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It should be painfully clear that since Donald Trump took office, he has displayed serious deterioration both mentally and physically.

It’s both alarming and troublesome for an American president, as leader of the free world, to be in such a condition. He’s not running the country as he should, and he’s ranting and raving about menial subjects while insulting and demeaning reporters who ask him relevant questions that he refuses to answer — or doesn’t know the answer to.

Congress must perform its constitutional duty and challenge this president, who continues to damage the country, which will take years to repair, if that’s at all possible.

Sandy Shuster, Boynton Beach

The Galleria’s traffic nightmare

Regarding the proposed development of the Galleria mall site in Fort Lauderdale, 3,144 rentals units will be built, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

If every housing unit has one car, there will be 3,144 more cars in the area on a regular basis.

If every unit has two cars, there will be 6,288 more cars. That’s somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 more cars there.

The existing roads cannot handle that many cars. It will be like Aventura Mall with gridlock every day.

Traffic will back up into Coral Ridge, north through Bayview Drive, and onto Sunrise Boulevard going west and Federal Highway (U.S. 1) going north, and onto State Road A1A, going north and south.

Has the developer crunched these numbers?

Anthony Billera, Fort Lauderdale

Spirit of the season

My wish for this holiday season is that people celebrating the teachings of their religion will say many prayers and protest their leaders in government in an effort to stop our current administration and the military from continuing to kill people in the Caribbean with no due process and to stop them from sending ICE to target and terrify communities based on their skin color or their spoken language.

My wish for 2026 is that the majority of people in our country, regardless of political party or religion, follow the religious principle of acting with kindness to repair the world.

I am married to a fisherman. The idea of two people clinging to a sinking boat being murdered instead of rescued hits close to home. Most importantly, it is not in line with the religious instructions I received growing up.

Isn’t saving someone in distress an expression of your love for God?

I will continue to pray, protest and donate to organizations that fight these cruel, evil actions. History tells us clearly that we must speak out for others. If you don’t speak out, then eventually it will hit home. Please listen to your heart.

Candice Clausell, Jupiter

A nagging question Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick addresses Broward Democrats at the Obama Roosevelt Legacy Gala, May 31, 2025. (Jim Rassol/Contributor)

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick represents me in Congress. People are calling for her resignation (because of her indictment for stealing federal disaster funds). The reported facts do not look good, but I’ve never heard her side of the story.

As someone whom she is asking to continue to represent in Congress, I deserve a straight answer: Congresswoman, why did you keep $5,057,850 when you billed the government $50,578.50? And did you use any of that overpayment to fund your 2021 campaign?

Tom Bolf, Plantation

Where’s my monthly check?

Remember Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick’s TV ads regarding giving a certain demographic $1,000 per month for her “People’s Prosperity Plan”?

I’m still waiting.

Sherry Wipplinger, Fort Lauderdale

Please submit a letter to the editor by email to letterstotheeditor@sunsentinel.com or fill out the online form below. Letters may be up to 200 words and must be signed with your email address, city of residence and daytime phone number for verification. Letters will be edited for clarity and length. 

Q: Well, well, well, Kel’el Ware was on the floor and Bam Adebayo was on the bench when the Heat won. What does that tell you, Ira? It tells us that’s when a coach should do it again. – Larry.

A: Look, this is where I could drop in the reality that it was against the Nets, who also were their own worst enemies at the close on Thursday night. But, no, not going to do that, because Kel’el Ware not only played well late in Brooklyn, he also played well early. So, yes, the Heat have to find a way for more Kel’el minutes. Kel’el played 30 Thursday night, which seems reasonable. So it might just come down to having to start him alongside Bam Adebayo. But that leads to the other question of when Tyler Herro returns and who sits. Considering Davion Mitchell sat late in Brooklyn, perhaps that’s your answer.

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• Submit your “Ask Ira” question here!

Q: Now that the rest of the league has figured out the Heat’s new fast-paced offense, do you see Erik Spoelstra reverting back to the old “grind it out, win in the mud” style of play.  – Greg, Jacksonville.

A: Yes. Once the Heat, always the Heat. (Unless the Heat can find enough 3-point shooting to make the “wheel” offense work.) In fact, you already are starting to see the shift in this direction. But just as the Heat have shown a lack of 3-point shooting to sustain their early-season offensive pace, the question is whether the defensive chops are ample enough on this roster to go in a defensive direction. This very much feels like a crossroads.

Q: Ira, I’m wondering what the point is of bouncing the G League players up and down and then not playing them. Wouldn’t it be better to leave them in the G League and let them play? Call them up when really needed. They can only play in so many games with the Heat. Better that they are playing, learning and ready.– Jeff, Rochester, N.Y.

A: Which is fine, until injuries get in the way, such as when Davion Mitchell, Dru Smith and Tyler Herro all were on the injury report at the same time last week, and now Tyler Herro, Pelle Larsson and Nikola Jovic this week. But, yes, an extended run would be highly beneficial for the Heat’s prospects. But the injury situation has dictated otherwise.

Here are the top stories for Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. Get the weather forecast for today here.

SUBSCRIBE NOW: Get our free Morning Update email. Sign up here.

Florida’s new license plate law leads to immigration detention and a wrongful arrest in Broward

New 801-room Omni Fort Lauderdale, one of Broward’s biggest hotels, opens

Florida man executed for killings of man and his girlfriend during home invasion

Florida CFO pitches standardizing budgets of cities and counties

Miami’s Nicklaus Children’s strengthens its push north into Broward and Palm Beach counties

Fed crackdown on Florida nursing school ‘diploma mills’ leads to 3 guilty pleas

Legalized marijuana proposal goes to Florida Supreme Court

New specialty unit to investigate animal abuse underway for PBSO with six arrests

Ask a real estate pro: How can we get neighbor to deal with constantly barking dog?

Miss Manners: What should I say to a snide comment about my Christmas decorations?

Today is Friday, Dec. 19, the 353rd day of 2025. There are 12 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 19, 2008, citing imminent danger to the national economy, President George W. Bush ordered a $17.4 billion emergency bailout of the U.S. auto industry.

Also on this date:

In 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington led his army of more than 12,000 soldiers to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to camp for the winter.

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In 1907, 239 workers died in an explosion at the Darr coal mine near Van Meter, Pennsylvania.

In 1960, fire broke out on the hangar deck of the nearly completed aircraft carrier USS Constellation at the New York Naval Shipyard, killing 50 civilian workers.

In 1972, Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, concluding the Apollo program of crewed lunar landings.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for perjury and obstruction of justice. (He was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.)

In 2011, North Korea announced the death two days earlier of leader Kim Jong Il; North Koreans marched by the thousands to mourn while state media proclaimed his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, as the nation’s new leader.

In 2016, a truck rammed into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin, killing 12 people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State. (The suspected attacker was killed in a police shootout four days later.)

In 2023, a strong earthquake rocked a mountainous region of northwestern China, killing 131 people, reducing homes to rubble and leaving residents outside in below-freezing winter weather.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Tim Reid is 81.
• Singer Janie Fricke is 78.
• Actor Jennifer Beals is 62.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Arvydas Sabonis is 61.
• Olympic skiing gold medalist Alberto Tomba is 59.
• Actor Kristy Swanson is 56.
• Model Tyson Beckford is 55.
• Actor Alyssa Milano is 53.
• Football Hall of Famer Warren Sapp is 53.
• Actor Jake Gyllenhaal (JIH’-lihn-hahl) is 45.
• Actor Annie Murphy is 39.
• Journalist Ronan Farrow is 38.

NEW YORK — Observations and other notes of interest from Thursday night’s 106-95 victory over the Brooklyn Nets:

– Even with a needed win, the math problem continues.

– The Heat simply don’t take enough 3-pointers.

– With the other part of the equation is they don’t have many to make 3-pointers.

– This time 9 of 28.

– Nine.

– With Tyler Herro out, it’s basically Norman Powell or bust.

– Because it’s not Simone Fontecchio and hasn’t been for a while.

– Yes, the occasional Jaime Jaquez Jr. 3-pointer is heartening.

– As is a 41-footer from Powell at the halftime buzzer.

– Or even the now unexpected from Andrew Wiggins.

– But this roster is not built for the 3-point game.

– Or at least not now, with Herro out.

– The Heat need his 3s.

– And could have used Nikola Jovic’s.

– Where is Alec Burks when you need him?

– In this one, it was a case of allowing the Nets to hang around with 3-pointers while the Heat were loading up on twos.

– Somehow it worked.

– This time.

– Next up are the Celtics, who take 43.3 3-pointers per game, third in the NBA.

– The Heat went into Thursday night 21st on that list.

– Don’t expect Herro back Friday.

– And don’t expect another Powell midcourt 3-pointer.

– But the Heat have to find a way to baskets that are worth more.

– Or else the math problem will follow.

– Because up Sunday are the Knicks, who are seventh in the NBA in 3-point attempts per game.

– With Herro missing a fourth game with a toe contusion, the Heat returned to their big lineup, opening with Kel’el Ware, Bam Adebayo, Wiggins, Powell and Davion Mitchell.

– It was Ware’s first start in three games.

– The Nets opened with a lineup of  Egor Dëmin, Terance Mann, Michael Porter Jr., Noah Clowney and Nic Claxton.

– Jaquez, Dru Smith and Kasparas Jakucionis entered together first off the Heat bench.

– With Fontecchio making it nine deep.

– Heat coach Erik Spoelstra entered with the perspective amid the five-game losing streak his team carried into the night.

– “Yeah, we have been working through it,” he said pregame. “Look, this league is not easy. Even when you’re on a stretch like this, we’re closer than what it would appear. But we just haven’t been able to come away with a win, and that’s all we’re focused on.”

– He added, “You always say you want to be worthy enough to win. These practices and sessions together don’t guarantee anything, but you just keep on stacking up good days. You want to have your team feel like they’re worthy enough to win, and I feel like we are. But we have to do the work in the game.”

– Spoelstra said steeling his team remains an ongoing process.

– “We have to have a will to overcome, to handle some things that happen through competition,” he said.

– He added, “We take pride in, as an organization and with this team, to be able to, as competitors, find a way to win. Bottom line.”

– Going in, Spoelstra said of getting the team’s game right on the road, “Anything right now. The focus is just on this game. Just to put it together for 48 minutes, if not more, to be able to do enough to win the game.”

– On that subject, Adebayo said, “This is an important road trip for us. This is a road trip where it can define how we obviously are seeded. But more importantly, how we are about to fight.”

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• ASK IRA: Is it time for Heat to force Adam Silver’s hand with Terry Rozier?

–  Of the Heat needing to get more shots up, Adebayo said, “Just take care of the ball. Taking care of the ball makes it easier for us to get shots on goal. So, yeah, that’s the most important thing.”

– The game gave the Heat a reunion with forward Haywood Highsmith, who was offloaded in the offseason in a salary-cap move.

– Highsmith is recovering from August knee surgery and has yet to play for the Nets.

– Nets coach Jordi Fernandez said Highsmith has been doing on-court work but has yet to begin five-on-five work.

– “He’s in a good place, shows up every day and does his job, is an ultimate pro,” Fernandez said. “But he’s done a good job. And the most important thing to me is his veteran leadership, and how important he is to the rest of the group, especially the young guys.”

– Spoelstra addressed the parting pregame.

– “The fact that he initially joined our team during that COVID year, when we really only had seven players during that Texas trip. He made enough of an impression on us that we gave everything we had as a staff to develop him,” Spoelstra said.

– He added, “He gave us everything he had, and he’s carving out a nice role in this league. It shows a lot of perseverance on his part. He had to go through the G League for several years before he even had that opportunity. You just really respect guys that take that kind of journey.”

– The Nets after the first quarter paid tribute to the victims of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah Massacre. As  part of the solidarity event, a giant “basketball menorah” was lit by the 14-year-old nephew of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was killed in the attack.

NEW YORK — Little has been easy for the Miami Heat lately and little will be easy for the remaining two games of this trip, on Friday night against the Boston Celtics and Sunday night against the New York Knicks.

So if there was a moment for Erik Spoelstra’s team to make things right, to snap a season-worst five-game losing streak, this assuredly was it, against a Brooklyn Nets team that entered 7-18.

But just as the losing streak included a home loss to the now 6-20 Sacramento Kings, nothing was a given about this one.

And nothing was given by the Nets.

So with offense again a struggle, it took a late closing kick before the Heat were able to shed the skid, emerging with a 106-95 victory Thursday night at Barclays Center.

In what stood as a three-point game midway through the final period, the Heat finally put it away even with Bam Adebayo in foul trouble.

“It wasn’t, again, a stellar offensive game for us,” Spoelstra said. “But I think these are important. I think this is different. Our guys wanted it so bad.”

Norman Powell led the Heat with 24 points, with Adebayo contributing a season-high 17 rebounds. The Heat also got 22 points and 12 rebounds from Kel’el Ware, in his return to the starting lineup.

Mostly, the Heat offense was choppy and uneven, a night salvaged only at closing time, with Jaime Jaquez Jr. providing late scoring punch in his 19-point performance.

Those numbers helped the Heat overcome the 28 points of Nets forward Michael Porter Jr.

“Scoring 140 is great. Everybody loves it. It looks good. You’re breaking records, whatever it is,” Powell said of the Heat turning to their defense for salvation. “But we know it’s not going to happen every single night, especially in this league.”

Five Degrees of Heat from Thursday night’s game:

1. Game flow: The Heat pushed to an early 11-point lead, with that advantage down to 30-27 going into the second period. After the Nets briefly took their first lead in the second period, the Heat went into halftime up 54-49.

The Nets also went ahead in the third, before the Heat went into the fourth up 77-73.

It then got further dicey for the Heat when Adebayo was called for his fifth foul with 7:20 to play, leaving Spoelstra no choice but fourth-quarter trial by fire with Ware.

A pair of solid defensive possessions followed, staking the Heat to an 84-77 lead, with a Ware 3-pointer later helping put the Heat up 95-84, matching their largest lead to that point.

2. Ware again: With Tyler Herro missing a fourth game with a toe contusion, the Heat reverted to their big lineup, with Ware back in the opening mix alongside Adebayo, in a first five rounded out by Powell, Davion Mitchell and Andrew Wiggins.

Ware opened 4 of 4 from the field, also with four rebounds in that opening stint, consistently providing a scoring target at the rim.

Ware tied his career-best streak with a blocked shot in a 10th consecutive game, matching a streak from earlier this season.

“I feel like I had to step up,” Ware said of his performance.

Mostly significantly, he succeeded as closer.

“Bam felt that it was good too for Kel’el to have that opportunity to finish a game where there’s a little bit of context to it,” Spoelstra said. “So I think that’s all really important for his growth and improvement.”

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• Winderman’s view: Even in victory, math still not working with Heat’s 3-point game
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3. Bam’s boards: For his part, Adebayo was up to 10 rebounds with 8:04 left in the second period, helping to compensate for a 1-of-7 start from the field.

Adebayo had 11 rebounds by the intermission, but only two points at that stage, missing both of his first-half free throws.

“You’re going to have those types of games,” Adebayo said. “Ball just won’t go in the rim. But it’s one of those games where you find a way to impact winning.”

Adebayo’s second conversion did not come until 53 seconds into the second half, amid yet another uneven offensive performance.

“It just shows you in this modern NBA, you can impact a win without having a 40-point game that everybody notices,” Spoelstra said. “That was about as impactful an eight-point game as you can have in terms of how it impacted winning, but also impacted a locker room.”

4. Powell play: Powell went from the injury report with calf soreness to 10 of the Heat first 19 points, opening 4 of 4 from the field, including 2 of 2 on 3-pointers.

Powell then was up to 15 points by halftime, including a 41-foot heave that beat the halftime buzzer, with three of the Heat’s seven first-half 3-pointers.

“I just take whatever shot is open,” Powell said of his successful heave. “But I always like to give myself a chance.”

Powell scored in double figures for the 25th consecutive game, the second-longest such streak of his career (35 in 2020-21 with Toronto and Portland).

Of Powell’s late relief baskets, Spoelstra said, “There were key moments in that second half where we just had a place for the ball to go.”

5. Jakucionis time: First-round pick Kasparas Jakucionis received the first rotation minutes of his career when he entered with 4:20 to play in the opening period, cast alongside point guard Dru Smith.

Jakucionis’ only previous NBA action had been 54 seconds of mop-up duty in the Dec. 1 home rout of the Los Angeles Clippers.

His first NBA points came on a 3-pointer with 2:10 to play in the opening period.

“I thought he gave us a good boost,” Spoelstra said.

Jakucionis’ night was limited to his 7:30 stint in the first half, with the 3-pointer his lone attempt.

Jakucionis’ time came with the Heat without Nikola Jovic and Pelle Larsson, as well as Herro.

“I’m trying to be ready always and do what I can do, control what I can control,” Jakucionis said. “And every time I have a chance, I’m trying to use it.”

By BEN FINLEY, ERIC TUCKER, KEVIN FREKING and JOSHUA GOODMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s “blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers off Venezuela’s coast is raising new questions about the legality of his military campaign in Latin America, while fueling concerns that the U.S. could be edging closer to war.

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The Trump administration says its blockade is narrowly tailored and not targeting civilians, which would be an illegal act of war. But some experts say seizing sanctioned oil tied to leader Nicolás Maduro could provoke a military response from Venezuela, engaging American forces in a new level of conflict that goes beyond their attacks on alleged drug boats.

“My biggest fear is this is exactly how wars start and how conflicts escalate out of control,” said Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. “And there are no adults in the room with this administration, nor is there consultation with Congress. So I’m very worried.”

Claire Finkelstein, a professor of national security law at the University of Pennsylvania, said the use of such an aggressive tactic without congressional authority stretches the bounds of international law and increasingly looks like a veiled attempt to trigger a Venezuelan response.

“The concern is that we are bootstrapping our way into armed conflict,” Finkelstein said. “We’re upping the ante in order to try to get them to engage in an act of aggression that would then justify an act of self-defense on our part.”

Republicans largely are OK with the campaign

Trump has used the word “blockade” to describe his latest tactic in an escalating pressure campaign against Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the U.S. and now has been accused of using oil profits to fund drug trafficking. While Trump said it only applies to vessels facing U.S. economic penalties, the move has sparked outrage among Democrats and mostly shrugs, if not cheers, from Republicans.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Trump going after sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela is no different from targeting Iranian oil.

“Just like with the Iranian shadow tankers, I have no problem with that,” McCaul said. “They’re circumventing sanctions.”

The president has declared the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels in an effort to reduce the flow of drugs to American communities. U.S. forces have attacked 26 alleged drug-smuggling boats and killed least 99 people since early September. Trump has repeatedly promised that land strikes are next, while linking Maduro to the cartels.

The campaign has drawn scrutiny in Congress, particularly after it was revealed that U.S. forces killed two survivors of a boat attack with a follow-up strike. But Republicans so far have repeatedly declined to require congressional authorization for further military action in the region, blocking Democrats’ war powers resolutions.

Sen. Roger Wicker, Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, has essentially ended his panel’s investigation into the Sept. 2 strike, saying Thursday that the entire campaign is being conducted “on sound legal advice.”

Venezuela pushes back

Trump announced the blockade Tuesday, about a week after U.S. forces seized a sanctioned oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast. The South American country has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and relies heavily on the revenue to support its economy.

The U.S. has been imposing sanctions on Venezuela since 2005 over concerns about corruption as well as criminal and anti-democratic activities. The first Trump administration expanded the penalties to oil, prompting Maduro’s government to rely on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.

The state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., or PDVSA, has been largely locked out of global oil markets by U.S. sanctions. It sells most of its exports at a steep discount on the black market in China.

Nicolás Maduro Guerra, Maduro’s son and a lawmaker, on Thursday decried Trump’s latest tactic and vowed to work with the private sector to limit any impact on the country’s oil-dependent economy. He acknowledged that it won’t be an easy task.

“We value peace and dialogue, but the reality right now is that we are being threatened by the most powerful army in the world, and that’s not something to be taken lightly,” Maduro Guerra said.

Pentagon prefers the term ‘quarantine’

It wasn’t immediately clear how the U.S. planned to enact Trump’s order. But the Navy has 11 ships in the region and a wide complement of aircraft that can monitor marine traffic coming in and out of Venezuela.

Trump may be using the term “blockade,” but the Pentagon says officials prefer “quarantine.”

A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to outline internal reasoning about the policy, said a blockade, under international law, constitutes an act of war requiring formal declaration and enforcement against all incoming and outgoing traffic. A quarantine, however, is a selective, preventive security measure that targets specific, illegal activity.

Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said he was unsure of the legality of Trump’s blockade.

“They’re blockading apparently the oil industry, not the entire country,” said Smith, who represents parts of western Washington state. “How does that change things? I got to talk to some lawyers, but in general, a blockade is an act of war.”

The U.S. has a long history of leveraging naval sieges to pressure lesser powers, especially in the 19th century era of “gunboat diplomacy,” sometimes provoking them into taking action that triggers an even greater American response.

But in recent decades, as the architecture of international law has developed, successive U.S. administrations have been careful not to use such maritime shows of force because they are seen as punishing civilians — an illegal act of aggression outside of wartime.

During the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, President John F. Kennedy famously called his naval cordon to counter a real threat — weapons shipments from the Soviet Union — a “quarantine” not a blockade.

Mark Nevitt, an Emory University law professor and former Navy judge advocate general, said there is a legal basis for the U.S. to board and seize an already-sanctioned ship that is deemed to be stateless or is claiming two states.

But a blockade, he said, is a “wartime naval operation and maneuver” designed to block the access of vessels and aircraft of an enemy state.

“I think the blockade is predicated on a false legal pretense that we are at war with narcoterrorists,” he said.

Nevitt added: “This seems to be almost like a junior varsity blockade, where they’re trying to assert a wartime legal tool, a blockade, but only doing it selectively.”

Geoffrey Corn, a Texas Tech law professor who previously served as the Army’s senior adviser for law-of-war issues and has been critical of the Trump administration’s boat strikes, said he was not convinced the blockade was intended to ratchet up the conflict with Venezuela.

Instead, he suggested it could be aimed at escalating the pressure on Maduro to give up power or encouraging his supporters to back away from him.

“You can look at it through the lens of, is this an administration trying to create a pretext for a broader conflict?” Corn said. “Or you can look at it as part of an overall campaign of pressuring the Maduro regime to step aside.”

Goodman reported from Miami. Associated Press reporters Stephen Groves and Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

By FERNANDA PESCE

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A blunt critique of Mexican bread by a British baker sparked a cascade of social media outrage, ultimately leading to a public apology.

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In an interview for a food-themed podcast that resurfaced online, Richard Hart, the co-founder of Green Rhino bakery in Mexico City and a well-known figure in international baking circles, said Mexicans “don’t really have much of a bread culture,” adding that “They make sandwiches on these white, ugly rolls that are pretty cheap and industrially made.”

His comments quickly rippled across Instagram, TikTok and X, with many Mexicans accusing him of being dismissive and insulting of Mexico’s traditional breads.

What began as a dispute over bread soon ignited a national debate over food identity — not only over who defines Mexican culinary traditions, but also over the growing influence of foreigners in a capital already tense from a surge of U.S. expatriates and tourists.

“He offended the community of bakers in Mexico and all the people in Mexico who like bread, which is almost everyone,” said Daniela Delgado, a university student in Mexico City.

‘Don’t mess with the bolillo’

Social media was soon flooded with memes, reaction videos, and passionate defenses of Mexican bread. Users took to social media to praise everyday staples — from the crusty bolillos used for tortas to the iconic conchas found in neighborhood bakeries. In many cases, these simple street foods act as a uniting factor across social groups and classes, and often cut to the core of the country’s cultural identity.

While wheat bread was introduced to Mexico during the colonial period, the classic food staple evolved into a distinct national tradition, blending European techniques with local tastes and ingredients. Today, small neighborhood bakeries remain central to daily life in cities and towns, serving as social hubs as well as food sources.

People buy pastries at a bakery in Mexico City, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

The incident prompted many to question why a foreign entrepreneur would publicly disparage a staple so deeply embedded in Mexican life. For many, Hart’s remarks echoed long-standing frustrations over foreign chefs and restaurateurs receiving disproportionate prestige, as well as concerns over gentrification in the capital.

“Don’t mess with the bolillo,” warned one viral post on X.

‘An opportunity to learn’

As criticism mounted, Hart issued a public apology on Instagram, saying his comments were poorly phrased and did not show respect for Mexico and its people. He acknowledged the emotional response and said he didn’t behave as a “guest.”

“I made a mistake,” Hart said in his statement. “I regret it deeply.”

The Associated Press reached out to Green Rhino, but representatives of the bakery declined to comment.

Hart previously worked at high-profile bakeries in the United States and Europe and has been part of Mexico City’s growing artisanal bread scene. That market caters largely to middle and upper-class customers, many of them foreigners, seeking sourdough loaves and European-style pastries, often at prices far above those of neighborhood bakeries.

The apology did little to immediately quiet the debate. While some users accepted it, others said it failed to address deeper concerns about cultural authority and who gets to critique Mexican traditions.

Bolillos, a traditional Mexican bread, sit for sale at a street stand in Mexico City, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

“If you want to be part of Mexican culture by owning a restaurant or bakery, you have to educate yourself,” Delgado said.

Others, like Josué Martínez, a chef at the Mexican Culinary School, said he was happy that the debate was happening because it opened the door for a more robust and nuanced discussion.

Mexican bread has long been criticized domestically for its industrialization and reliance on white flour and sugar. But many like Martínez say those conversations are different and more nuanced when led by Mexicans themselves rather than by a foreign entrepreneur.

“It’s an opportunity to learn about the culture of Mexican breadmaking and pastry, to take pride in it, to highlight the richness of our ingredients, and to stop thinking that the so-called first world represents the ultimate standard,” Martínez said.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

By HOLLY RAMER

Even the most dedicated doomscrollers smile once in a while. Here’s a look back at some of the Associated Press stories that captured attention around the world and provided moments of brightness throughout 2025:

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Art and intrigue

The brazen heist at the world’s most visited museum in November wasn’t just a whodunit, it was a “who wore it.” Hours after thieves snatched the French crown jewels from the Louvre, an AP photographer snapped a picture of a sharply-dressed young man striding past police.

Who was this mysterious “Fedora Man?” A 15-year-old boy who favors elegant clothing inspired by history and fictional detectives.

“I didn’t want to say immediately it was me,” Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux said a week later. “With this photo, there is a mystery, so you have to make it last.”

September marked the solving of another art-related mystery when scientists confirmed the source of the blue color in one of Jackson Pollock’s iconic paintings. While the origins of the reds and yellows splattered across the abstract expressionist’s “Number 1A, 1948” were well known, it took chemistry to confirm the rich turquoise as manganese blue.

FILE – David Brenneman, director of collections and exhibitions at the High Museum, talks about Jackson Pollock’s painting “Number 1A” on display as part of an exhibit in Atlanta on Oct. 6, 2011. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, a cat called Leonardo da Pinchy had more in common with the Louvre thieves than the artist who inspired his nickname. The felonious feline with expensive taste in clothing spent a year stealing laundry from clotheslines before his embarrassed owner posted photos of his hauls on Facebook. Those who showed up to claim their belongings in July included a woman who recognized her pink and purple underwear.

“He only wants stuff he shouldn’t have,” said Leonardo’s owner, Helen North.

Tales — and fins and feathers — of survival

Also in the animals behaving badly category: a humpback whale that briefly swallowed a kayaker off Chilean Patagonia in February.

“I thought I was dead,” Adrián Simancas said. “I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me.”

Simancas’ father captured the moment on video while encouraging his son to remain calm, and they both returned to shore uninjured.

Animals elsewhere this year were often facing their own challenges.

FILE – Hundreds of chicks mill around a stall at First State Animal Center and SPCA on May 16, 2025, in Camden, Del. (AP Photo/Mingson Lau, File)

Roughly 7,000 baby chickens and other birds perished in an abandoned postal service truck in Delaware in May. But another 5,000 chicks who endured three days without food and water were rescued by a local animal shelter, where workers spent weeks caring for them and finding them new homes. Some of the adopters took hundreds, hoping for egg-laying hens, while others took them as pets.

And though they weren’t in mortal danger, elephants at a San Diego zoo showed off their survival skills in April when a 5.2 magnitude earthquake struck Southern California. Video from their enclosure showed three older, female elephants scrambling to encircle and shield two 7-year-old elephants, named Zuli and Mkhaya.

“It’s so great to see them doing the thing we all should be doing — that any parent does, which is protect their children,” said Mindy Albright, curator of mammals at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

Celebrating girls, goddesses and the wise

For some parents in Nepal, child-rearing involves competing to have their daughters selected and sequestered as living goddesses. In October, 2-year-old Aryatara Shakya was celebrated as the new Kumari, or “virgin Goddess,” a position she will hold until she reaches puberty.

FILE – Nepal’s newly appointed living goddess, Kumari Aryatara Shakya, is carried toward Kumari Ghar, the temple palace where she will be residing in Kathmandu, Nepal, Sept. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha, File)

“She was just my daughter yesterday, but today she is a goddess,” her father, Ananta Shakya, said.

Another father’s involvement in his daughter’s milestone came in August, when 2,000 people turned out for 15-year-old Isela Anahí Santiago Morales’ quinceañera in Axtla de Terrazas, Mexico.

After few guests showed up to mark her symbolic passage from childhood to womanhood, Isela’s father posted about the leftover food on Facebook. An outpouring of support ensued, leading to a redo in August with a dozen music groups performing on two stages. Wearing a sparkly tiara and glittering pink ballgown, the soft-spoken Isela asked attendees to donate toys for vulnerable children instead of bringing gifts.

Meanwhile, some women elsewhere turned away from glamorous looks and ditched makeup altogether in 2025, perhaps inspired by actor Pamela Anderson’s barefaced appearance at fashion shows and film premieres.

FILE – Deborah Borg discusses how to pull off the no makeup makeup look at the women’s clothing store Dalya on Aug. 27, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File)

“I’m not trying to be the prettiest girl in the room,” Anderson told Vogue during Paris Fashion Week. “I feel like it’s just freedom. It’s like a relief.”

While experts in September offered tips for going makeup-free, the world’s oldest woman offered more universal advice in the spring.

Ethel Caterham, 116, became the world’s oldest living person earlier this year. She described her method for longevity from her nursing home in Surrey, southwest of London:

“Never arguing with anyone,” she said. “I listen, and I do what I like.”

By CLAIRE SAVAGE

The head of the U.S. agency for enforcing workplace civil rights posted a social media call-out urging white men to come forward if they have experienced race or sex discrimination at work.

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“Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex? You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws,” U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Andrea Lucas, a vocal critic of DEI, wrote on X Wednesday evening. The post urged eligible workers to reach out to the agency “as soon as possible” and referred users to the agency’s fact sheet on “DEI-related discrimination” for more information.

Lucas’ post, viewed millions of times, was shared about two hours after Vice President JD Vance posted an article he said “describes the evil of DEI and its consequences,” which also received millions of views. Lucas responded to Vance’s post saying: “Absolutely right @JDVance. And precisely because this widespread, systemic, unlawful discrimination primarily harmed white men, elites didn’t just turn a blind eye; they celebrated it. Absolutely unacceptable; unlawful; immoral.”

She added that the EEOC “won’t rest until this discrimination is eliminated.” Neither the agency nor Vance responded immediately to requests for additional comment.

Since being named acting chair of the EEOC in January, Lucas has been shifting the agency’s focus to prioritize “rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination,” aligning with President Donald Trump’s own anti-DEI executive orders. Trump named Lucas as the agency’s chair in November.

Earlier this year, the EEOC along with the Department of Justice issued two “technical assistance” documents attempting to clarify what might constitute “DEI-related Discrimination at Work” and providing guidance on how workers can file complaints over such concerns. The documents took broad aim at practices such as training, employee resource groups and fellowship programs, warning such programs — depending on how they’re constructed — could run afoul of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race and gender.

Those documents have been criticized by former agency commissioners as misleading for portraying DEI initiatives as legally fraught.

David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the NYU School of Law, said Lucas’s latest social media posts demonstrate a “fundamental misunderstanding of what DEI is.”

“It’s really much more about creating a culture in which you get the most out of everyone who you’re bringing on board, where everyone experiences fairness and equal opportunity, including white men and members of other groups,” Glasgow said.

The Meltzer Center tracks lawsuits that are likely to affect workplace DEI practices, including 57 cases of workplace discrimination. Although there are instances in which it occurs on a case-by-case basis, Glasgow said he has not seen “any kind of systematic evidence that white men are being discriminated against.”

He pointed out that Fortune 500 CEOs are overwhelmingly white men, and that relative to their share of the population, the demographic is overrepresented in corporate senior leadership, Congress, and beyond.

“If DEI has been this engine of discrimination against white men, I have to say it hasn’t really been doing a very good job at achieving that,” Glasgow said.

Jenny Yang, a former EEOC chair and now a partner at law firm Outten & Golden, said it is “unusual” and “problematic” for the head of the agency to single out a particular demographic group for civil rights enforcement.

“It suggests some sort of priority treatment,” Yang said. “That’s not something that sounds to me like equal opportunity for all.”

On the other hand, the agency has done the opposite for transgender workers, whose discrimination complaints have been deprioritized or dropped completely, Yang said. The EEOC has limited resources, and must accordingly prioritize which cases to pursue. But treating charges differently based on workers’ identities goes against the mission of the agency, she said.

“It worries me that a message is being sent that the EEOC only cares about some workers and not others,” Yang said.

The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Home Inspection Expert Luke Anglea Reveals Why Crawlspaces Shouldn’t Be Ignored in HelloNation  Yahoo Finance

The Hurricanes’ first College Football Playoff game is approaching.

As the No. 10 seed, UM is headed on the road to College Station, Texas, to play No. 7 Texas A&M. The Aggies went 11-1 this season, winning their first 11 games before falling to Texas in their regular-season finale.

Miami and Texas A&M match up fairly evenly, and the game is expected to be a close one, which is reflected in the 3.5-point betting line that favors TAMU.

Here are five key matchups that will determine who wins Saturday’s game:

Miami’s defensive line vs. Texas A&M’s offensive line

Both of these teams are excellent in the trenches, so naturally, both line battles will play major roles in deciding the game.

Aggies offensive tackle Trey Zuhn III was the nation’s No. 1 pass-blocker, according to Pro Football Focus. He has allowed just one sack and eight total pressures this year. The team as a whole allowed 12 sacks, which is tied for 11th in the nation.

However, the Hurricanes’ pass rush is the best the Aggies have faced all year. Miami has a 91.8 pass-rush grade from PFF, trailing only fellow playoff team Texas Tech. Miami is tied for 18th in the nation with 34 sacks. Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor are two of the top five defensive ends in the nation, according to PFF’s defensive grade (among defensive ends with 100 or more snaps). Defensive tackle Ahmad Moten Sr. is 17th among all defensive tackles with 100 or more snaps.

When it comes to running the ball, Texas A&M ranks 61st with a 62 run-blocking grade. UM has the No. 14 run-defense grade with a 92.8 grade and is seventh nationally in rushing yards allowed per game.

Miami’s offensive line vs. Texas A&M’s defensive line

Like the Hurricanes, the Aggies have an elite pass rush. Texas A&M is tied for first in the nation with 41 sacks. All-American defensive end Cashius Howell has 11.5 sacks. His 90.5 pass-rushing grade from PFF was 16th nationally and second in the SEC among defenders with 200 or more snaps,

Miami will need to protect quarterback Carson Beck in order to keep its offense moving. Fortunately for the Hurricanes, their offensive line is tied for seventh in the nation with just 11 sacks allowed, and PFF gives Miami the No. 4 pass-blocking grade in the nation. Miami’s offensive line was rated the fourth-most efficient unit in the nation by PFF and allowed 47 quarterback pressures, which was fourth-best nationally.

Miami has also blocked well in the running game, ranking 10th nationally in run-blocking, according to PFF. Texas A&M has the No. 25 run defense by PFF grade and is 38th in rushing yards allowed per game.

Miami’s offensive line vs. the referees

The Hurricanes need to make sure they play a clean game on Saturday. The offensive linemen have been the culprit many times when it comes to penalties.

Miami ranks 125th nationally with 7.6 penalties per game. Five of the Hurricanes’ six main offensive linemen — Markel Bell, Anez Cooper, Matthew McCoy, Francis Mauigoa and Samson Okunlola — have been called for six penalties each. Center James Brockermeyer is right behind them with five penalties.

The Hurricanes’ season-ending win over Pittsburgh was their cleanest win to date, tying for a season-low five penalties (three of which were on offensive linemen) and getting docked only 28 yards. They need to keep that going on Saturday.

Carson Beck vs. the Texas A&M secondary

Beck has been one of the nation’s top quarterbacks over the last four weeks. Since UM’s loss to SMU, Beck has completed 79.5 of his passes for 1,125 yards and 11 touchdowns with only one interception.

Miami needs that Beck to show up on Saturday, not the one who threw four interceptions against Louisville earlier in the season.

The Aggies have been solid defending the pass this year, ranking 21st nationally with 182.8 passing yards allowed per game. But Texas A&M has not faced a passing attack as good as Miami’s, which ranks 19th in the nation with 275.8 yards per game. Not many TAMU defensive backs rank highly in coverage grade; safety Marcus Ratcliffe has the best PFF coverage grade among Aggies defensive backs with 200 or more coverage snaps, and he ranks 66th nationally and sixth in the SEC. The next-best Texas A&M defensive backs are cornerbacks Dezz Ricks and Will Lee III, whose 66.4 and 66.3 coverage grades rank 54th and 55th in the SEC, respectively.

The Aggies also struggle to force turnovers, recording only three interceptions all season. If Beck protects the ball from them and has time to throw, he could have a big game.

Miami’s cornerbacks vs. Mario Craver and KC Concepcion

The Aggies have two dynamic wide receivers who are among the SEC’s best: KC Concepcion and Mario Craver. They ranked second and third in receiving grade among SEC receivers with 50 or more targets, respectively.

Concepcion is fourth in the SEC with 886 receiving yards and tied for first with nine touchdown catches. Craver is right behind him with 825 receiving yards, though he has four touchdown catches.

Miami may get a boost to its cornerback room as OJ Frederique Jr. is expected to return from an injury, and slot cornerback Keionte Scott may as well. But whoever is covering Texas A&M’s top receiving threats will need to be on top of their game.

SUNRISE — Sam Bennett scored 10 seconds into the third period, Brad Marchand had two assists and the Florida Panthers beat the Los Angeles Kings 3-2 on Wednesday night to sweep the two-game season series.

Anton Lundell and Carter Verhaeghe also scored for Florida, which has won six of its last seven games. Daniil Tarasov made 27 saves for the Panthers, including a breakaway stop against the Kings’ Trevor Moore with just under five minutes left to preserve a one-goal lead.

Joel Armia and Kevin Fiala had the goals for Los Angeles, which fell to 0-2-2 in its last four contests. The four-game winless streak matches a season-long slide for the Kings, who were 0-2-2 from Oct. 11 through Oct. 18 as well.

Entering the late games on Wednesday, the Panthers (18-13-2), with 38 points, finally pushed back up into the top eight teams in the Eastern Conference.

Anton Forsberg stopped 25 shots for the Kings. Armia had the only goal in the first period, and Fiala made it 3-2 when a clearing attempt by Florida deflected off his shin and past Tarasov with 15:12 left.

Los Angeles had a chance in the final minutes to tie the game, after Florida’s Anton Lundell was called for high-sticking with 3:05 left. The Kings managed only one shot on the ensuing power play — about half of which was with a two-man advantage after Forsberg was pulled for an extra attacker — and the Panthers held on from there.

Bennett’s goal that gave Florida a 3-1 lead tied for the third-fastest to start any period this season.

Kirill Marchenko scored for Columbus seven seconds into a second period against Minnesota on Oct. 11; Jackson Lacombe scored for Anaheim nine seconds into a second period against Vancouver on Nov. 26; and Connor McDavid scored for Edmonton 10 seconds into a third period against Buffalo on Dec. 9.

Up next

Panthers: Host Carolina on Friday night.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Wednesday that it attacked a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing four people on the same day the House rejected efforts to limit President Donald Trump’s power to use military force against drug cartels.

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U.S. Southern Command stated on social media that the vessel was operated by narco-terrorists along a known trafficking route. The military didn’t provide evidence behind the allegations but posted a video of a boat moving through water before there was an explosion.

The attack brought the total number of known boat strikes to 26 while at least 99 people have been killed, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration. Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and asserted the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

The administration is facing increasing scrutiny from lawmakers over the boat strike campaign. The first attack in early September involved a follow-up strike that killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of a boat after the first hit.

House Republicans rejected a pair of Democratic-backed resolutions Wednesday that would have forced the Trump administration to seek authorization from Congress before continuing attacks against cartels. They were the first votes in the House on Trump’s military campaign in Central and South America. A majority of Republicans in the Senate had previously voted against similar resolutions, and Trump would almost certainly veto them if they were to pass Congress.

By DAVID KLEPPER and AAMER MADHANI

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump demanded Wednesday that Venezuela return assets that it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of a “blockade” against oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country that face American sanctions.

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Trump cited the lost U.S. investments in Venezuela when asked about his newest tactic in a monthslong pressure campaign against leader Nicolás Maduro, suggesting his administration’s moves to confront leaders in Caracas are at least somewhat motivated by disputes over oil investments, along with accusations of drug trafficking. Some sanctioned tankers already are diverting away from Venezuela.

“We’re not going to be letting anybody going through who shouldn’t be going through,” Trump told reporters of his call for a blockade. “You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil not that long ago. And we want it back. They took it — they illegally took it.”

U.S. oil companies dominated Venezuela’s petroleum industry until the country’s leaders moved to nationalize the sector, first in the 1970s and again in the 21st century under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Compensation offered by Venezuela was deemed insufficient, and in 2014 an international arbitration panel ordered the country’s socialist government to pay $1.6 billion to ExxonMobil.

While Venezuela’s oil has long dominated relations with the U.S., the Trump administration has focused on Maduro’s links to drug traffickers, accusing his administration of facilitating the shipment of dangerous drugs into the U.S. In his social media post Tuesday night, Trump said Venezuela was using using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes.

U.S. forces last week seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast amid a massive military buildup that includes the Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier.

The Trump administration also has carried out a series of strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean that have killed a combined total of at least 99 people, including four in a strike Wednesday. Those attacks have prompted questions from lawmakers and legal experts about their legal justification. Trump also has said he is considering strikes on land.

Trump’s talk of ‘stolen assets’

Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, likened Venezuela’s move to nationalize its oil industry to a heist.

“American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” Miller wrote on social media Wednesday. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries and drugs.”

Venezuela first moved to nationalize its oil industry in the 1970s, a process that expanded under Chávez, who nationalized hundreds of private businesses and foreign-owned assets, including oil projects run by ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. That led to the arbitration panel’s 2014 order.

“There is a case that can be made that Venezuela owes this money to Exxon. I don’t think it’s ever been paid,” economist Philip Verleger said.

Trump blamed his predecessors for not taking a harder line against Venezuela over the asset seizures.

“They took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn’t watching,” Trump said Wednesday. “But they’re not going to do that again. We want it back. They took our oil rights — we had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back.”

Chevron has a waiver from the U.S. government to continue oil production in Venezuela, and the Texas-based oil giant says its operations have not been disrupted.

Venezuela’s debt to Chevron “has decreased substantially” since the company’s license to resume exporting Venezuelan oil to the U.S. was first granted in 2022, said Francisco Monaldi, a Venezuelan oil expert at Rice University in Houston. He said the amount is not public.

A new designation for Maduro’s government?

There was no change Wednesday to the list of foreign terrorist organizations after Trump said in his post that the “Venezuelan Regime” has been designated as one.

Officials at several national security agencies were told not to take Trump’s remarks about the designation literally and they should be treated as a figure of speech, according to a U.S. official involved in the discussions.

That official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal interagency communications, also stressed that the “blockade” Trump announced applies only to previously sanctioned vessels against which certain actions are already authorized, such as the seizure last week.

The State Department, which oversees the foreign terror list, didn’t respond to requests for clarification.

Trump’s Justice Department in 2020 indicted Maduro on narcoterrorism charges and U.S. authorities have alleged that Venezuela’s leaders have looted the country and profited from the trafficking of drugs. Last month, the Trump administration designated a group linked to Maduro — the Cartel de los Soles — as a terrorist organization.

Venezuela decries American ‘piracy’ Nicolas Maduro speaks at a rally marking the anniversary of the Battle of Santa Ines, which took place during Venezuela’s 19th-century Federal War, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Maduro called United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday for a conversation “regarding the current tensions in the region,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

“During the call, the secretary-general reaffirmed the United Nations’ position on the need for member states to respect international law, particularly the United Nations Charter, exert restraint and de-escalate tensions to preserve regional stability,” Haq said.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil demanded in a letter to the U.N. Security Council, which was obtained by The Associated Press, that the U.S. immediately release the “kidnapped crew” and return the oil illegally confiscated on the high seas.

In addition to urging the Security Council to condemn the taking of the tanker, Gil urged the U.N.’s most powerful body for a written statement stating that it hasn’t authorized actions against Venezuela “or against the international commercialization of its oil.”

While the strikes on alleged drug boats have raised questions about the use of military force, Trump’s seizure of the tanker and other actions against sanctioned entities are consistent with past American policy, said retired U.S. Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, now a professor at Syracuse University.

He also noted that from a military standpoint, seizing sanctioned oil tankers and imposing a blockade are far less risky than direct military confrontation.

“U.S. policy supports peaceful, democratic transition in Venezuela,” Murrett said. “If Maduro agrees tomorrow to step down and have a free and open election, I think we’d be delighted, Democrats and Republicans alike.”

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, Cathy Bussewitz in New York and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Mario Cristobal has said throughout the week that star defensive back Keionte Scott could return to the field for Miami’s playoff game against Texas A&M on Saturday.

On Wednesday, the Hurricanes listed Scott as probable on the initial availability report. Additionally, the Hurricanes listed Damari Brown as questionable, linebacker Malik Bryant was out and wide receiver Daylyn Upshaw as doubtful.

Cristobal said Scott has been practicing and progressing toward playing.

“He looks OK, looks like he’s certainly progressing,” Cristobal said Wednesday. “He’s getting a fair amount of reps. And again, I stated on Sunday, we were hopeful and we still are. We feel confident in his progress and, you know, feel like he’s gaining ground towards being able to play on Saturday.”

Scott excelled in Miami’s first nine games of the season, racking up 44 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, three sacks and an interception this year. Pro Football Focus gives Scott a 90.3 defensive grade, which is fourth in the nation among cornerbacks with 100 or more snaps.

Scott missed UM’s last three regular-season games with a foot injury. His replacement, freshman Bryce Fitzgerald, has performed well in his place.

Miami safety Jakobe Thomas said Scott has stayed involved with the defensive backs, trying to help coach them up even while he was absent.

“Keionte’s the best teammate that I think I’ve ever had,” Thomas said. “He’s working absolutely as hard as he possibly can to get back as fast as possible at 100 percent. But day to day, he’s just in the room with us every day, motivating, keeping guys locked in (and) focused, helping us focus on the little minor details and everything.”

Brown would be a big loss for the Hurricanes. He has done well at outside cornerback this season. Brown has 24 tackles and one pass deflection, and he has earned a 75.9 defensive grade from PFF.

Here is Miami’s initial availability report for Texas A&M

OUT

-LB Malik Bryant

DOUBTFUL

-WR Daylyn Upshaw

QUESTIONABLE

-DB Damari Brown

PROBABLE

-DB Keionte Scott

By Corinne Purtill, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — When Greg heard about the deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner, and the alleged involvement of their son Nick, the news struck a painfully familiar chord.

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It wasn’t the violence that resonated, but rather the heartache and desperation that comes with loving a family member who suffers from an illness that the best efforts and intentions alone can’t cure.

Greg has an adult child who, like Nick Reiner, has had a long and difficult struggle with addiction.

“It just rings close to home,” said Greg, chair of Families Anonymous, a national support program for friends and family members of people with addiction. (In keeping with the organization’s policy of anonymity for members, The Times is withholding Greg’s last name.)

“It’s just so horrible to be the parent or a loved one of somebody that struggles with [addiction], because you can’t make any sense of this,” he said. “You can’t find a way to help them.”

Every family’s experience is different, and the full picture is almost always more complicated than it appears from the outside. Public details about the Reiner family’s private struggles are relatively few.

But some parts of their story are likely recognizable to the millions of U.S. families affected by addiction.

“This is really bringing to light something that’s going on in homes across the country,” said Emily Feinstein, executive vice president of the nonprofit Partnership to End Addiction.

Over the years, Nick Reiner, 32, and his parents publicly discussed his years-long struggle with drug use, which included periods of homelessness and multiple rehab stints.

Most recently, he was living in a guesthouse on his parents’ Brentwood property. Family friends told The Times that Michele Singer Reiner had become increasingly concerned about Nick’s mental health in recent weeks.

The couple were found dead in their home Sunday afternoon. Los Angeles police officers arrested Nick hours later. On Tuesday, he was charged with their murder. He is currently being held without bail and has been placed under special supervision due to potential suicide risk, a law enforcement official told The Times.

Experts in substance use cautioned against drawing a direct line between addiction and violence.

“Addiction or mental health issues never excuse a horrific act of violence like this, and these sort of acts are not a direct result or a trait of addiction in general,” said Zac Jones, executive director of Beit T’Shuvah, a nonprofit Los Angeles-based addiction treatment center.

The circumstances around the Reiners’ highly publicized deaths are far from ordinary. The fact that addiction touched their family is not.

Nearly 1 in 5 people in the U.S. has personally experienced addiction, a 2023 poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found.

Two-thirds of Americans have a family member with the disease, a proportion that is similar across rural, urban and suburban dwellers, and across Black, Latino and white respondents.

“Substance use disorders, addiction, do not discriminate,” Jones said. “It affects everyone from the highest of the high [socioeconomic status] to people that are experiencing homelessness on Skid Row. … There is no solution that can be bought.”

During interviews for the 2015 film “Becoming Charlie,” a semi-autobiographical film directed by Rob Reiner and co-written by Nick Reiner, the family told journalists that Nick, then in his early 20s, had been to rehab an estimated 18 times since his early teens. Nick Reiner has also spoken publicly about his use of heroin as a teenager.

Such cycles of rehab and relapse are common, experts said. One 2019 study found that it took an average of five recovery attempts to effectively stop using and maintain sobriety, though the authors noted that many respondents reported 10 or more attempts.

Many families empty their savings in search of a cure, Feinstein said. Even those with abundant resources often end up in a similarly despairing cycle.

“Unfortunately, the system that is set up to treat people is not addressing the complexity or the intensity of the illness, and in most cases, it’s very hard to find effective evidence-based treatment,” Feinstein said. “No matter how much money you have, it doesn’t guarantee a better outcome.”

Addiction is a complex disorder with intermingled roots in genetics, biology and environmental triggers.

Repeated drug use, particularly in adolescence and early adulthood when the brain is still developing, physically alters the circuitry that governs reward and motivation.

On top of that, co-occurring mental health conditions, traumas and other factors mean that no two cases of substance abuse disorders are exactly the same.

There are not enough quality rehabilitation programs to begin with, experts said, and even an effective program that one patient responds to successfully may not work at all for someone else.

“There is always the risk of relapse. That can be hard to process,” Greg said.

Families Anonymous counsels members to accept the “Three Cs” of a loved one’s addiction, Greg said: you didn’t cause it, you can’t cure it and you can’t control it.

“Good, loving families, people that care, deal with this problem just as much,” he said. “This is just so common out there, but people don’t really talk about it. Especially parents, for fear of being judged.”

After the killings, a family friend told The Times that they had “never known a family so dedicated to a child” as Rob and Michele Reiner, and that the couple “did everything for Nick. Every treatment program, therapy sessions and put aside their lives to save Nick’s repeatedly.”

But the painful fact is that devotion alone cannot cure a complex, chronic disease.

“If you could love someone into sobriety, into recovery, into remission from their psychiatric issues, then we’d have a lot fewer clients here,” Jones said. “Unfortunately, love isn’t enough. It’s certainly a part of the solution, but it isn’t enough.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, help is available. Call 988 to connect to trained mental health counselors or text “HOME” to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line.

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By JOSH FUNK, AP Transportation Writer

The U.S. government admitted Wednesday that the actions of an air traffic controller and Army helicopter pilot played a role in causing the collision last January between an airliner and a Black Hawk near the nation’s capital, killing 67 people.

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It was the deadliest crash on American soil in more than two decades.

The official response to the first lawsuit filed by one of the victims’ families said that the government is liable in the crash partly because the air traffic controller violated procedures about when to rely on pilots to maintain visual separation that night. Plus, the filing said, the Army helicopter pilots’ “failure to maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid” the airline jet makes the government liable.

But the filing suggested that others, including the pilots of the jet and the airlines, may also have played a role. The lawsuit also blamed American Airlines and its regional partner, PSA Airlines, for roles in the crash, but those airlines have filed motions to dismiss.

And the government denied that any air traffic controllers or officials at the Federal Aviation Administration or Army were negligent.

At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the helicopter collided with the American Airlines regional jet while it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport in northern Virginia, just across the river from Washington, D.C., officials said. The plane carried 60 passengers and four crew members, and three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.

Attorney says loss of life was needless

Robert Clifford, one of the attorneys for the family of victim Casey Crafton, said the government admitted “the Army’s responsibility for the needless loss of life” and the FAA’s failure to follow air traffic control procedures while “rightfully” acknowledging others –- American Airlines and PSA Airlines -– also contributed to the deaths.

The families of the victims “remain deeply saddened and anchored in the grief caused by this tragic loss of life,” he said.

The government’s lawyers said in the filing that “the United States admits that it owed a duty of care to plaintiffs, which it breached, thereby proximately causing the tragic accident.”

An American spokesman declined to comment on the filing, but in the airline’s motion to dismiss, American said “plaintiffs’ proper legal recourse is not against American. It is against the United States government … The Court should therefore dismiss American from this lawsuit.” The airline said that since the crash it has focused on supporting the families of the victims.

Investigators highlight factors that contributed to crash

The National Transportation Safety Board will release its report on the cause of the crash early next year, but investigators have already highlighted a number of factors that contributed, including the helicopter flying 78 feet higher (24 meters) than the 200-foot (61-meter) limit on a route that allowed only scant separation between planes landing on Reagan’s secondary runway and helicopters passing below. Plus, the NTSB said, the FAA failed to recognize the dangers around the busy airport even after 85 near misses in the three years before the crash.

The government admitted in its filing that the United States “was on notice of certain near-miss events between its Army-operated Black Hawk helicopters and aircraft traffic transiting in and around helicopter routes 1 and 4” around Washington.

Before the collision, the controller twice asked the helicopter pilots whether they had the jet in sight, and the pilots said they did and asked for visual separation approval so they could use their own eyes to maintain distance. FAA officials acknowledged at the NTSB’s investigative hearings that the controllers at Reagan had become overly reliant on the use of visual separation. That’s a practice the agency has since ended.

Witnesses told the NTSB that they have serious questions about how well the helicopter crew could spot the plane while wearing night vision goggles and whether the pilots were even looking in the right spot.

Investigators have said the helicopter pilots might not have realized how high they were because the barometric altimeter they were relying on was reading 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) lower than the altitude registered by the flight data recorder.

The crash victims included a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches who had just attended a competition in Wichita, Kansas, and four union steamfitters from the Washington area.

General Daily Insight for December 18, 2025

Soft words are likely to land better than bombastic arguments. A meet-up between the emotional Moon and cerebral Mercury, both in loquacious Sagittarius, helps us talk through feelings. With romantic Venus trining healing Chiron at 4:17 pm EST, we may find that kindness repairs old aches as we name needs honestly. As Venus goes on to engage with extravagant Jupiter, perhaps adjusting our sense of fairness will be necessary to move forward. When compassion replaces defensiveness, we can solve problems without shutting down.

Aries

March 21 – April 19

Perspective could now open doors that felt closed. Relational Venus in your 9th House of Travel and Big Ideas trines healing Chiron in your 1st House of Identity, inviting a brave conversation that widens understanding across different backgrounds. A teacher, student, or faraway friend may open up about a sore spot. Your straightforward support helps both of you release old judgment. It’s not wrong to want clarity, but choose humility over being right. Your courage invites the answers you’ve been seeking.

Taurus

April 20 – May 20

Healing a shared worry is possible now. Trust deepens as sensual Venus in your intimacy zone trines therapeutic Chiron in your 12th House of Closure, helping you address tender boundaries without blame. You may revisit holiday expenses or repay a favor as a private fear surfaces. Your ability to be vulnerable while remaining basically calm could also help someone else feel safe enough to soften. Although painful memories might be easy to access, forgiving the past frees energy for honest closeness.

Gemini

May 21 – June 20

A promise deserves careful words. You’re potentially on the hunt for harmony as appeasing Venus in your partnership sector trines wounded healer Chiron. It’s not a bad thing to want agreement with someone important in your daily world, but your quick mind can race too far ahead. Slow down to check shared assumptions, and you’ll avoid crossed wires that cause unnecessary second-guessing. Although your social network might offer helpful feedback, let one voice matter most so the plan actually moves forward.

Cancer

June 21 – July 22

Gentle course corrections have the potential to make your day. Venus, the planet of self-worth, in your 6th House of Work and Wellness collaborates with therapeutic Chiron, calling for patient routines that are kinder to your body. You can still care about results, but consistent fixes build the reputation you want at home and at work. When you model calm accountability rather than reacting with protection or blame, you’ll likely find others willing to own their part and do what they can to support you.

Leo

July 23 – August 22

When care meets courage, play returns. Loving Venus in your 5th House of Romance and Creativity trines wounded healer Chiron in your adventurous 9th house, urging you to share a heartfelt idea or invite someone out with confidence. Your companion may hesitate, yet your enthusiasm draws them in because you keep it playful while honoring real feelings. One bold step close to home can rekindle joy and prime the pump for bigger journeys. Lead with warmth so creativity flows toward connection.

Virgo

August 23 – September 22

Your domestic sphere can feel lighter when truth is front and center. An honest check-in soothes tensions as connection-craving Venus in your vulnerable 8th house aligns with tender Chiron in your 4th House of Home and Family, inviting repairs to patterns learned long ago. Someone at home may finally tell the story behind a bothersome habit. Careful listening helps everyone choose kinder routines. Although you’ll probably have to work around certain quirks or insecurities, clear agreements about chores or expenses are necessary to move forward.

Libra

September 23 – October 22

Ready to talk and really listen? As relationship planet Venus in your communication sector reaches out to tender Chiron in your 7th House of One-on-One Bonds, a significant person may be ready to move a discussion toward understanding. You value fairness, Libra, so restate what you hear before sharing your view, and watch a defensive posture relax into something closer to partnership. There may still be legitimate differences between the two of you, but naming any shared goals should point you toward workable next steps.

Scorpio

October 23 – November 21

Scorpio, your values speak softly yet with strength. Financial calm grows as lavish Venus in your 2nd House of Money and Self-Worth reins in anxious Chiron in your practical 6th house, encouraging a realistic plan that honors both generosity and limits. You might renegotiate shared bills with a partner or map out a fresh budget for gifts. Once you start looking, you’ll likely find ways to protect your savings without draining joy from meaningful moments. Follow your heart, but keep the numbers true.

Sagittarius

November 22 – December 21

Warm confidence hums beneath every choice. Venus, planet of pleasure, spotlights your 1st House of Identity, but that doesn’t necessarily make you shallow. Wise Chiron weighing in from your self-expression sector gives you an informed perspective. When you know what’s not worth worrying about anymore, you can convincingly convey an openhearted ease that inspires others to meet you halfway. Use this window to reintroduce yourself in the spaces that matter to you. Your natural optimism is likely to carry your message further than you expect!

Capricorn

December 22 – January 19

A quiet, thoughtful pause can nourish you now. A release begins as Venus, planet of values, in your 12th House of Solitude and Closure brings perspective to moody Chiron in your private 4th house. You may write a letter you never send or sort keepsakes that you’re finally ready to let go of. Although there may be other people involved in a situation that you’re chewing on, some forgiveness rituals might be just for you. Let calm acceptance replace any harsh self-critique.

Aquarius

January 20 – February 18

Connecting with friends and acquaintances could inspire you today. Your 11th House of Social Networks brightens as free-loving Venus there trines thoughtful Chiron, offering opportunities for deep growth. In turn, perhaps you’ll help a group project or community effort regain spirit and momentum. Reach out to someone who often feels overlooked, and you may discover a brilliant workaround when their differing perspective refreshes the team’s stuck pattern. The answers you need are available if you’re willing to seek them out!

Pisces

February 19 – March 20

Broadening your reputation could help you now. As harmonious Venus in your 10th House of Career and Status trines world-weary Chiron in your self-worth sector, adding a human touch to your public messages and reviews has the potential to make them more relatable and convincing. No matter what your role, you can share a mistake you learned from, and people will see your integrity more clearly. You may still have your sore spots, but give yourself credit for growth over time.

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) — A pilot was taken to the hospital with injuries Wednesday after a small plane crashed into a residential neighborhood in southern New Hampshire, authorities said.

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Emergency crews found the aircraft upside down in a snow bank in the parking lot of a wooded condominium complex in Nashua Wednesday afternoon.

Police said the pilot was the only person on board and was the only person injured. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating.

The Velocity V-Twin plane crashed at the Cannongate Condominiums shortly after departing from the nearby Nashua Airport around 2:10 p.m. local time, according to the FAA.

• Airplane wreckage rests in a wooded neighborhood, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Nashua, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
• Airplane wreckage rests in a wooded neighborhood, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Nashua, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Show Caption1 of 2Airplane wreckage rests in a wooded neighborhood, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Nashua, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) Expand

Aerial video from NBC10 Boston showed damage to the roof of one of the condos near the crash site.