July 25 (Reuters) – At least 21 people were injured on Saturday in a multi-alarm fire in the New York City borough of Queens, authorities said.

The injured included 19 firefighters who were taken to local hospitals, the New York Fire Department said in a statement.

CBS News New York said none of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries in the blaze that erupted in the Flushing neighborhood. Five of the injured firefighters sustained moderate to serious injuries, including one who was hospitalized in serious condition, local TV station PIX 11 said.

The fire started around 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) in a home near College Point Boulevard and spread to two adjoining buildings, the New York Fire Department said.

Photographs on the PIX 11 website showed smoke engulfing a row of homes, a cluster of emergency vehicles at the scene and a firefighter directing a stream of water from atop a ladder.

Many residents had to be rescued from the home in which the fire erupted, PIX 11 said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Sergio Non and Paul Simao)

NEW YORK (AP) — Trump’s tariffs are headed to court — again.

Two lawsuits filed by small businesses are challenging Trump’s sweeping tariffs announced Thursday that impose double-digit levies on 60 trading partners.

The tariffs, implemented under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 for what the Trump administration says is countries’ failure to prevent imports produced by forced labor, cover 99% of U.S. imports. Critics say the goal is less to prevent forced-labor imports and more to replace the worldwide tariffs that Trump imposed last year that were struck down by the Supreme Court in February. They came just as temporary 10% worldwide tariffs — that had also been challenged in court — expired.

Educational toy company Learning Resources, which was part of the tariff lawsuit that won in the Supreme Court, filed a new suit along with several other small businesses in the Court of International Trade on Friday over the current round of tariffs.

The second lawsuit was filed by Burlap and Barrel, a New York-based spice company, and Collective Horology, a watch retailer based in Ventura, California. They are represented by Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian advocacy group.

Both lawsuits argue that the government didn’t adequately establish its case against each specific economy or spell how the tariffs will eliminate the specified practice they are being levied for, as required by Section 301.

“Forced labor is morally indefensible, but an important objective does not give the government permission to ignore the law,” said Sara Albrecht, chairman and CEO of the Liberty Justice Center. “The administration allowed one global tariff to expire and immediately replaced it with another under a different statute. Changing the statute doesn’t change the law.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Experts say it might be tougher to successfully challenge the current round of tariffs than previous rounds. Trump used Section 301 to impose big tariffs on China in his first term, and they survived court challenges.

Unlike the Section 122 levies that expired Friday, “these tariffs will be with us for the long haul,’’ said lawyer Patrick Childress, a partner at Holland & Knight and a former U.S. trade official.

Even if countries enact the precise policies the U.S. wants, he said, they will still need to prove that they’re enforcing them to Washington’s satisfaction before the tariffs are removed. “This suggests that no short-term path for country-wide relief from the new Section 301 tariffs will be available.’’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Temperatures hit sweltering highs across much of the central United States on Saturday as forecasters warned that dangerously hot weather from Dallas to North Dakota would push into next week, with roughly 80 million people facing heat advisories.

A heat dome, where atmospheric conditions trap heat, was forecast to create sustained high temperatures and accumulating discomfort. Meanwhile overnight lows were not expected to come down enough for people to have much chance to recover, allowing heat stress to build as the bad weather lingers, forecasters said. With the high humidity, it feels even worse.

The oppressive midsummer weather was forecast to affect a huge stretch of the country, from the desert Southwest to the Gulf Coast and reaching up into the Midwest and Great Plains. Some records around the Denver area could be broken, forecasters said, and temperatures were expected to be 10 F to 15 F (5.6 to 8.3 C) above normal.

“It looks like it is going to be pretty much stationary in that position as we go through the week,” said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Places under a National Weather Service extreme heat warning included western Nebraska, where temperatures Saturday and Sunday were forecast to reach 108 F (42 C).

At the Museum of the Fur Trade near Chadron, Nebraska, there were fewer visitors than usual for this time of year. Fur hats and pelts in the gift shop were not selling so hot.

“I’m sure no one would be willing to wear it on a day like this,” museum employee Hannah Lovelace said. Loose-fitting, period-correct fabric shirts, on the other hand, remained popular sellers among folks headed to historical frontier reenactments called rendezvous, she said.

The region’s heat was forecast to continue through the week, with temperatures topping 100 F (37 C) even in normally moderate areas of Montana and Wyoming.

Las Vegas was also expected to see near record-breaking highs. On Saturday, when temperatures reached around 114 F (45 C) in the valley, HVAC repair technician Kristian “Flaco” Santos spent hours outside fixing air conditioning units. His job involves climbing onto homeowners’ roofs or in their attics, where temperatures can be 15 degrees warmer.

“It is brutal,” Santos said, adding that not everyone can work in the heat. “I’m not Superman, but I do, I do take care of myself when I’m in the heat.”

Santos wears long-sleeve shirts and hoodies to protect himself from the sun, drinks lots of water with electrolytes to stay hydrated and takes small breaks to cool down. He encouraged people who work outside to do the same.

“You want to get home to your family safe,” Santos said.

There might be some relief in the central U.S. toward next weekend, but even that might be temporary, Oravec said.

Some areas will be spared. The Mid-Atlantic and Northeast should avoid the extreme heat, as will much of the Pacific Northwest.

This is the latest miserable stretch of weather during a summer that has already had a lot of it. The eastern U.S. endured an unbearably hot early July that forced communities to cancel Independence Day celebrations and disrupted the country’s 250th anniversary. Another heat wave in mid-July hit the Southwest and Great Plains.

It’s not just the United States: A June heat wave devastated Europe, with France recording at least 5,700 more deaths than usual.

On Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, fans for the Brickyard 400 will be offered water refill stations and places to get cool, and packed coolers will be allowed. In Denver, recreation centers will set aside areas for people to get out of the heat and in front of air conditioning.

Authorities warned that this heat dome will be dangerous. Children and older adults, along with people with medical conditions, are especially at risk of serious conditions including heat stroke. The basics are important: Seek out air conditioning or a cooling center, and make sure to drink enough water and limit time under the direct sun.

The weather will shift somewhat through the week, with the worst pockets of heat becoming particularly severe across Texas and parts of the Gulf Coast by Wednesday.

It can be difficult to know exactly how climate change contributes to particular events in real time. But rising carbon dioxide levels from burning fossil fuels makes it more likely that hotter weather becomes more frequent and extreme, said Andy Pershing, chief program officer at Climate Central, a climate change communications nonprofit.

“We are experiencing exactly what the climate models in the 1990s said we should experience now. That is more frequent, more severe heat waves, bigger temperature anomalies, more humidity, higher overnight temperatures,” Pershing said. “These are all part and parcel of the climate story.”

The continental U.S. endured the second-hottest first half of the year on record in 2026, according to average temperature tracking by the National Centers for Environmental Information. June itself was the 18th warmest.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Jessica Hill in Las Vegas contributed.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A police shooting in Wisconsin’s progressive capital city this week put the spotlight on persistent and deep racial divisions, prompting cancellations and other changes to popular summertime events as protesters said they were determined to continue public pressure for change in Madison.

Corey Ruiz, who is identified as Black or Latino in Wisconsin court records, was shot and killed by a Madison police officer on Wednesday after a brief scuffle at an intersection in the city’s most liberal neighborhood just yards away from a popular 52-year-old food co-op.

It marks the third time since 2012 that Madison police have shot and killed someone in the same neighborhood. The shooting has sparked renewed calls for police reforms and forced the city to once again reckon with calls from the Black community to address racial justice issues.

Pressure from protesters, and sympathy for their cause, has also led to the cancellation or disruption of many of Madison’s signature summertime events.

“Our community has spoken loud and clear: this is NOT business as usual,” Black activist Clyde Mayberry posted on Facebook on Friday amid a string of cancellations. “Your decisions have helped ensure that this city continues to acknowledge the pain, the loss, and the call for accountability.”

Protesters took to the streets hours after the shooting, disrupting a popular Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra outdoor concert at the state Capitol that attracts about 30,000 every week in the summer.

The scene captures a familiar divide in Madison, a city that is more diverse than the state overall but still 70% white. Protesters, many of whom were Black, stood over white concert attendees sitting at tables near the stage that cost as much as $1,800 to rent for the night.

Concert organizers canceled the event.

Threats of a protest on Thursday led the city to postpone the grand opening of a new public market, just a few blocks away from where the shooting occurred. A popular neighborhood festival near the shooting called AtwoodFest, scheduled to begin on Saturday, was also canceled in the face of potential protests.

“Our community and our Marquette neighbors witnessed another horrific officer-involved shooting just blocks from our festival grounds, leaving us in deep pain and justified anger,” organizers of the festival wrote. “In acknowledgment of what has happened far too often in our community and our country as a whole, this year’s AtwoodFest, themed ‘The Heartbeat of the Neighborhood,’ is canceled.”

And on Saturday, the popular downtown farmers market that attracts about 20,000 people each week around the Capitol building, shut down nearly four hours earlier than usual in solidarity with protesters.

“We mourn with our community,” market organizers posted on social media. “And we agree – business cannot proceed as usual.”

A handful of protesters showed up at the Capitol as vendors were breaking down their booths at around 10 a.m.

“No one should be thinking this is just another Saturday,” said Reba Bergmann, who sat with Lilly Nimmer holding a sign that said “Justice for Corey.”

“It’s not life as normal,” Nimmer said. “We should be more mad. We should stand up for what we believe in.”

Charles Alt, 30, supported the decision to close down early.

“It’s important to keep focus on the real tragedy, which is that someone got killed,” said Alt, who was shopping at the market. “Missing some market time, that’s sad, but that’s not what’s important.”

But Rodney Hathaway, who was visiting Madison from Milwaukee, was caught off guard by the market’s early closure.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “This is peoples’ livelihoods. It’s just unfortunate. We have such a short summer season for these people to sell their wares.”

Investigations into the shooting continue. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Ruiz family, said on Friday at a new conference in the Capitol that the officer who fired the shots should face criminal charges.

Madison Police Chief John Patterson, who is white, has tried to calm tensions, even allowing protesters to overtake a news conference that he was leading along with the mayor inside the police department’s downtown headquarters on Thursday.

Patterson took questions from angry protesters, one of whom held a sign just feet away from the chief that said “corrupt cops deserve to die too.” After one protester hurled an insult at Patterson, the chief calmly responded, “I appreciate you being here.”

July 25 (Reuters) – The U.S. Interior Department said on Saturday that a fourth wildland firefighter has died from injuries sustained while responding to the Knowles Fire last month in western Colorado.

The agency identified him as Nathan Matthews, a 43-year-old from Lincoln, Nebraska. Here are some details: 

• Three firefighters died when fire overran their position on June 27 southwest of Loma, Colorado. Matthews was one of those wounded in the blaze.

• The burnover, when a fire overtakes wildland firefighters, was the deadliest such incident since the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona, when 19 firefighters died.

• Wildland firefighters specialize in fighting fires in natural areas such as forests or grasslands.

• The United States is facing a worse-than-average year for wildfires after the lowest snowpack on record in the U.S. West exacerbated drought conditions that fuel blazes.

• U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz told Congress on Wednesday his agency is pursuing a “full suppression” strategy of containing all fires while they are still small rather than letting some naturally ignited blazes burn for ecological benefits.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay and Raphael SatterEditing by Rod Nickel)

As dry, windy weather fueled a big wildfire near a city in central Oregon, a fourth firefighter died after he and several colleagues last month were overcome by a fast-moving wildfire near the Colorado-Utah border.

Nathan Matthews, 43, of Lincoln, Nebraska, died Friday, the federal Interior Department said in a release Saturday.

Meanwhile, several fierce wildfires in a summer of big ones continued burning across the western U.S.

One of the worst — and the one deemed top priority for firefighting efforts — was just a few miles (5 kilometers) north of Sisters, a central Oregon city of about 3,000 people.

Winds gusting up to 30 mph (50 kilometers per hour) threatened to push flames into new areas. Firefighters made progress keeping the fire in check, however, and officials were optimistic the city would be in the clear once the worst of the wind died down Sunday.

“It’s going to take a while to put it out entirely. But as long as it stops moving, I think that’ll get people to relax a little bit,” Sisters Mayor Jennifer Letz said.

As of Saturday, the lightning-caused fire had burned about 40 square miles (105 square kilometers) and was 5% contained. About 30 people evacuated from areas north of Sisters were in a shelter at the local high school, with about as many more staying in recreational vehicles parked outside, Letz said.

The city wasn’t in any immediate danger, and business was carrying on like usual, Letz said.

“We’re not necessarily asking everybody to come to Sisters. But it’s safe here,” said Letz.

Months of dry weather, a record lack of snow in some areas, hot spells and erratic winds have contributed to the blazes in Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado and elsewhere this summer.

In Canada, 926 fires were burning Saturday, including 82 deemed out of control, according to the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System.

About 300 aircraft and 5,300 people were involved in fighting the fires. They included 133 in northwestern Ontario alone, according to the province’s Aviation, Forest Fire and Emergency Services agency.

The biggest in Ontario had covered some 1,200 square miles (3,200 square kilometers).

The U.S. firefighter who died was among a group that had deployed tentlike emergency shelters to try to shield themselves when flames closed in June 27. Three of them died at the scene: Emily Barker, 38; Nick Hutcherson, 27; and Sydney Watson, 26.

They were part of a Helitack crew — a group that gets dropped by helicopter into remote areas to try to squelch new, rapidly expanding fires — that had been deployed in Mesa County, Colorado, west of the city of Grand Junction.

Matthews and another firefighter were taken for medical treatment. The Interior Department declined Saturday to discuss their treatment, Matthews’ career or the surviving firefighter’s current condition.

Watson, Hutcherson and Barker were honored at a memorial service earlier this month. Memorial arrangements for Matthews weren’t yet announced.

CAIRO (AP) — Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said Saturday that they fired missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia in response to Saudi airstrikes on the strategic Red Sea city of Hodeida, in an escalation over vital shipping routes in the Middle East while the United States and Iran vie for control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the Houthis’ military spokesperson, said in a prerecorded statement that the attack targeted facilities in the Red Sea cities of Yanbu and Jizan that belong to Aramco, the world’s largest oil company.

Saudi Arabia’s civil defense said alerts sounded multiple times early Saturday in both cities, but the kingdom didn’t comment further.

There were no reported strikes overnight in Iran, in an apparent break from nearly two weeks of consecutive nights of U.S. attacks.

The Houthis have said they would close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi-linked shipping in retaliation for the kingdom’s blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on the international airport in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, Sanaa.

“Nothing short of ending the aggression and lifting the blockade, otherwise, it’s all illusion and mirage,” Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi-led Supreme Political Council governing rebel-controlled territories in Yemen, said of what it would take for the Houthis to not blockade the Bab-El-Mandeb.

That strait, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is a vital shipping chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Around 12% of the world’s trade, including a quarter of its container traffic, passes through the narrows.

The Houthis targeted two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea this week. In response, Saudi Arabia struck Hodeida, the Saudi-led coalition opposing the rebels said Saturday. The strikes late Friday hit the port and the state-run telecommunications corporation, injuring two people, said Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry.

The Saudi-led coalition said it didn’t hit the port but struck “legitimate military targets” in Hodeida province that “were linked to threats to commercial vessels in the Red Sea.”

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called for “diplomacy and dialogue” to solve the Yemen conflict without “military confrontations” in an interview published Saturday by the state-run newspaper called Iran.

“Iran had a peaceful night,” Hossein Kermanpour, a spokesperson for Iran’s Health Ministry, posted on X. U.S. Central Command didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Unlike the previous 13 nights, it didn’t announce new strikes.

But Iran’s foreign ministry condemned what it called a Ukrainian attack Saturday on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, saying one person was killed and another was hurt and calling it an act of aggression.

In a separate statement, Araghchi said he spoke with European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas about it and that Tehran demanded a response. Ukraine’s diplomatic representative to Iran was summoned, Iranian state media reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier said on X that Ukraine “achieved very strong results with long‑range strikes in the Caspian Sea — including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran.”

While efforts at mediation between the U.S. and Iran continue, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to travel to the United States next week and meet with President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday, his office said Friday. They last met in Washington in February, weeks before they launched the war.

A tenuous ceasefire that halted major operations for weeks has seemed to unravel this month. The U.S. accused Iran of striking three ships in the Strait of Hormuz and responded by striking dozens of targets in Iran, which retaliated by firing at U.S.-allied Gulf Arab states.

The U.S. military has renewed its blockade of Iran’s ports. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has advised residents of neighboring countries to stay away from bases with U.S. troops.

The war has killed more than 3,400 people in Iran, according to its Health Ministry. Eighteen U.S. service members, 24 civilians in Israel and smaller numbers of civilians including foreign workers and mariners have been reportedly killed across the region.

In Lebanon, more than 4,000 people have been killed since Iran-backed Hezbollah militants fired at Israel in support of the Islamic Republic two days after the war began and Israel responded with strikes and ground forces. Thirty-eight Israeli troops have also died.

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Dell’Orto reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press reporter Cara Anna in Lowville, New York, contributed to this report.

When Damarion Spann, 18, saw an Instagram flier calling for a massive gathering on a beach near downtown Chicago, he immediately wanted to go. Thousands of others joined him that night on the sand, blasting music and dancing.

The cultural trend of so-called teen takeovers has popped up across the U.S. in recent years, influencing local policing and national politics. The events, often hyped online and captured in videos on social media, have led to shootings, theft and vandalism. City officials and police are concerned about an increase over the summer, and are under pressure to prevent similar gatherings or to punish those who participate.

Over the July 4 holiday weekend, several thousand young people converged in two spots in Raleigh, North Carolina, police said. Nine people, including an adult who was not part of the gatherings, were shot and wounded.

There were also takeovers in Pensacola, Florida, where a 19-year-old was shot and killed; and Newport Beach, California, where more than 400 were arrested after the police chief said teens launched “explosive mortars and other projectiles” at officers ordering them to disperse.

But Spann and other teens say that the events are largely misunderstood. They point to formal curfews or limits on group size at malls and movie theaters that have made it harder for teens to gather, exacerbating a feeling of disconnection they trace back to remote learning during the coronavirus pandemic.

Communities and police across the country are trying to identify organizers, fine parents of those involved and impose curfews.

In Detroit, officials say they “thwarted” 19 gatherings so far this year by monitoring time and location changes as young people coordinated across social media, said Teferi Brent, director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood and Community Safety.

“We have eyes on all the behaviors and activities of those who have expressed interest in trying to take over and we have done a good job of being way ahead of the curve and being able to prevent a lot of these things,” Brent said.

Alderperson Jessie Fuentes, who chairs the Chicago City Council’s subcommittee on Youth Employment, said her office has tried to find solutions that don’t rely exclusively on police and instead coordinate with parents and community members to prevent conflict or crimes.

Blue Island, a south Chicago suburb, has taken another tact: to fine parents or guardians and use the funds to cover clean up after events. That might include debris left behind or other damages like cars dented from scores of teens clambering over them while fleeing police.

Other places have taken harsher approaches, as in Florida, where state officials said prosecutors can apply racketeering laws, typically targeting criminal gangs or organized crime, if takeovers appear to be facilitated by “an organized network.”

But some have pushed back on the idea that the threat of harsh legal punishment could prevent the gatherings in the first place.

“What we know about adolescent brain development is that the stakes are not going to be what prevents a young person from engaging in risky behavior,” said Melissa Milchman, the executive director for the nonpartisan organization the Coalition for Juvenile Justice. Milchman added that mass arrests often ensnare those who are going for innocent fun without preventing others from breaking the law.

For Spann, the recent media attention on the events has largely failed to capture the appeal to young people.

“You feel like a young person who has freedom, who’s not being held to something,” said Spann, who is Black. At the event he went to, he was able to catch up with people he hadn’t seen since 8th grade.

He said that the events are a direct result of a cascade of school closures across Black neighborhoods over the past couple decades in Chicago. To deter people from gathering even at basketball courts, where there were sometimes fights, officials have removed the nets. Spann said that his mom, who grew up in the same neighborhood, frequently talks about how much easier it used to be to hang out outside without a fear of gun violence.

When Spann goes to malls in more affluent areas with his mostly Black group of friends, shoppers often stare and security guards question them. To avoid scrutiny, Spann and his friends sometimes sneak into outdoor shopping centers or areas downtown in smaller groups at staggered times.

By contrast, in the same spaces, Spann said, “If I’m with my white friends, I feel like I belong.”

Despite the physical dangers that come with takeovers and the threat of getting a ticket or even arrested, the allure is strong, according to Jeffrey Bernstein, a psychologist and author.

“The kids still do it because they feel like it’s their second family,” which he said “really takes over as their primary sense of connection.”

“They’re getting things from their peers that they can’t get from their parents.”

Some cities have tried to meet that need head-on, instead of cracking down with law enforcement.

In St. Louis, officers have started to bring some teens to community centers instead of jails so their parents can pick them up, and in Baltimore, officials have tried leaning on public schools to provide alternative programming. In Chicago, Spann received a $11,000 grant from the city and partnering nonprofits to host an event for his peers at the end of the summer, in an effort to give his community more places to gather.

In April, Daveion Page, a 16-year-old in Detroit, was bored. He turned to his phone, creating a post on social media promoting a teen takeover. Hundreds of teens soon flocked to a site downtown and fights broke out by the end of the night. At another takeover in May, a 14-year-old was shot and wounded.

After the Detroit event in April, Page told reporters that he didn’t intend for the takeover he organized to result in violence.

“I just wanted to get out of the house, have fun, enjoy time with my family and my homeboys and my homegirls, too,” said Page, who was flanked by Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield and other city officials at a news conference.

He told city officials that young people might respond if there were more safe places to gather.

Before the takeovers, there were already plans to use $1.5 million from the city’s budget for summer programming and to support violence prevention programs. In response to the takeovers, the city has launched an office of youth affairs, met and listened to students at schools, and created a youth advisory board comprised of teens and young adults.

“We have brought them to the table and made them a part of our structure in regards to identifying what the needs and concerns are of the young people in the city,” Brent said.

In Detroit, a late-night basketball league has formed as an alternative hangout spot for teens and young adults. Jerseys and sneakers are provided by the city.

“This league just helps me find something to do,” Cameron Chandler, 21, said while playing basketball at the recreation center.

He’s never participated in a takeover, but recently after practice, he stumbled on one near his home.

“There were a lot of cops and some people got arrested,” Chandler said. “You just have to think, ‘that could easily be me.’”

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Riddle reported from Los Angeles. Williams reported from Detroit.

EAGLE PASS, Texas (AP) — The black campaign bus with “Talarico for Texas” across its side came to a steaming stop at Memo’s Restaurant along the U.S.-Mexico border. Bibi Valdez’s eyes lit up. She marched in heels over to the bus, phone camera trained on its door, chatting about the locals whose political leanings shifted two years ago.

“A lot of people, for some reason, especially the Hispanics, changed to Republican,” she said as security guards created space for James Talarico, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate. “I just don’t see what the logic was.”

Talarico is on a quest to become the first Democrat to win a statewide election in Texas since 1994. Memo’s Restaurant was one stop on a winding trip along the border this month, where he was searching for support from the predominantly Hispanic counties that became national political curiosities after the 2024 election.

Once consistently Democratic, most had voted for Republican President Donald Trump, some by a lot, as Hispanic voters shifted to the right nationally. Along this stretch of border, residents and elected leaders alike tend to point to two reasons: the rise in both border crossings and everyday prices. One dropped dramatically since 2024, and it wasn’t the cost of eggs.

While Trump has tamped down on illegal border crossings — once Democrats’ Achilles’ heel — the cost of living is still high, giving Talarico a topic he’s been hitting on repeat as he campaigns against Republican Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general.

Whether Talarico’s message can sway Hispanic voters who moved to the GOP to return to the Democratic Party will help decide the Senate race, and could determine whether Democrats can win control of the Senate.

So Talarico, a former middle school teacher and state lawmaker, was taking time to shake hands and pose for photos with people outside Memo’s Restaurant, which was at capacity with people wanting to see him. Valdez, waiting her turn, pondered aloud why those she knew had voted Republican.

“They thought a better economy, but obviously it didn’t,” she said, before beaming for a photo with the candidate.

Inside Memo’s Restaurant, the crowd was revved up, shoulder to shoulder, below beating fans, as Talarico opened his speech.

“So many politicians show up at the border to demonize and weaponize,” Talarico said. “We are doing the opposite. We are showing the beauty of our border communities.”

It was one of the few times Talarico referenced the border during his stop, turning instead to an economy he says is rigged to help “mega donors” and criticizing Paxton as a “puppet politician” for the wealthy.

“We can’t get ahead no matter how hard we work, no matter how much we save, because the system is rigged against us,” he said.

Talarico is not the first Democratic Senate candidate in recent years to draw crowds and give the party hope of winning in the reliably Republican state. Beto O’Rourke went on a similar mission in 2018 and failed.

Republicans remain confident about Texas, but Democrats see some reason for optimism.

While Trump gained with Hispanic voters in 2024, opinions of the president have fallen among Hispanics overall since he took office, according to AP-NORC polling. Only 29% of Hispanic adults nationally approved of his performance as president in a June AP-NORC poll, an apparent drop from 41% at the start of his second term.

In communities along the Rio Grande, which defines the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, the ebb and flow of migrants isn’t an abstract political issue. People here still recall — often with empathy — hundreds huddled in reflective emergency blankets under a bridge, and the hit to local businesses and town coffers.

Little aid, many said, came from President Joe Biden’s administration.

“It was a nightmare because of him. Now, you don’t see no immigrants,” said Hector Flores, 72, sitting with his two friends at a McDonald’s in Maverick County, about an hour’s drive south of Memo’s Restaurant.

Maverick County had one of the sharpest swings toward Trump than any county in the country in 2024, from backing Biden by 10 percentage points in 2020 to supporting Trump by 19.

The three men of varying political persuasions weren’t following the Senate race particularly closely. But the issues on their minds were the same ones Talarico and Paxton have been talking about, from high costs to ICE and social issues.

Under past presidents, costs were OK, said Eduardo “Lalo” Riojas, 73, who sat next to Flores. Now, “You go down to HEB to buy merchandise, groceries,” he said, trailing off without the right English word.

“Expensive,” Flores offered.

“Yeah,” said Riojas, who supports Talarico. “Mr. Trump is crazy.”

For Flores, who works with orphanages across the border in Mexico, those high prices aren’t making him question his Republican vote. Nor is he politically moved by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s sometimes lethal operations in the interior, which have ruffled some Trump supporters, both Hispanic and otherwise.

“I love ICE,” said Flores.

Mike Garcia, 76, who sat across from the two and said he voted for Trump three times in a row, was more wary.

“The ones they’re killing, some of them, been here in the United States for years and years and got children,” Garcia said.

He said Paxton, who has been impeached, then acquitted, and faced allegations of corruption and extramarital affairs, has a “horrible reputation.” But he also is bothered by comments Talarico has made about God’s gender, a statement Paxton has used to attack his opponent as he appeals to Texas voters’ conservative values.

Garcia still didn’t know which candidate he’ll support come November.

Paxton has leaned more on immigration enforcement as an issue, including during his own border stop in the Rio Grande Valley.

Speaking in a circle of supporters in McAllen, Paxton first plugged the lawsuits he filed against the Biden administration over immigration enforcement, and his endorsement from the National Border Patrol Council.

He then returned to some of his core attacks on Talarico, including repeating the Democrat’s statements that “God is nonbinary,” which Talarico — a seminary student — said on the Texas House floor several years ago, citing Scripture.

His campaign’s director of Hispanic outreach said Paxton has delivered what Hispanics want, including taking on criminals and companies that gouge consumers, and attacked Talarico as “wimpy.”

“Hispanics know Ken Paxton is a strong man who shares our values, and we see in James Talarico a wimpy liberal,” Alex Alarcon said. “No one looks at him and thinks, now there’s a guy who’ll protect us from the cartels.”

Talarico didn’t avoid talk about immigration enforcement completely during his border tour.

At a news conference, he stood in Sanderson, Texas, alongside local sheriffs to pledge investment in surveillance tech to catch illegal crossings and to hire more border patrol agents and immigration judges.

Later, after a town hall where voters aired their frustrations over affording rent, property taxes and healthcare, Talarico spoke with The Associated Press about what’s been happening here.

“The Biden administration failed border communities like this, and so people were feeling disillusioned. They were open to an alternative and Republicans came down here with some big promises,” he said.

Now, “they’re seeing a lot of those promises weren’t kept.”

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Associated Press journalist Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House leaders sent lawmakers home for summer campaigning after one of the rockiest sessions in recent memory as voters decide which party to put in power in Congress for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term.

For those seeking to stay in office, particularly the newest members, it can be a tough sell.

“I only know a dysfunctional Congress,” said Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, a freshman from Virginia.

The Democrat said it’s best to campaign on his own record delivering for constituents, rather than on the performance of Congress, as his party tries to wrest control from the Republicans.

“It’s virtually impossible to sell the performance of Congress to the American people because Congress is such an easy punching bag,” he said. “And this particular Congress has been ceding too much of its authority to the executive branch.”

He said, “I tell people to sell yourself and what you’ve tried to do.”

Yet Republican Rep. Brandon Gill, a freshman from Texas who has emerged as one of the party’s rising figures, particularly on Trump’s hard-line immigration enforcement agenda, argued there’s plenty to show to voters back home.

“We’ve gotten a lot done,” he said

“Cutting taxes across the board, over $100 billion for border security, repealing half the Green New Deal, the biggest mandatory spending reform in history — pretty historic stuff,” he said.

“Everybody always wants Congress to move faster than it does, but we’ve been extremely productive.”

Control of Congress is often an afterthought in presidential election years when the White House is at stake. But in the midterms, when lawmakers face voters as they will this fall, the races largely become a referendum on the party in power.

Republicans have history against running against them, as the president’s party often encounters losses during the midterm elections — a “thumping,” as George W. Bush put it, a “shellacking” as Barack Obama said — and a pendulum nation swings.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is about to embark on a cross-country trek to raise millions of dollars for his party and visit lawmakers’ home districts, remains bullish that Republicans will not only keep their House majority control — but grow their numbers.

“This week we continued to deliver for the people, and we’re going to continue that straight through the end of this year,” Johnson said after a flurry of legislating before sending lawmakers home for summer.

Republicans in a single day adopted a budget resolution seeking $95 billion for the Iran war and other priorities; advanced a $1 trillion Pentagon bill renaming it the Department of War; and approved legislation to clamp down on stock trading in Congress, all over Democratic objections.

“We’re going to run through the tape,” Johnson said.

Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is in line to become House speaker if his party wins control, will launch “100 Days of Action” on Sunday as he works to take the majority and impose a check on Trump’s White House.

“It’s not going to be easy, right?” Jeffries told reporters. “No one’s going to give it to us. We have to take it in a way that is consistent with the values of the American people.”

With its 435 seats being contested, control of the House often narrows to the tiniest slice of the country.

Fewer than 20 seats are considered genuine toss-ups, according to analysts. The rest are considered safer seats, drawn with map lines designed to favor one party over the other — including new maps still being drawn to eliminate Black majority districts largely in the Deep South after a landmark Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act.

Millions of dollars are being spent that will make the difference between a return of the GOP majority eyeing more budget cuts or a new Democratic agenda that is expected to launch vast oversight and investigations into the Trump administration.

Even as he openly pines for a normal Congress, Johnson believes the country needs a steady hand at the wheel as he partners with the White House on Trump’s priorities — and fend off Democratic investigations and the threat of impeachment.

“We are increasingly confident that we will hold and grow this majority in the House — and we must,” he said.

Democrats under Jeffries make the case that Trump and the Republicans in charge have done nothing for Americans struggling with high costs of living. Instead, they say Trump waged war against Iran that sent gas prices soaring, slapped tariffs on goods that are spiking prices, deported longtime immigrants and slashed health care and food aid as part of Trump’s big tax cuts bill last summer.

“They’re flailing all over the place,” Jeffries said.

Jeffries vowed that Democrats “will hold the crooks accountable” on a number of issues, including the Trump family’s business dealings.

Johnson raises the specter of a mid-20th-century-style communist threat if Democrats win control with a new generation of far-left progressive candidates, some backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.

“We have been saying that this is an election that’s shaping up as a contest between common sense and crazy,” he said. Now, he said, it’s “common sense versus communism.”

Jeffries brushes past such warnings as unserious. “House Democrats aren’t a cult,” he said, a criticism his party often lobs at Trump’s backers in Congress. “We’re a coalition of people, public servants, who are committed to getting things done.”

One of the newest lawmakers, Rep. James Gallagher, R-Calif., said he’s just trying to focus on the issues important to constituents back home.

“We’re in a time where there’s a lot of division, unfortunately,” he said. “And I think one key is like, Hey, trying to bring people together to solve problems for Americans, right?”