jones said.

Romeo Beckham, the son of former England and Manchester United star David Beckham, has signed a one-year contract with Brentford B, the Premier League club announced.

Video above: Man paid $2.6 million to watch Ronaldo-Messi match

Brentford, whose senior team plays in English soccer’s top division, said the club had the option to extend the deal by an additional year.

The 20-year-old played for the B team last season while on loan from Inter Miami, the Major League Soccer club that his father co-owns, playing 15 times and scoring once.

Speaking to the club, Beckham said of the new deal: “Best feeling, so excited, ready to get started and have a good next season.”

“It’s been such a good experienced and [I have] loved every second of it,” he said of his time on loan at the club. “It’s a good group of boys, good coaches, it’s a nice place to be.”

Brentford B coach Neil MacFarlane said in a statement on the club’s website: “We added Romeo to our squad in January and he’s been fantastic for the group.

“He’s had a terrific end to the season in terms of his recent match against Manchester City where he showed what he’s learned during his loan with us.

“We’ve continued to develop him in and out of possession and we look forward to him coming back in good spirits to continue working with him next season.”

A woman in Ecuador who was previously discovered to be alive in a coffin at her own wake has now actually passed away.

Bella Montoya, 76, died Friday afternoon after spending a week hospitalized in critical care in the coastal city of Babahoyo, according to Gilbert Barberán, the woman’s son.

Montoya was quickly transported to the Martin Icaza General Hospital when she was found alive after banging on her own coffin at the wake in Babahoyo.

“During her hospital stay, she received comprehensive medical care and periodic evaluation by hospital specialists. Likewise, the respective medical audit was carried out for this case,” Ecuador’s Ministry of Public Health said in a statement.

Montoya initially entered the hospital for a stroke and was reported dead once before.

Barberán told CNN that he has to register his mother’s death on the civil registry for a second time.

Montoya’s daughter, Zeneida Leal, said her mother’s condition had been worsening.

“The doctor said that my mom was sick, that she was very delicate, that she was suffering from kidney failure, that she couldn’t be saved because everything was getting complicated and she went into respiratory arrest,” Leal told CNN.

The Ministry of Public Health has said an investigation is underway into the events leading up to her presumed death.

The suspect in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub is expected to strike a plea deal to state murder and hate charges that would ensure at least a life sentence for the attack that killed five people and wounded 17, several survivors told The Associated Press.

Word of a possible legal resolution of last year’s Club Q massacre follows a series of jailhouse phone calls from the suspect to the AP expressing remorse and the intention to face the consequences at the next scheduled court hearing this month.

“I have to take responsibility for what happened,” 23-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich said in their first public comments about the case.

Federal and state authorities and defense attorneys declined to comment on a possible plea deal. But Colorado law requires victims to be notified of such deals, and several people who lost loved ones or were wounded in the attack told the AP that state prosecutors have given them advance word that Aldrich will plead guilty to charges that would ensure the maximum state sentence of life behind bars.

Prosecutors also recently asked survivors to prepare for the June 26 hearing by writing victim-impact statements and steeling themselves emotionally for the possible release of the Club Q surveillance video of the attack.

“Someone’s gone that can never be brought back through the justice system,” said Wyatt Kent, who was celebrating his 23rd birthday in Club Q when Aldrich opened fire, gunning down Kent’s partner, Daniel Aston, who was working behind the bar. “We are all still missing a lot, a partner, a son, a daughter, a best friend.”

Jonathan Pullen, the suspect’s step-grandfather who plans to watch the upcoming hearing on a livestream, said Aldrich “has to realize what happened on that terrible night. It's truly beginning to dawn on him.”

Aldrich faces more than 300 state counts, including murder and hate crimes. And the U.S. Justice Department is considering filing federal hate crime charges, according to a senior law enforcement official familiar with the matter who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing case. It’s unclear whether the anticipated resolution to the state prosecution will also resolve the ongoing FBI investigation.

Some survivors who listened to the suspect’s recorded comments to the AP lambasted them as a calculated attempt to avoid the federal death penalty, noting they stopped short of discussing a motive, put much of the blame on drugs and characterized the crime in passive, generalities such as “I just can’t believe what happened” and “I wish I could turn back time.” Such language, they said, belied by the maps, diagrams, online rants and other evidence that showed months of plotting and premeditation.

“No one has sympathy for him,” said Michael Anderson, who was bartending at Club Q when the shooting broke out and ducked as several patrons were gunned down around him. “This community has to live with what happened, with collective trauma, with PTSD, trying to grieve the loss of our friends, to move past emotional wounds and move past what we heard, saw and smelled.”

Terror erupted just before midnight on Nov. 19 when the suspect walked into Club Q, a longtime sanctuary for the LGBTQ community in this mostly conservative city of 480,000, and fired an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle indiscriminately. Disbelief gave way to screaming and confusion as the music continued to play. Partygoers dove across a bloody dance floor for cover. Friends frantically tried to protect each other and plugged wounds with napkins.

The killing only stopped after a Navy petty officer grabbed the barrel of the suspect’s rifle, burning his hand because it was so hot. An Army veteran joined in to help subdue and beat Aldrich until police arrived, finding the shooter had emptied one high-capacity magazine and was armed with several more.

Aldrich, who since their arrest has identified as nonbinary and uses the pronouns they and them, allegedly visited Club Q at least six times in the years before the attack. District Attorney Michael Allen told a judge that the suspect’s mother made Aldrich go to the club “against his will and sort of forced that culture on him.”

Allen also has said the suspect administered a website that posted a “neo-Nazi white supremacist” shooting training video. Online gaming friends said Aldrich expressed hatred for the police, LGBTQ people and minorities and used anti-Black and anti-gay slurs. And a police detective testified that Aldrich sent an online message with a photo of a rifle scope trained on a gay pride parade.

Defense attorneys in previous hearings have not disputed Aldrich’s role in the shooting but have pushed back against allegations it was motivated by hate, arguing the suspect was drugged up on cocaine and medication the night of the attack.

“I don’t know if this is common knowledge but I was on a very large plethora of drugs,” Aldrich told the AP. “I had been up for days. I was abusing steroids. ... I’ve finally been able to get off that crap I was on.”

Aldrich didn’t answer directly when asked whether the attack was motivated by hate, saying only that’s “completely off base.”

Even a former friend of Aldrich found their remarks to be disingenuous. “I’m really glad he’s trying to take accountability but it’s like the ‘why’ is being shoved under the rug,” said Xavier Kraus, who lived across the hall from Aldrich at a Colorado Springs apartment complex.

The AP sent Aldrich a handwritten letter several months ago asking them to discuss a 2021 kidnapping arrest following a standoff with a SWAT team, a prosecution that had been dismissed and sealed despite video evidence of Aldrich’s crimes. In that case, just months before the Club Q shooting, they threatened to become “the next mass killer” and stockpiled guns, ammo, body armor and a homemade bomb. The incident was livestreamed on Facebook and prompted the evacuation of 10 nearby homes as authorities discovered a tub with more than 100 pounds of explosive materials.

The alleged shooter, who lived with their grandparents at the time and was upset about their plans to move to Florida, threatened to kill the couple and “go out in a blaze,” authorities said. “You guys die today and I’m taking you with me,” they quoted the suspect as saying. “I’m loaded and ready.”

The charges were dismissed even after relatives wrote a judge warning that Aldrich was “certain” to commit murder if freed. District Attorney Allen, facing heavy criticism, later attributed the dismissal of the case to Aldrich’s family members refusing to cooperate and repeatedly dodging out-of-state subpoenas.

In response to AP’s letter, Aldrich first phoned a reporter in March and asked to be paid for an interview, a request that was declined. They called back late last month, days after prosecutors wrote in a court filing that there was “near-unanimous sentiment” among the victims for “the most expedient determination of case-related issues.”

In a series of six calls, each limited by an automated jail phone system to 15 minutes, the suspect said: "Nothing’s ever going to bring back their loved ones. People are going to have to live with injury that can’t be repaired.”

Asked why it happened, they said, “I don’t know. That’s why I think it’s so hard to comprehend that it did happen. ... I’m either going to get the death penalty federally or I will go to prison for life, that’s a given.”

While the AP normally would not provide a platform to someone alleged to have committed such a crime, editors judged that the suspect’s stated intent to accept responsibility and expression of remorse were newsworthy and should be reported.

Former Club Q bartender Anderson was among survivors who told prosecutors they wanted a fast resolution of the criminal case.

“My fear is that if this takes years, that prevents the processing and moving on and finding peace beyond this case,” he said. “I would love this wrapped up as quickly as possible under the guarantee that justice is served.”

___

AP Writer Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed to this report.