Harrowing stories of rescue emerge from Texas floods as crews search for over 160 reported missing

HUNT, Texas (AP) — In the frantic hours after a wall of water engulfed camps and homes in Texas, a police officer who was trapped himself spotted dozens of people stranded on roofs and waded out to bring them to safety, a fellow officer said Wednesday.

Another off-duty officer tied a garden hose around his waist so he could reach two people clinging to a tree above swirling floodwaters, Kerrville officer Jonathan Lamb said, describing another harrowing rescue.

"This tragedy, as horrific as it is, could have been so much worse,” Lamb told a news conference, crediting first responders and volunteers with saving lives and knocking on doors to evacuate residents during the flash floods on the July Fourth holiday.

More than 160 people still are believed to be missing, and at least 118 have died in the floods that laid waste to the Hill Country region of Texas. The large number of missing people suggests that the full extent of the catastrophe is still unclear five days after the disaster.

The floods are now the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since 1976, when Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon flooded, killing 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections.

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Trump tariffs goods from Brazil at 50%, citing 'witch hunt' trial against country's former president

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump singled out Brazil for import taxes of 50% on Wednesday for its treatment of its former president, Jair Bolsonaro, showing that personal grudges rather than simple economics are a driving force in the U.S. leader's use of tariffs.

Trump avoided his standard form letter with Brazil, specifically tying his tariffs to the trial of Bolsonaro, who is charged with trying to overturn his 2022 election loss. Trump has described Bolsonaro as a friend and hosted the former Brazilian president at his Mar-a-Lago resort when both were in power in 2020.

“This Trial should not be taking place,” Trump wrote in the letter posted on Truth Social. “It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!”

There is a sense of kinship as Trump was indicted in 2023 for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The U.S. president addressed his tariff letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who bested Bolsonaro in 2022.

Lula responded in a forceful statement that said Trump's tariffs would trigger the country's economic reciprocity law, which allows trade, investment and intellectual property agreements to be suspended against countries that harm Brazil's competitiveness.

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Biden's former doctor refuses to answer questions in House Republican probe

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s former White House physician refused on Wednesday to answer questions as part of the House Republican investigation into Biden’s health in office.

Dr. Kevin O’Connor invoked his rights under the Fifth Amendment during a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee, his attorney and lawmakers said.

Republicans on the Oversight Committee subpoenaed O'Connor last month as part of a their sweeping investigation into Biden’s health and his mental fitness as president. They claim some policies carried out during Biden's term through the use of the White House autopen may be illegitimate if it's proven the Democrat was mentally incapacitated for some of his term.

Biden has strongly denied that he was not in a right state of mind at any point while in office, calling the claims “ridiculous and false.”

David Schertler, one of O’Connor’s lawyers, said the doctor had “no choice” but to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights in testimony before the committee. Schertler cited both O'Connor's responsibilities to protect patient privacy as a doctor and the Justice Department's ongoing investigation into Biden's use of the autopen.

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The US is having its worst year for measles in more than three decades

The U.S. is having its worst year for measles spread in more than three decades, and the year is only half over.

The national case count reached 1,288 on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though public health experts say the true figure may be higher.

The CDC's count is 14 more than 2019, when America almost lost its status of having eliminated the vaccine-preventable illness — something that could happen this year if the virus spreads without stopping for 12 months. But the U.S. is far from 1991, when there were 9,643 confirmed cases.

In a short statement, the federal government said that the CDC “continues to recommend (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccines as the best way to protect against measles.” It also said it is “supporting community efforts” to tamp down ongoing outbreaks as requested.

Fourteen states have active outbreaks; four other states' outbreaks have ended. The largest outbreak started five months ago in undervaccinated communities in West Texas. Three people have died — two children in Texas and an adult in New Mexico — and dozens of people have been hospitalized across the U.S.

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Trump administration resumes sending some weapons to Ukraine after Pentagon pause

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, a week after the Pentagon had directed that some deliveries be paused, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The weapons heading into Ukraine include 155 mm munitions and precision-guided rockets known as GMLRS, two officials told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to provide details that had not been announced publicly. It’s unclear exactly when the weapons started moving.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the pause on some shipments last week to allow the Pentagon to assess its weapons stockpiles, in a move that caught the White House by surprise.

A White House official speaking Wednesday on the condition of anonymity said there was never a “pause” in shipments, but a review to ensure U.S. military support aligns with its defense strategy. The official said the Pentagon never announced a pause.

In a press briefing with reporters last week, though, Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said he could not “go into detail about what weapons were paused and when and what we’re providing and when. Ultimately, the president and the secretary will make those decisions about what happens with those weapon systems.”

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Flash flooding that killed 3 leaves New Mexico village heartbroken, anxious as cleanup begins

RUIDOSO, N.M. (AP) — Broken tree limbs, twisted metal, crumpled cars and muddy debris remained Wednesday as crews worked to clear roads and culverts in the wake of a flash flood that descended upon the New Mexico mountain community of Ruidoso, killing three people and damaging dozens of homes.

An intense bout of monsoon rains set the disaster in motion Tuesday. Water rushed from the surrounding mountainside, overwhelming the Rio Ruidoso and taking with it a man and two children from an RV park along the river. The bodies were found downstream during search and rescue efforts.

The children — a 4-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy — had been camping with their parents when they were swept away. The father and mother were being treated for injuries sustained in the flooding at a hospital in Texas, according to officials at Fort Bliss, where the father is stationed.

Mayor Lynn Crawford said hearts are broken over the lives lost and stomachs are in knots as residents begin to take stock of the damage.

A popular summer retreat, Ruidoso is no stranger to tragedy. It has spent a year rebuilding following destructive wildfires last summer and the flooding that followed.

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AI kingpin Nvidia crowned as first public company with a $4 trillion valuation

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Silicon Valley chipmaker Nvidia on Wednesday became the first publicly traded company to surpass a $4 trillion market valuation, putting the latest exclamation point on the investor frenzy surrounding an artificial intelligence boom powered by its industry-leading processors.

Although Nvidia's market value dipped back below $4 trillion by the time the stock market closed, reaching the milestone highlighted the upheaval being unleashed by an AI craze that's widely viewed as the biggest tectonic shift in technology since Apple co—founder Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone 18 years ago. Underscoring the changing of the guard, AI bellwether Nvidia is now worth $900 billion more than Apple, which rode the iPhone's success to become the first publicly traded company to valued at $1 trillion, $2 trillion and eventually, $3 trillion.

Nvidia's rise as come as Apple has struggled to deliver on its ambitions to infuse the iPhone and other products with more AI with an array of new features that included a more than year-old promise to smarten up its often bumbling virtual assistant Apple acknowledged last month that delivering on its AI vision is going to take until at least next year, leading some industry analysts to wonder if the company will have to acquire an AI start-up to regain momentum.

In the meantime, former Apple design guru Jony Ive has joined forces with OpenAI to work on a wearable AI device that could challenge the iPhone while Nvidia has been scrambling to meet the feverish demand for its specialized chips that power the energy-intensive data centers underlying artificial intelligence.

And tech giants Microsoft, Amazon, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook parent Meta Platforms are upping the AI ante too, collectively budgeting about $325 billion for investments in the technology this year — with a significant amount of that money likely to flow into Nvidia's coffers.

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Israeli strikes kill 40 in Gaza, with no sign of a breakthrough after Trump's talks with Netanyahu

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed at least 40 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including 10 members of a family sheltering in a tent, hospital officials said Wednesday. The strikes came as U.S. President Donald Trump pushed for a ceasefire that might end the war and free dozens of Israeli hostages.

Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the second time in two days at the White House on Tuesday evening, but there was no sign of a breakthrough.

Netanyahu has vowed to continue the 21-month war until Hamas is destroyed, while the militant group has said it will only release the remaining hostages in return for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis said the dead included 17 women and 10 children. The war has gutted Gaza's health system, with several hospitals taken out of service and leading physicians killed in Israeli strikes.

The Israeli military said it had struck more than 100 targets across Gaza over the past day, including militants, booby-trapped structures, weapons storage facilities, missile launchers and tunnels. Israel accuses Hamas of hiding weapons and fighters among civilians.

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European court finds Russia committed violations in Ukraine and was behind downing Flight MH17

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Europe’s top human rights court delivered damning judgments Wednesday against Russia in four cases brought by Kyiv and the Netherlands accusing Moscow of atrocities in Ukraine dating back more than a decade.

Judges at the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible for widespread violations of international law — from shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014, to the murder, torture, rape, destruction of civilian infrastructure and kidnapping of Ukrainian children after Moscow's full-scale invasion of 2022.

Reading the decisions in a packed courtroom in Strasbourg, Court President Mattias Guyomar said Russian forces breached international humanitarian law in Ukraine by carrying out attacks that “killed and wounded thousands of civilians and created fear and terror.”

The Kremlin said it would ignore the largely symbolic judgment, but Ukraine hailed it as “historic and unprecedented,” saying it was an “undeniable victory” for the embattled country.

The judges found the human rights abuses went beyond any military objective and that Russia used sexual violence as part of a strategy to break Ukrainian morale, the French judge said.

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Russia batters Ukraine with more than 700 drones, the largest barrage of the war, officials say

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired more than 700 attack and decoy drones at Ukraine overnight, topping previous nightly barrages for the third time in two weeks as Moscow intensifies its aerial and ground assault in the three-year war, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.

Russia has recently sought to overwhelm Ukraine's air defenses by launching major attacks that include increasing numbers of decoy drones. The most recent one appeared aimed at disrupting Ukraine’s vital supply of Western weapons.

Lutsk, a city that's home to airfields used by the Ukrainian army, was the hardest hit, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It lies near the border with Poland in western Ukraine, a region that is a crucial hub for receiving foreign military aid.

The attack comes at a time of increased uncertainty over the supply of crucial American weapons and as U.S.-led peace efforts have stalled. Zelenskyy said that the Kremlin was “making a point” with its barrage.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces took aim at Ukrainian air bases and that “all the designated targets have been hit.” Meanwhile, Ukraine fired drones into Russia overnight, killing three people in the Kursk border region, including a 5-year-old boy, the local governor said.

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