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Judge approves $2.8B settlement, paving way for US colleges to pay athletes millions

A federal judge signed off on arguably the biggest change in the history of college sports Friday, clearing the way for schools to begin paying their athletes millions of dollars as soon as next month as the multibillion-dollar industry shreds the last vestiges of the amateur model that defined it for more than a century.

Nearly five years after Arizona State swimmer Grant House sued the NCAA and its five biggest conferences to lift restrictions on revenue sharing, U.S. Judge Claudia Wilken approved the final proposal that had been hung up on roster limits, just one of many changes ahead amid concerns that thousands of walk-on athletes will lose their chance to play college sports.

The sweeping terms of the so-called House settlement include approval for each school to share up to $20.5 million with athletes over the next year and $2.7 billion that will be paid over the next decade to thousands of former players who were barred from that revenue for years.

The agreement brings a seismic shift to hundreds of schools that were forced to reckon with the reality that their players are the ones producing the billions in TV and other revenue, mostly through football and basketball, that keep this machine humming.

The scope of the changes — some have already begun — is difficult to overstate. The professionalization of college athletics will be seen in the high-stakes and expensive recruitment of stars on their way to the NFL and NBA, and they will be felt by athletes whose schools have decided to pare their programs. The agreement will resonate in nearly every one of the NCAA’s 1,100 member schools boasting nearly 500,000 athletes.

“Approving the agreement reached by the NCAA, the defendant conferences and student-athletes in the settlement opens a pathway to begin stabilizing college sports,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said.

Wilken’s ruling comes 11 years after she dealt the first significant blow to the NCAA ideal of amateurism when she ruled in favor of former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon and others who were seeking a way to earn money from the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) — a term that is now as common in college sports as “March Madness” or “Roll Tide.” It was just four years ago that the NCAA cleared the way for NIL money to start flowing, but the changes coming are even bigger.

Wilken granted preliminary approval to the settlement last October. That sent colleges scurrying to determine not only how they were going to afford the payments, but how to regulate an industry that also allows players to cut deals with third parties so long as they are deemed compliant by a newly formed enforcement group that will be run by auditors at Deloitte.

The agreement takes a big chunk of oversight away from the NCAA and puts it in the hands of the four biggest conferences. The ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC hold most of the power and decision-making heft, especially when it comes to the College Football Playoff, which is the most significant financial driver in the industry and is not under the NCAA umbrella like the March Madness tournaments are.

The deal looked ready to go since last fall, but Wilken put a halt to it after listening to a number of players who had lost their spots because of newly imposed roster limits being placed on teams.

The limits were part of a trade-off that allowed the schools to offer scholarships to everyone on the roster, instead of only a fraction, as has been the case for decades. Schools started cutting walk-ons in anticipation of the deal being approved.

Wilken asked for a solution and, after weeks, the parties decided to let anyone cut from a roster — now termed a “Designated Student-Athlete” — return to their old school or play for a new one without counting against the new limit.

Wilken ultimately agreed, going point-by-point through the objectors’ arguments to explain why they didn’t hold up.

“The modifications provide Designated Student-Athletes with what they had prior to the roster limits provisions being implemented, which was the opportunity to be on a roster at the discretion of a Division I school,” Wilken wrote.

Her decision, however, took nearly a month to write, leaving the schools and conferences in limbo — unsure if the plans they’d been making for months, really years, would go into play.

“It remains to be seen how this will impact the future of inter-collegiate athletics — but as we continue to evolve, Carolina remains committed to providing outstanding experiences and broad-based programming to student-athletes,” North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham said.

The list of winners and losers is long and, in some cases, hard to tease out.

A rough guide of winners would include football and basketball stars at the biggest schools, which will devote much of their bankroll to signing and retaining them. For instance, Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood’s NIL deal is reportedly worth between $10.5 million and $12 million.

Losers, despite Wilken’s ruling, figure to be at least some of the walk-ons and partial scholarship athletes whose spots are gone.

Also in limbo are Olympic sports many of those athletes play and that serve as the main pipeline for a U.S. team that has won the most medals at every Olympics since the downfall of the Soviet Union.

All this is a price worth paying, according to the attorneys who crafted the settlement and argue they delivered exactly what they were asked for: an attempt to put more money in the pockets of the players whose sweat and toil keep people watching from the start of football season through March Madness and the College World Series in June.

What the settlement does not solve is the threat of further litigation.

Though this deal brings some uniformity to the rules, states still have separate laws regarding how NIL can be doled out, which could lead to legal challenges. NCAA President Charlie Baker has been consistent in pushing for federal legislation that would put college sports under one rulebook and, if he has his way, provide some form of antitrust protection to prevent the new model from being disrupted again.

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

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Trump’s surgeon general pick criticizes others’ conflicts

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next U.S. surgeon general has repeatedly said the nation’s medical, health and food systems are corrupted by special interests and people out to make a profit at the expense of Americans’ health.

Yet as Dr. Casey Means has criticized scientists, medical schools and regulators for taking money from the food and pharmaceutical industries, she has promoted dozens of health and wellness products — including specialty basil seed supplements, a blood testing service and a prepared meal delivery service — in ways that put money in her own pocket.

A review by The Associated Press found Means, who has carved out a niche in the wellness industry, set up deals with an array of businesses.

In her newsletter, on her social media accounts, on her website, in her book and during podcast appearances, the entrepreneur and influencer has at times failed to disclose that she could profit or benefit in other ways from sales of products she recommends. In some cases, she promoted companies in which she was an investor or adviser without consistently disclosing the connection, the AP found.

Means, 37, has said she recommends products that she has personally vetted and uses herself. She is far from the only online creator who doesn’t always follow federal transparency rules that require influencers to disclose when they have a “material connection” to a product they promote.

Still, legal and ethics experts said those business entanglements raise concerns about conflicting interests for an aspiring surgeon general, a role responsible for giving Americans the best scientific information on how to improve their health.

“I fear that she will be cultivating her next employers and her next sponsors or business partners while in office,” said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a progressive ethics watchdog monitoring executive branch appointees.

The nomination, which comes amid a whirlwind of Trump administration actions to dismantle the government’s public integrity guardrails, also has raised questions about whether Levels, a company Means co-founded that sells subscriptions for devices that continuously monitor users’ glucose levels, could benefit from this administration’s health guidance and policy.

Though scientists debate whether continuous glucose monitors are beneficial for people without diabetes, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promoted their use as a precursor to making certain weight-loss drugs available to patients.

The aspiring presidential appointee has built her own brand in part by criticizing doctors, scientists and government officials for being “bought off” or “corrupt” because of ties to industry.

Means’ use of affiliate marketing and other methods of making money from her recommendations for supplements, medical tests and other health and dietary products raise questions about the extent to which she is influenced by a different set of special interests: those of the wellness industry.

Means earned her medical degree from Stanford University, but she dropped out of her residency program in Oregon in 2018, and her license to practice is inactive. She has grown her public profile in part with a compelling origin story that seeks to explain why she left her residency and conventional medicine.

“During my training as a surgeon, I saw how broken and exploitative the healthcare system is and left to focus on how to keep people out of the operating room,” she wrote on her website.

Means turned to alternative approaches to address what she has described as widespread metabolic dysfunction driven largely by poor nutrition and an overabundance of ultra-processed foods. She co-founded Levels, a nutrition, sleep and exercise-tracking app that can also give users insights from blood tests and continuous glucose monitors. The company charges $199 per year for an app subscription and an additional $184 per month for glucose monitors.

Means has argued that the medical system is incentivized not to look at the root causes of illness but instead to maintain profits by keeping patients sick and coming back for more prescription drugs and procedures.

“At the highest level of our medical institutions, there are conflicts of interest and corruption that are actually making the science that we’re getting not as accurate and not as clean as we’d want it,” she said on Megyn Kelly’s podcast last year.

But even as Means decries the influence of money on science and medicine, she has made her own deals with business interests.

During the same Megyn Kelly podcast, Means mentioned a frozen prepared food brand, Daily Harvest. She promoted that brand in a book she published last year. What she didn’t mention in either instance: Means had a business relationship with Daily Harvest.

Influencer marketing has expanded beyond the beauty, fashion and travel sectors to “encompass more and more of our lives,” said Emily Hund, author of “The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media.”

With more than 825,000 followers on Instagram and a newsletter that she has said reached 200,000 subscribers, Means has a direct line into the social media feeds and inboxes of an audience interested in health, nutrition and wellness.

Affiliate marketing, brand partnerships and similar business arrangements are growing more popular as social media becomes increasingly lucrative for influencers, especially among younger generations. Companies might provide a payment, free or discounted products or other benefits to the influencer in exchange for a post or a mention. But most consumers still don’t realize that a personality recommending a product might make money if people click through and buy, said University of Minnesota professor Christopher Terry.

“A lot of people watch those influencers, and they take what those influencers say as gospel,” said Terry, who teaches media advertising and internet law. Even his own students don’t understand that influencers might stand to benefit from sales of the products they endorse, he added.

Many companies, including Amazon, have affiliate marketing programs in which people with substantial social media followings can sign up to receive a percentage of sales or some other benefit when someone clicks through and buys a product using a special individualized link or code shared by the influencer.

Means has used such links to promote various products sold on Amazon. Among them are books, including the one she co-wrote, “Good Energy”; a walking pad; soap; body oil; hair products; cardamom-flavored dental floss; organic jojoba oil; a razor set; reusable kitchen products; sunglasses; a sleep mask; a silk pillowcase; fitness and sleep trackers; protein powder and supplements.

She also has shared links to products sold by other companies that included “affiliate” or “partner” coding, indicating she has a business relationship with the companies. The products include an AI-powered sleep system and Daily Harvest, for which she curated a “metabolic health collection.”

On a “My Faves” page that was taken down from her website shortly after Trump picked her, Means wrote that some links “are affiliate links and I make a small percentage if you buy something after clicking them.”

It’s not clear how much money Means has earned from her affiliate marketing, partnerships and other agreements. Daily Harvest did not return messages seeking comment, and Means said she could not comment on the record during the confirmation process.

Means has raised concerns that scientists, regulators and doctors are swayed by the influence of industry, oftentimes pointing to public disclosures of their connections. In January, she told the Kristin Cavallari podcast “Let’s Be Honest” that “relationships are influential.”

“There’s huge money, huge money going to fund scientists from industry,” Means said. “We know that when industry funds papers, it does skew outcomes.”

In November, on a podcast run by a beauty products brand, Primally Pure, she said it was “insanity” to have people connected to the processed food industry involved in writing food guidelines, adding, “We need unbiased people writing our guidelines that aren’t getting their mortgage paid by a food company.”

On the same podcast, she acknowledged supplement companies sponsor her newsletter, adding, “I do understand how it’s messy.”

Influencers who endorse or promote products in exchange for payment or something else of value are required by the Federal Trade Commission to make a clear and conspicuous disclosure of any business, family or personal relationship. While Means did provide disclosures about newsletter sponsors, the AP found in other cases Means did not always tell her audience when she had a connection to the companies she promoted. For example, a “Clean Personal & Home Care Product Recommendations” guide she links to from her website contains two dozen affiliate or partner links and no disclosure that she could profit from any sales.

Means has said she invested in Function Health, which provides subscription-based lab testing for $500 annually. Of the more than a dozen online posts the AP found in which Means mentioned Function Health, more than half did not disclose she had any affiliation with the company.

Means also listed the supplement company Zen Basil as a company for which she was an “Investor and/or Advisor.” The AP found posts on Instagram, X and on Facebook where Means promoted its products without disclosing the relationship.

Though the “About” page on her website discloses an affiliation with both companies, that’s not enough, experts said. She is required to disclose any material connection she has to a company anytime she promotes it.

Representatives for Function Health did not return messages seeking comment through their website and executives’ LinkedIn profiles. Zen Basil’s founder, Shakira Niazi, did not answer questions about Means’ business relationship with the company or her disclosures of it. She said the two had known each other for about four years and called Means’ advice “transformational,” saying her teachings reversed Niazi’s prediabetes and other ailments.

“I am proud to sponsor her newsletter through my company,” Niazi said in an email.

While the disclosure requirements are rarely enforced by the FTC, Means should have been informing her readers of any connections regardless of whether she was violating any laws, said Olivier Sylvain, a Fordham Law School professor who was previously a senior adviser to the FTC chair.

“What you want in a surgeon general, presumably, is someone who you trust to talk about tobacco, about social media, about caffeinated alcoholic beverages, things that present problems in public health,” Sylvain said, adding, “Should there be any doubt about claims you make about products?”

Means isn’t the first surgeon general nominee whose financial entanglements have raised eyebrows.

Jerome Adams, who served as surgeon general from 2017 to 2021, filed federal disclosure forms that showed he invested in several health technology, insurance and pharmaceutical companies before taking the job — among them Pfizer, Mylan and UnitedHealth Group. He also invested in the food and drink giant Nestle.

He divested those stocks when he was confirmed for the role and pledged that he and his immediate family would not acquire financial interest in certain industries regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

Vivek Murthy, who served as surgeon general twice, under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, made more than $2 million in COVID-19-related speaking and consulting fees from Carnival, Netflix, Estee Lauder and Airbnb between holding those positions. He pledged to recuse himself from matters involving those parties for a period of time.

Means has not yet gone through a Senate confirmation hearing and has not yet announced the ethical commitments she will make for the role.

Hund said that as influencer marketing becomes more common, it is raising more ethical questions, such as what past influencers who enter government should do to avoid the appearance of a conflict.

Other administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, have also promoted companies on social media without disclosing their financial ties.

“This is like a learning moment in the evolution of our democracy,” Hund said. “Is this a runaway train that we just have to get on and ride, or is this something that we want to go differently?”

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Swenson reported from New York.

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An Australian woman on trial for triple murder testifies over mushroom poisoning

NEWCASTLE, Australia — The woman accused of murdering three members of her ex-husband’s family by serving them poisonous mushrooms has taken the stand at an Australian court on Monday as the highly publicized triple murder trial nears its conclusion.

Erin Patterson, 50, is accused of killing her former parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail Patterson’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66, and also of attempting to murder Wilkinson’s husband, Ian, 68 after the four consumed a meal at Patterson’s home in Victoria state in July 2023.

She could face up to 25 years in prison for the attempted murder charge, while murder in the state of Victoria carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Her lawyer, Colin Mandy, previously told the Victorian state Supreme Court during the six-week trial the poisoning was accidental.

Patterson’s appearance as a defense witness Monday marked the first time the 50-year-old has spoken since pleading not guilty to all charges in May last year.

She served meals of beef Wellington, mashed potato and green beans at her home in the rural town of Leongartha on July 29, 2023. All four guests were hospitalized the next day with poisoning from death cap mushrooms, also known as amanita phalloides, that were added to the beef and pastry dish. Ian Wilkinson survived after a liver transplant.

Under questioning from Mandy, Patterson revealed personal battles with low self-esteem, shifting spirituality, the complicated birth of her son and growing distance from her estranged husband’s family in recent years.

“I had felt for some months that my relationship with the wider Patterson family, and particularly Don and Gail, perhaps had a bit more distance or space put between us,” Patterson said. “We saw each other less.”

Patterson is due back on the witness stand Tuesday as the trial continues.

The prosecution completed the presentation of its evidence to a jury of 14 people earlier on Monday afternoon.

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Appeals court keeps block on Trump administration’s downsizing of federal workforce

SAN FRANCISCO — An appeals court on Friday refused to freeze a California-based judge’s order halting the Trump administration from downsizing the federal workforce, which means that the Department of Government Efficiency-led cuts remain on pause for now.

A split three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the downsizing could have significant ripple effects on everything from the nation’s food-safety system to veteran health care, and should stay on hold while a lawsuit plays out.

The judge who dissented, however, said President Donald Trump likely does have the legal authority to downsize the executive branch and there is a separate process for workers to appeal.

The Republican administration had sought an emergency stay of an injunction issued by U.S. Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco in a lawsuit brought by labor unions and cities, including San Francisco and Chicago, and the group Democracy Forward.

The Justice Department has also previously appealed her ruling to the Supreme Court, one of a string of emergency appeals arguing federal judges had overstepped their authority.

The judge’s order questioned whether Trump’s administration was acting lawfully in trying to pare the federal workforce.

Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped billionaire Elon Musk to lead the charge through the Department of Government Efficiency.

Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programs, or have been placed on leave. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go.

Illston’s order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management.

Illston, who was nominated to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, wrote in her ruling that presidents can make large-scale overhauls of federal agencies, but only with the cooperation of Congress.

Lawyers for the government say that the executive order and memo calling for large-scale personnel reductions and reorganization plans provided only general principles that agencies should follow in exercising their own decision-making process.

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Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this story.

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Faizan Zaki overcomes a shocking flub and wins the Scripps National Spelling Bee

OXON HILL, Md. — Faizan Zaki’s enthusiasm for spelling nearly got the better of him. Ultimately, his joyful approach made him the Scripps National Spelling Bee champion.

The favorite entering the bee after his runner-up finish last year — during which he never misspelled a word in a conventional spelling round, only to lose a lightning-round tiebreaker that he didn’t practice for — the shaggy-haired Faizan wore the burden of expectations lightly, sauntering to the microphone in a black hoodie and spelling his words with casual glee.

Throughout Thursday night’s finals, the 13-year-old from Allen, Texas, looked like a champion in waiting. Then he nearly threw it away. But even a shocking moment of overconfidence couldn’t prevent him from seizing the title of best speller in the English language.

With the bee down to three spellers, Sarvadnya Kadam and Sarv Dharavane missed their words back-to-back, putting Faizan two words away from victory. The first was “commelina,” but instead of asking the requisite questions — definition, language of origin — to make sure he knew it, Faizan let his showman’s instincts take over.

“K-A-M,” he said, then stopped himself. “OK, let me do this. Oh, shoot!”

“Just ring the bell,” he told head judge Mary Brooks, who obliged.

“So now you know what happens,” Brooks said, and the other two spellers returned to the stage.

Later, standing next to the trophy with confetti at his feet, Faizan said: “I’m definitely going to be having nightmares about that tonight.”

Even pronouncer Jacques Bailly tried to slow Faizan down before his winning word, “eclaircissement,” but Faizan didn’t ask a single question before spelling it correctly, and he pumped his fists and collapsed to the stage after saying the final letter.

The bee celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, and Faizan may be the first champion who’s remembered more for a word he got wrong than one he got right.

“I think he cared too much about his aura,” said Bruhat Soma, Faizan’s buddy who beat him in the “spell-off” tiebreaker last year.

Faizan had a more nuanced explanation: After not preparing for the spell-off last year, he overcorrected, emphasizing speed during his study sessions.

Although Bruhat was fast last year when he needed to be, he followed the familiar playbook for champion spellers: asking thorough questions, spelling slowly and metronomically, showing little emotion. Those are among the hallmarks of well-coached spellers, and Faizan had three coaches: Scott Remer, Sam Evans and Sohum Sukhantankar.

None of them could turn Faizan into a robot on stage.

“He’s crazy. He’s having a good time, and he’s doing what he loves, which is spelling,” Evans said.

Said Zaki Anwar, Faizan’s father: “He’s the GOAT. I actually believe that. He’s really good, man. He’s been doing it for so long, and he knows the dictionary in and out.”

After last year’s bee had little drama before an abrupt move to the spell-off, Scripps tweaked the competition rules, giving judges more leeway to let the competition play out before going to the tiebreaker. The nine finalists delivered.

During one stretch, six spellers got 28 consecutive words right, and there were three perfect rounds during the finals. The last time there was a single perfect round was the infamous 2019 bee, which ended in an eight-way tie.

Sarv, an 11-year-old fifth-grader from Dunwoody, Georgia, who ultimately finished third, would have been the youngest champion since Nihar Janga in 2016. He has three years of eligibility remaining.

The most poised and mature of the final three, Sarvadnya — who’s from Visalia, California — ends his career as the runner-up. He’s 14 and in the eighth grade, which means he has aged out of the competition. It’s not a bad way to go out, considering that Faizan became just the fifth runner-up in a century to come back and win, and the first since Sean Conley in 2001.

Including Faizan, whose parents emigrated from southern India, 30 of the past 36 champions have been Indian American, a run that began with Nupur Lala’s victory in 1999, which was later featured in the documentary “Spellbound.” Lala was among the dozens of past champions who attended this year and signed autographs for spellers, families and bee fans to honor the anniversary.

With the winner’s haul of $52,500 added to his second-place prize of $25,000, Faizan increased his bee earnings to $77,500. His big splurge with his winnings last year? A $1,500 Rubik’s cube with 21 squares on each side. This time, he said he’d donate a large portion of his winnings to charity.

The bee began in 1925 when the Louisville Courier-Journal invited other newspapers to host spelling bees and send their champions to Washington. For the past 14 years, Scripps has hosted the competition at a convention center just outside the nation’s capital, but the bee returns downtown next year to Constitution Hall, a nearly century-old concert venue near the White House.

Faizan has been spelling for more than half his life. He competed in the 2019 bee as a 7-year-old, getting in through a wild-card program that has since been discontinued. He qualified again in 2023 and made the semifinals before last year’s second-place finish.

“One thing that differentiates him is he really has a passion for this. In his free time, when he’s not studying for the bee, he’s literally looking up archaic, obsolete words that have no chance of being asked,” Bruhat said. “I don’t think he cares as much about the title as his passion for language and words.”

Faizan had no regrets about showing that enthusiasm, even though it nearly cost him.

“No offense to Bruhat, but I think he really took the bee a little too seriously,” Faizan said. “I decided to have fun with this bee, and I did well, and here I am.”

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Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012. Follow his work here.

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Sen. Cory Booker expands upon historic Senate floor speech for new book, ‘Stand’

NEW YORK — Sen. Cory Booker has expanded upon his historic Senate floor speech from last month into an upcoming book.

“Stand” will be published Nov. 11, St. Martin’s Press announced Wednesday. In April, the New Jersey Democrat made headlines by delivering the country’s longest continuous Senate floor speech — just over 25 hours. The 56-year-old Booker spoke in opposition to numerous Trump administration policies, whether the desire to make Canada part of the United States or cuts to Social Security offices.

“This book is about the virtues vital to our success as a nation and lessons we can draw from generations of Americans who fought for them,” Booker said in a statement.

Booker’s speech broke a record set by Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a segregationist and southern Democrat who opposed the advance of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which eventually passed.

Booker was assisted by fellow Democrats who gave him a break from speaking by asking him questions on the Senate floor.

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NPR sues Trump administration over executive order to cut funding to public media

WASHINGTON — National Public Radio and three local stations filed a lawsuit Tuesday against President Donald Trump, arguing that an executive order aimed at cutting federal funding for the organization is illegal.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington by NPR, Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KUTE, Inc. argues that Trump’s executive order to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR violates the First Amendment.

Trump issued the executive order earlier this month that instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and requires that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations. Trump issued the order after alleging there is “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.

“The Order’s objectives could not be clearer: the Order aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the President dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radio stations across the country,” the lawsuit alleges.

“The Order is textbook retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, and it interferes with NPR’s and the Local Member Stations’ freedom of expressive association and editorial discretion,” it said.

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Bodies of 5 skiers found on Swiss glacier near Zermatt

WARSAW, Poland — The bodies of five skiers have been found on a glacier above the Swiss resort town of Zermatt, authorities said Sunday, after two hikers reported seeing abandoned skis near the Rimpfischhorn, a 4,000-meter peak in the Valais Alps.

Valais cantonal police said Sunday the victims were located on the Adler Glacier following aerial and ground searches.

Formal identification of the victims is still underway, and their nationalities have not yet been released.

Authorities have opened an investigation into the circumstances of the accident. Weather conditions and avalanche activity in the region are being examined as part of the probe.

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Cities tied to George Floyd mark the 5th anniversary of his death

MINNEAPOLIS — Religious services, concerts and vigils are set to mark Sunday’s fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer even as police reform and civil rights activists face what they see as a backlash from the Trump administration.

Events in Minneapolis center around George Floyd Square, the intersection where police Officer Derek Chauvin used his knee to pin Floyd’s neck to the pavement for 9 1/2 minutes, even as the 46-year-old Black man’s cried “I can’t breathe.”

The events started Friday with concerts, a street festival and a “self-care fair,” and culminate with a worship service, gospel music concert and candlelight vigil on Sunday.

In Houston, where Floyd grew up, family members planned to gather Sunday at his gravesite for a memorial service led by the Rev. Al Sharpton. In a park about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away, a memorial service will take place, followed by five hours of music, preaching and poetry readings and a balloon release.

The remembrances come at a fraught moment for activists, who had hoped the worldwide protests that followed Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020, would lead to permanent police reform across the U.S. and a continued focus on racial justice issues.

Even with Minneapolis officials’ promises to remake the police department, some activists contend the progress has come at a glacial pace.

“We understand that change takes time,” Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, said in a statement last week. “However, the progress being claimed by the city is not being felt in the streets.”

President Donald Trump’s administration moved Wednesday to cancel settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville that called for an overhaul of their police departments following the Floyd’s murder and the killing of Breonna Taylor. Under Democratic President Joe Biden, the U.S. Justice Department had aggressively pushed for aggressive oversight of local police it had accused of widespread abuses.

Trump also declared an end to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives within the federal government and his administration is using federal funds as leverage to force local governments, universities and public school districts to do the same. Republican-led states also have accelerated their efforts to stamp out DEI initiatives.

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Power outage hits Cannes Film Festival and traffic in southeastern France

CANNES, France — A major power outage struck southeastern France on Saturday, disrupting traffic and briefly halting events at the Cannes Film Festival as the prestigious event prepared to hand out its top prize.

About 160,000 households in the Alpes-Maritimes department lost electricity after a high-voltage line fell Saturday morning, electricity network operator RTE said on X. The outage came hours after a fire at an electrical substation near Cannes overnight had already weakened the grid.

Cannes Film Festival organizers confirmed the outage affected the early activities of Saturday and said the Palais des Festivals — the Croisette’s main venue — had switched to an independent power supply.

“All scheduled events and screenings, including the Closing Ceremony, will proceed as planned and under normal conditions,” the statement said. “At this stage, the cause of the outage has not yet been identified. Restoration efforts are underway.”

Still, screenings at the Cineum, one of the festival’s satellite venues, were briefly suspended, the festival added.

Traffic lights in parts of Cannes and the surrounding city of Antibes stopped working after 10 a.m., leading to traffic jams and confusion in city centers. Most shops along the Croisette remained closed, and local food kiosks were only accepting cash. Train service in Cannes was also disrupted.

Authorities said restoration efforts were ongoing and urged residents to remain cautious during travel.

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For more coverage of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, visit https://apnews.com/hub/cannes-film-festival.

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