By LARRY NEUMEISTER (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — Three Florida men were arrested Thursday and charged with illegally making more than $22 million by insider trading ahead of the public announcement that an acquisition firm was going to take former President Donald Trump’s media company public.

The charges were outlined in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court that did not in any way implicate Trump or his media company, which owns his Truth Social platform.

According to the indictment, the men were invited to invest in the special purpose acquisition company, Digital World Acquisition Corp., and were provided confidential information that a potential target of DWAC and another acquisition company, Benessere Capital Acquisition Corp., was Trump Media & Technology Group.

Authorities said the defendants bought millions of dollars of DWAC securities on the open market before news of the Trump media business was made public.

After the public announcement, the men dumped their securities for a significant profit, according to the court papers.

“Insider trading is not easy money,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a release. “It’s cheating. It’s a bad bet. Because my Office, the Southern District of New York, is watching. And we’re working quickly to investigate and prosecute anyone who corrupts our financial markets. And we’ll keep at it as long as it takes. You can bet on that.”

The arrested men were identified as Michael Shvartsman, 52, of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida; his brother Gerald Shvartsman, 45, of Aventura, Florida; and Bruce Garelick, 53, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was unclear who would represent them at initial court appearances expected Thursday afternoon in Miami.

Attorney Grant Smith, representing the Shvartsman brothers, said he had no comment. A lawyer who has represented Garelick in the past did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Michael Shvartsman owned Rocket One Capital LLC, a venture capital firm. Gerald Shvartsman was Rocket One’s chief investment officer, according to court papers.

According to the indictment, Garelick was given a seat on DWAC’s board of directors and had access to confidential information. It said he then shared that information with his co-conspirators.

The indictment said that between June 2021 and November 2021, the men purchased securities including warrants of their own and shared the secrets with their friends and employees, who also bought tens of thousands of units of securities ahead of the merger announcement with Trump Media & Technology Group. Typically, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, is formed with the intent to merge with a private company before the private company becomes publicly traded.

In early 2021, representatives of Trump Media, including Trump, began communicating with principles of Benessere about potentially merging to take Trump Media public, the indictment said.

Between March and June 2021, Trump Media and Benessere entered into nonbinding letters of intent to merge, it said.

The letters required confidentiality but did allow Benessere and its agents to share confidential information with investors in the special purpose acquisition companies, the indictment said.

Jay Ritter, a University of Florida expert on stock markets who has followed Trump’s media venture, said the new charges make it unlikely securities regulators will approve a merger with DWAC.

“The more these people are connected to the company and not a friend of a friend, the more they can say, ‘There is a problem with management, and that is why we’re not approving this merger,’” he said.

Ritter added, though, that Trump’s company may be able to find alternative partners to help fund it.

“Trump Media’s likelihood of being a profitable company is fairly good. This is not some pie-in-the-sky electric vehicle startup that needs to burn through millions of dollars and not come up with anything,” he said. “Some other company will come through and invest.”

By JESSICA GRESKO (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday used the case of a Christian mailman who didn’t want to work Sundays to solidify protections for workers who ask for religious accommodations.

In a unanimous decision the justices made clear that workers who ask for accommodations, such as taking the Sabbath off, should get them unless their employers show doing so would result in “substantial increased costs” to the business.

The court made clear that businesses must cite more than minor costs — so-called “de minimis” costs — to reject requests for religious accommodations at work. Unlike most cases before the court, both sides in the case had agreed businesses needed to show more.

The case before the court involved a mail carrier in rural Pennsylvania. The man was told that as part of his job he’d need to start delivering Amazon packages on Sundays. He declined, saying his Sundays are for church and family. U.S. Postal Service officials initially tried to get substitutes for the man’s shifts, but they couldn’t always accommodate him. When he didn’t show, that meant more work for others. Ultimately, the man quit and sued for religious discrimination.

The case is the latest religious confrontation the high court has been asked to referee. In recent years, the court’s 6-3 conservative majority has been particularly sensitive to the concerns of religious plaintiffs. Last year, the court split along ideological lines in ruling for public high school football coach who wanted to pray on the field after games.

Other recent religious cases have drawn wide agreement among the justices, such as upholding a cross-shaped monument on public grounds and ruling that Boston had violated the free speech rights of a conservative activist when it refused his request to fly a Christian flag on a City Hall flagpole.

In the latest case, a federal law — Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — requires employers to accommodate employees’ religious practices unless doing so would be an “undue hardship” for the business. But a 1977 Supreme Court case, Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, says in part that employers can deny religious accommodations to employees when they impose “more than a de minimis cost” on the business.

During arguments in the case in April the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who was representing the Post Office, told the justices that the Hardison case as a whole actually requires an employer who wants to deny an accommodation to show more.

But Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his majority opinion for the court that while some lower courts have understood Hardison the way the Biden administration suggested, other courts incorrectly latched on to the “de minimis” language “as the governing standard.”

“In this case, both parties agree that the ‘de minimis’ test is not right, but they differ slightly in the alternative language they prefer. … We think it is enough to say that an employer must show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business,” Alito wrote.

The Biden administration has said that requests for religious accommodation come up most often when employees seek schedule changes like the Sabbath off or midday prayer breaks or exemptions from a company’s dress code or grooming policies. They also come up when an employee wants to display a religious symbol in the workplace.

As for the particular dispute in front of them, the justices sent the case back to a lower court for another look in light of their decision. The case involves Gerald Groff, a former employee of the U.S. Postal Service in Pennsylvania’s Amish Country. For years, Groff was a fill-in mail carrier who worked on days when other mail carriers were off.

But when an Amazon.com contract with the Postal Service required carriers to start delivering packages on Sundays, Groff balked. Initially, to avoid the shifts, Groff transferred to a more rural post office not yet doing Sunday deliveries, but eventually that post office was required to do them, too.

Whenever Groff was scheduled on a Sunday, another carrier had to work or his spot went unfilled. Officials said Groff’s absences created a tense environment and contributed to morale problems. It also meant other carriers had to deliver more Sunday mail than they otherwise would.

Groff resigned in 2019 rather than wait to be fired. He sued the Postal service for failing to accommodate his religious practice. Lower courts ruled against him previously. As a result of the court’s ruling, his case will get another look.

Groff said in a statement after the ruling that he was grateful the court heard his case. “I hope this decision allows others to be able to maintain their convictions without living in fear of losing their jobs because of what they believe,” he said.

The case is Groff v. DeJoy, 22-174.

By MARK SHERMAN (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action in college admissions, forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.

The court’s conservative majority overturned admissions plans at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the nation’s oldest private and public colleges, respectively.

Chief Justice John Roberts said that for too long universities have “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent that the decision “rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.”

In a separate dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — the court’s first Black female justice — called the decision “truly a tragedy for us all.”

The Supreme Court had twice upheld race-conscious college admissions programs in the past 20 years, including as recently as 2016.

But that was before the three appointees of former President Donald Trump joined the court. At arguments in late October, all six conservative justices expressed doubts about the practice, which had been upheld under Supreme Court decisions reaching back to 1978.

Lower courts also had upheld the programs at both UNC and Harvard, rejecting claims that the schools discriminated against white and Asian-American applicants.

This year’s Fourth of July holiday recognizes the 247th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence — just three years away from the country’s semiquincentennial. From parades to fireworks, here’s how the Historic Triangle plans to celebrate.

Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg will celebrate July Fourth with fireworks as well as music and other festivities. The day begins at 9:30 a.m. with Thomas Jefferson reading the Declaration of Independence from the Capitol West balcony.

In honor of the day, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is offering free admission to the Historic Area and the Art Museums from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For complimentary tickets, visit www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/tickets/july4.

The day’s events include a Salute to the States with the Colonial Williamsburg Fifes & Drums and a musket volley in Market Square at 10:30 a.m.

Lights of Freedom, a celebration of the words and music of the American Revolution, will begin on the Palace Green at 8 p.m. Guests are invited to bring chairs, blankets and food to enjoy the concert.

A fireworks display above the Governor’s Palace will begin 9:30 p.m. and can be seen from the Palace Green, Market Square and the eastern side of the lawn of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg.

For a full list of events, visit colonialwilliamsburg.org/july4.

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Yorktown

Yorktown’s 44th Independence Day Celebration takes place on Historic Main Street and along the waterfront at Riverwalk Landing on July 4.

The day kicks off at 8 a.m. with the Yorktown Independence Day 8K/5K Run/Walk (virtual and in person), followed by a parade at 9 a.m. Activities and music will be featured throughout the day, including a hot dog eating contest at 1 p.m. at Riverwalk Landing.

The day will cap off with a bell ringing ceremony at 7 p.m., a jazz band concert at 8 p.m. and fireworks at 9:15 p.m. over the York River.

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., the Liberty Celebration at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown will feature interpretive programs, artillery demonstrations, tours and a patriotic sing-along. There will also be a recreated Continental Army encampment along with a Revolution-era farm.

Liberty Celebration events are included with museum admission (free for residents of Williamsburg, James City County and York County). For more information, visit www.jyfmuseums.org/liberty-celebration.

The Yorktown Trolley will offer free shuttle service from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For a complete list of events and more information, including about parking, visit www.visityorktown.org/Fourth. Race registration is available at runsignup.com/Race/VA/Yorktown/YorktownIndependenceDay8KRunWalk.

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Colonial Parkway

Colonial National Historical Park is partnering with York County to provide activities throughout the day, including self-guided tours of the Nelson House in the afternoon. Entrance fees normally required to visit Yorktown Battlefield, Jamestown Island and the recreational stops along the Colonial Parkway will be waived on July 4.

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Other events

• July 2: The Daughters of the American Revolution will hold story times from 2-4 p.m. about the founding of the nation at Williamsburg Regional Library and James City County Library.
• July 3: Williamsburg, William & Mary and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation will host the third annual Community Appreciation Day on the lawn of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, beginning at 5 p.m. The U.S. Air Force Heritage of America Band will perform at 7:30 p.m.
• July 4: Freedom flow, an all-levels yoga class, will be held at 11 a.m. at Aleworks Brewing Co., 189B Ewell Road. Wear red, white and blue. $10/person.
• July 4: The Classic Cruisers Car Club will host a free car show from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. at Coastal Church, 101 Village Ave., Yorktown. Music, food. All money raised will go directly to the Gathering of Mountain Eagles, which provides opportunities for wounded or injured American military service members and family members. Visit www.ccccva.com.
• July 1-8: Military Appreciation Week at Busch Gardens, with military bands, nightly fireworks, up-close view of military vehicles and specialty shopping.

Kim O’Brien Root, [email protected]

If you get the sense you’ve been seeing more bad accidents on the road lately, you probably have. Crashes claimed an estimated 42,795 lives on U.S. roadways in 2022, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a fairly dramatic increase over 2019 by more than 6,000 deaths.

Though traffic on U.S. roadways plummeted in the first year of the pandemic, roadway deaths did the opposite. Traffic fatalities experienced double-digit growth four quarters in a row beginning in the second half of 2020.

And death rates haven’t really improved since then. “Driving is back up almost to normal, but fatalities are continuing to go up,” says David Zuby, executive vice president and chief research officer at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

This is a paradox that spurred U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to call it a “national crisis of traffic deaths.”

What’s to blame?

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A deadly cocktail of speed, carelessness and mass

There isn’t one contributing factor to the rise in roadway deaths, but many.

In the early days of the pandemic, open roads and short-staffed police forces invited bad driving habits — habits that have been hard for drivers to break, according to IIHS.

One of them is speeding. According to LexisNexis’ 2023 U.S. Auto Insurance Trends Report, major speeding violations were up 20% in 2022 compared to 2019.

Other contributing factors in the rise of traffic deaths include more people driving drunk and fewer people wearing seat belts. But the cars themselves may also be to blame.

While newer vehicles sold today are typically safer to drive than models from previous years, they’re also bigger — 2021 models were the heaviest ever, on average, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

And there are a lot of them on the road. According to J.D. Power, 80% of new car sales in 2022 came from trucks and SUVs. “If you’re a bicyclist or pedestrian struck by an SUV or truck, you’re more likely to suffer serious and fatal injuries than if you’re struck by a car,” Zuby says.

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What the rise in traffic fatalities means for you

Aside from the morbid thought that there’s a slightly greater chance you’ll be involved in a serious car accident, how else might the rise in traffic deaths impact you? One way is your wallet.

More severe accidents drive up auto insurance costs, says Scott Holeman, a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute. Insurers, already battered by inflation, financial losses from natural disasters and tough regulatory environments in some large states, are now facing greater claim payouts from car accidents. According to the LexisNexis report, claim severity, or the total cost of claims, has increased by 35% since 2019 for liability claims and 40% for collision claims.

And rising costs for insurers mean rising costs for drivers. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that the cost of car insurance rose 17% in May compared to the year prior, continuing a nine-month run of double-digit cost hikes.

Here are a few things to consider:

Make sure you’re not underinsured

The last thing you want is to find out you don’t have enough insurance if you ever need to make a claim. That’s why now’s a good time to chat with your insurance agent or review your car insurance declaration page to check your coverage.

In particular, take a close look at your liability coverage. This pays for other people’s medical bills or property damage from accidents you cause. With the cost of cars, repair labor and medical care all at record-high levels, your liability insurance limits might not be high enough to cover all medical costs or damages after a bad accident. If that happens, you might be on the hook to pay the balance.

“Nobody wants to read their insurance policies,” Holeman empathizes. “But it’s an important component to your financial well-being.”

Shop around

Insurance rate hikes are normal. But if they seem a lot higher than when you originally signed the dotted line, consider other options. “The good news about insurance is that a lot of people want your business,” Holeman says.

Make sure you do your due diligence when courting other insurers. Check customer complaint and satisfaction ratings, and compare car insurance quotes using similar coverage amounts to make a more informed decision. And don’t forget to ask about discounts.

Practice safe driving habits

Perhaps the best financial move you can make is to practice safe driving habits. “It only takes a couple of seconds for something really bad to happen, especially when people are driving at faster speeds,” Holeman warns.

Here are a few simple things you can do to stay safe behind the wheel:

• Follow safety laws. This includes wearing a seat belt, following the rules of the road and not binge-watching your favorite show on your phone.
• Make sure your car’s in good shape. Make a habit of checking your tires, wiper blades and brake pads to prevent sudden malfunctions on the road — and don’t ignore your check engine light.
• Limit distractions. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb or download a safe driving app like LifeSaver so you don’t feel tempted to check every ping and ding your cell makes. While you’re at it, save the burger and fries you picked up for after you reach your destination, or just eat in the parking lot.
• Take advantage of new car technology. Next time you go car shopping, consider adding driver assistance technologies like automatic braking and blindspot warning to your list of must-have features.

For more driving safety tips, check out the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

This story originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By SETH BORENSTEIN (AP Science Writer)

The only break much of America can hope for anytime soon from eye-watering dangerous smok e from fire-struck Canada is brief bouts of shirt-soaking sweltering heat and humidity from a southern heat wave that has already proven deadly, forecasters say.

And then the smoke will likely come back to the Midwest and East.

That’s because neither the 235 out-of-control Canadian wildfires nor the stuck weather pattern that’s responsible for this mess of meteorological maladies are showing signs of relenting for the next week or longer, according to meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center.

First, the stuck weather pattern made abnormally hot and dry conditions for Canada to burn at off-the-chart record levels. Then it created a setup where the only relief comes when low pressure systems roll through, which means areas on one side get smoky air from the north and the other gets sweltering air from the south.

Smoke or heat. “Pick your poison,” said prediction center forecast operations chief Greg Carbin. “The conditions are not going to be very favorable.”

“As long as those fires keep burning up there, that’s going to be a problem for us,” Carbin said. “As long as there’s something to burn, there will be smoke we have to deal with.”

Take St. Louis. The city had two days of unhealthy air Tuesday and Wednesday, but for Thursday “they’ll get an improvement of air quality with the very hot and humid heat,” said weather prediction center meteorologist Bryan Jackson. The forecast is for temperatures that feel like 109 degrees (42.8 degrees Celsius) — with 101 degree (38.3 degrees Celsius) heat and stifling humidity.

On Wednesday, the low pressure system was parked over New England and because winds go counter-clockwise, areas to the west – such as Chicago and the Midwest – get smoky winds from the north, while areas east of the low pressure get southerly hot winds, Jackson said.

As that low pressure system moves on and another one travels over the central Great Plains and Lake Superior, the Midwest gets temporary relief, Jackson said. But when low pressure moves on, the smoke comes back.

“We have this this carousel of air cruising around the Midwest, and every once in a while is bringing the smoke directly onto whatever city you live in,” said University of Chicago atmospheric scientist Liz Moyer. “And while the fires are ongoing, you can expect to see these periodic bad air days and the only relief is either when the fires go out or when the weather pattern dies.”

The stuck weather pattern is “awfully unusual,” said NOAA’s Carbin who had to look back in records to 1980 to see anything even remotely similar. “What gets me is the persistence of this.”

Why is the weather pattern stuck? This seems to be happening more often — and some scientists suggest that human-caused climate change causes more situations where weather patterns stall. Moyer and Carbin said it’s too soon to tell if that’s the case.

But Carbin and Canadian fire scientist Mike Flannigan said there’s a clear climate signal in the Canadian fires. And they said those fires aren’t likely to die down anytime soon, with nothing in the forecast that looks likely to change.

Nearly every province in Canada has fires burning. A record 30,000 square miles (80,000 square kilometers) have burned, an area nearly as large as South Carolina, according to the Canadian government.

And fire season usually doesn’t really get going until July in Canada.

“It’s been a crazy crazy year. It’s unusual to have the whole country on fire,” said Flannigan, a professor at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia. “Usually it’s regional… not the whole shebang at once.”

Hotter than normal and drier air made for ideal fire weather, Flannigan said. Warmer weather from climate change means the atmosphere sucks more moisture out of plants, making them more likely to catch fire, burn faster and hotter.

“Fires are all about extremes,” he said.

And where there’s fire, there’s smoke.

Both high heat and smoky conditions are stressors on the body and can present potential challenges to human health, said Ed Avol, a professor emeritus at the Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California.

But Avol added that while the haze of wildfire smoke provides a visual cue to stay inside, there can be hidden dangers of breathing in harmful pollutants such as ozone even when the sky looks clear. He also noted there are air chemistry changes that can happen downwind of wildfire smoke, which may have additional and less well-understood impacts on the body.

It’s still only June. The seasonal forecast for the rest of the summer in Canada “is for hot and mostly dry” and that’s not good for dousing fires, Flannigan said. “It’s a crazy year and I’m not sure where it’s going to end.”

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Associated Press reporter Melina Walling contributed from Chicago.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By PATRICK WHITTLE (Associated Press)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Human remains have likely been recovered from the wreckage of the submersible that imploded during an underwater voyage to view the Titanic, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.

The news came hours after the announcement that debris from the Titan, collected from the seafloor more than 12,000 feet (3,658 meters) below the surface of the North Atlantic, had arrived in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Twisted chunks of the submersible were unloaded at a Canadian Coast Guard pier.

Recovering and scrutinizing the wreckage is a key part of the investigation into why the Titan imploded last week, killing all five people on board. The multiday search and eventual recovery of debris from the 22-foot (6.7-meter) vessel captured the world’s attention.

“There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the Titan and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again,” Coast Guard Chief Capt. Jason Neubauer said in a statement released late Wednesday afternoon.

The “presumed human remains” will be brought to the United States, where medical professionals will conduct a formal analysis, Neubauer said. He added that the Coast Guard has convened an investigation of the implosion at the highest level. The Marine Board of Investigation will analyze and test evidence, including pieces of debris, at a port in the U.S. The board will share the evidence at a future public hearing whose date has not been determined, the Coast Guard said.

Neubauer said the evidence will provide “critical insights” into the cause of the implosion.

Debris from the Titan, which is believed to have imploded on June 18 as it made its descent, was located about 12,500 feet (3,810 meters) underwater and roughly 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the Titanic on the ocean floor. The Coast Guard is leading the investigation, in conjunction with several other government agencies in the U.S. and Canada.

Authorities have not disclosed details of the debris recovery, which could have followed several approaches, according to Carl Hartsfield, who directs a lab at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution that designs and operates autonomous underwater vehicles and has been serving as a consultant to the Coast Guard.

“If the pieces are small, you can collect them together and put them in a basket or some kind of collection device,” Hartsfield said Monday. Bigger pieces could be retrieved with a remote-operated vehicle, or ROV, such as the one brought to the wreckage site by the Canadian ship Horizon Arctic to search the ocean floor. For extremely big pieces, a heavy lift could be used to pull them up with a tow line, he said.

Representatives for Horizon Arctic did not respond to requests for comment. The ROV’s owner, Pelagic Research Services, a company with offices in Massachusetts and New York, is “still on mission” and cannot comment on the investigation, company spokesperson Jeff Mahoney said Wednesday.

“They have been working around the clock now for 10 days, through the physical and mental challenges of this operation,” Mahoney said.

Analyzing the recovered debris could reveal important clues about what happened to the Titan, and there could be electronic data recorded by the submersible’s instruments, Hartsfield said.

“So the question is, is there any data available? And I really don’t know the answer to that question,” he said Monday.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which is conducting a safety investigation into the Titan’s Canadian-flagged mother ship, the Polar Prince, said Wednesday that it has sent that vessel’s voyage data recorder to a lab for analysis.

Stockton Rush, the Titan’s pilot and CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the company that owned the submersible, was killed in the implosion along with two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

OceanGate is based in the U.S. but the submersible was registered in the Bahamas.

The company charged passengers $250,000 each to participate in the voyage. The implosion of the Titan has raised questions about the safety of private undersea exploration operations. The Coast Guard wants to use the investigation to improve the safety of submersibles.

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Associated Press writers Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, and Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.

By MIKE HOUSEHOLDER and COREY WILLIAMS (Associated Press)

DETROIT (AP) — Smoky air from Canada’s wildfires shrouded broad swaths of the U.S. from Minnesota to New York and Kentucky on Wednesday, prompting warnings to stay inside and exacerbating health risks for people already suffering from industrial pollution.

The impacts are particularly hard on poor and minority communities that are more likely to live near polluting plants and have higher rates of asthma. Detroit, a mostly Black city with a poverty rate of about 30%, had some of the worst air quality in the U.S. on Wednesday, prompting the Environmental Protection Agency to warn that “everyone should stay indoors.”

“The more breaths you’re taking, you’re inhaling, literally, a fire, camp smoke, into your lungs,” said Darren Riley, who was diagnosed with asthma in 2018, a few years after arriving in Detroit.

“Many communities face this way too often,” said Riley, who is Black. “And while this wildfire smoke allows, unfortunately, many people to feel this burden, this is a burden that far too long communities have faced day in and day out.”

The EPA’s AirNow.gov site showed cities including Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, Ohio, had “very unhealthy air” as of Wednesday afternoon. A wider circle of unhealthy air spread into Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Louisville, Kentucky.

Earlier this month, smoke from the wildfires blanketed the U.S. East Coast for days.

Another round of drifting smoke from the wildfires was moving through western Pennsylvania and central New York and headed toward the Mid-Atlantic, said National Weather Service meteorologist Byran Jackson. In Canada, smoke will migrate across Quebec and Ontario over the next few days, Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Steven Flisfeder said.

In the U.S., the smoke is exacerbating air quality issues for poor and Black communities that already are more likely to live near polluting plants, and in rental housing with mold and other triggers.

Detroit’s southwest side is home to a number of sprawling refineries and manufacturing plants. It is one of the poorest parts of the city. According to a 2022 report by the American Lung Association, the city’s and short-term particle pollution ranked among the worst in the nation.

“Being close to those refineries — that’s an environmental factor that’s difficult to control,” said Dr. Ruma Srivastava, a pediatric pulmonologist at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit. “It does increase their risk for asthma flareups. For them, it’s even more important to follow the (air quality safety) recommendations.”

Riley’s own experiences prompted him to start JustAir, which provides air pollution monitoring.

“Just because you’re born in a certain ZIP code or you’re born into a certain family with a certain skin color doesn’t mean that you should have an unequal go at it,” he said.

Elsewhere, Milwaukee County Emergency Medical Services has seen a spike in calls for residents with respiratory complaints, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Office of Emergency Management data show a disproportionate amount of calls for respiratory issues – 54.8% – have been for Black people in Milwaukee, according to the newspaper. Milwaukee County’s population is 27.1% Black.

In Chicago, where about 29% of the population is Black, Mayor Brandon Johnson urged young people, older adults and residents with health issues to spend more time indoors. He pledged “swift action to ensure that vulnerable individuals have the resources they need to protect themselves and their families.”

President Joe Biden visited the nation’s third-largest city on Wednesday to promote his renewable energy policies. Biden has described the Canadian wildfires as clear evidence of climate change.

Minnesota issued a record 23rd air quality alert for the year through late Wednesday night, as smoky skies obscured the skylines of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana were among other states issuing air quality alerts, and cities including Louisville also advised people to limit prolonged or intense outdoor activity.

“This is particularly thick smoke,” Jackson, with the National Weather Service, said.

A record 30,000 square miles (80,000 square kilometers) of Canada has burned, an area nearly as large as South Carolina, according to the Canadian government.

“As long as the fires are burning and the smoke is in the atmosphere it is going to be a concern not just for Canadians but Americans as well,” Flisfeder, the Canadian meteorologist, said.

The small particles in wildfire smoke can irritate the eyes, nose and throat, and can affect the heart and lungs, making it harder to breathe. Health officials say it’s important to limit outdoor activities to avoid breathing in the particles.

The warming planet will produce hotter and longer heat waves, making for bigger, smokier fires, said Joel Thornton, professor and chair of the department of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.

Quentin Hernandez, a 24-year-old event planner from Detroit, was out skateboarding for about an hour Wednesday at a skate park near the Ambassador Bridge, which connects the city and Windsor, Ontario.

“It just sits like this all day,” said Hernandez, saying that it smelled like being at a barbecue. “Literally, the smoke just sits in the air.”

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Associated Press contributors include Trisha Ahmed and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, Ken Kusmer in Indianapolis, Rebecca Reynolds in Louisville, Ky., and Julie Walker in New York.

By FREIDA FRISARO (Associated Press)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A firefighter from Georgia and two fathers who drowned while trying to save their children are among at least 10 recent victims of dangerous rip currents along Gulf of Mexico beaches stretching across Florida’s Panhandle to Mobile, Alabama.

Many of the deaths happened on days with double red flags — which are posted at beach entrances and on lifeguard stations to warn beachgoers of potential rip currents. Since mid-June, there have been six deaths around Panama City Beach in Florida.

Nearby, in Destin, Florida, ex-NFL quarterback Ryan Mallett, 35, drowned Tuesday, but local officials said rip currents weren’t observed — and that day, yellow caution flags, not double red flags, were flying at the beach.

Three people drowned off the coast of Alabama between June 20 and June 23, according to the Gulf Shores Police Department.

The Gulf of Mexico’s white sandy beaches are a draw for tourists, and as the busy Fourth of July holiday approaches, officials are hoping beachgoers will take extra precaution.

“I’m beyond frustrated at the situation that we have with tragic and unnecessary deaths in the Gulf,” Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford wrote in a Facebook post, accompanied by an aerial view that shows deep trenches that rip currents dug into the shoreline along Panama City Beach. “I have watched while deputies, firefighters and lifeguards have risked their lives to save strangers. I have seen strangers die trying to save their children and loved ones, including two fathers on Father’s Day.”

Ford says his deputies have been cursed at as they’ve tried to warn visitors of the “life-threatening dangers” in the Gulf of Mexico.

He said deputies have handed out $500 fines when they’ve seen people in the water during double red flag days.

“We don’t have the resources or time to cite every single person that enters the water but we do our absolute best to use it as a deterrent to entering the water,” Ford said, explaining that an arrest is only authorized upon a second offense, unless the person resists law enforcement.

The sheriff notes there is only so much local officials can do, so he’s asking tourists and residents to pay close attention to the flag status at the beach.

“Personal responsibility is the only way to ensure that no one else dies,” he wrote.

That message is echoed by Greg Dusek, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s ocean service unit. He said that people can’t always see the deep channels on the shoreline caused by rip currents, or even tell how dangerous conditions are by the weather.

“Waves can happen when there’s a storm where you are, but they can also happen from storms far away,” Dusek said. “It can be a really nice day at the beach, beautiful, not even much wind. But you have swells coming in from storms hundreds of miles away potentially, and those waves are big enough to drive in rip currents.”

Those are the days that officials often see higher numbers of water rescues and drownings.

“That’s why I think one of the big messages needs to be: Understand the flag system for the beach you are going to, and follow that guidance,” he said.

A rip current is a powerful, narrow channel of water flowing away from the beach and often extending through the breaker zone where waves form. They can emerge on sunny days, and can quickly sweep even the strongest swimmer out to sea.

“A rip current, basically, is water likes to go downhill. When breaking waves hit the shore, they get pushed up the beach,” said Daniel Noah, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Ruskin, Florida. “It’s trying to find the easiest way to get back into the water. And it finds these rip current channels and it can rapidly move back into the Gulf or the ocean.”

“The movement of water has a lot of force,” he added. “It’s dangerous for kids, it’s dangerous for adults, it’s dangerous for vehicles.”

While the popular Shark Week documentaries and the movie “Jaws” may have etched the fear of sharks into many beachgoers, drownings caused by rip currents claim many more lives. For example, in 2022 there were 108 documented shark bites of all types on humans worldwide, according to the International Shark File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Of those, Florida accounted for 16 bites, all nonfatal, among the 41 in the U.S. There was one fatality in Hawaii.

Meanwhile, through June 24, 2023, NOAA statistics show 55 deaths related to rip currents in the U.S. The seven deaths in Panama City Beach came between June 15 and 24.

“Even if there are red flags flying, people look at the water and say, ‘Oh, I’ve been in waves that big before. It doesn’t look that dangerous,’” Dusek said.

“Many times people don’t think about it, and they’re caught off guard by the risk,” he said. “I guess that’s natural human mentality. You get to the beach, you just want to have a good time with your family. You’re not necessarily thinking about what can go wrong.”

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Associated Press reporters Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, Laura Bargfeld in Ruskin, Florida and Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama contributed to this report.

By MICHAEL WAGAMAN (Associated Press)

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Since arriving in the big leagues six years ago, Domingo Germán has been anything but perfect.

Until now.

The New York Yankees right-hander pitched the 24th perfect game in major league history Wednesday night, retiring every Oakland batter in an 11-0 victory over the Athletics.

It was the first perfect game since Seattle Mariners ace Félix Hernández threw one against the Tampa Bay Rays on Aug. 15, 2012. There were three that season — but none since until Germán finished off the first no-hitter in the majors this year.

He joined Don Larsen (1956), David Wells (1998) and David Cone (1999) as Yankees to pitch perfect games. Larsen’s gem came in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

“So exciting,” Germán said through a translator. “When you think about something very unique in baseball, not many people have an opportunity to pitch a perfect game. To accomplish something like this in my career is something that I’m going to remember forever.”

Coming off a pair of terrible starts, Germán (5-5) struck out nine of 27 hitters against the A’s, who have the worst record in the majors at 21-61.

The 30-year-old pitcher served a 10-game suspension last month after getting ejected from a game in Toronto for using an illegal sticky substance on the mound. His only previous complete game as a professional came with Double-A Trenton in April 2017.

Winless in six previous outings against Oakland, Germán threw 72 of 99 pitches for strikes. He mixed 51 curveballs and 30 fastballs that averaged 92.5 mph with 17 changeups and one sinker.

He went to three balls on a batter just twice, falling behind Ryan Noda 3-1 in the fourth and Jonah Bride by the same count in the eighth. Noda struck out on consecutive curveballs, and Germán followed with three straight curves to Bride: one for a called strike, the next resulting in a foul ball and the third in a groundout.

“It was just so fun to watch him do that and go to work. We’ve seen him flirt with outings like that over time,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, thinking to when Boston’s Alex Verdugo broke up Germán’s no-hit bid in the eighth in July 2021.

“When he gets rolling like that he’s just so fun to watch at his craft because he’s so good at commanding all of his pitches. His curveball was great tonight, but because his changeup and his fastball were good, too, it made that curveball even more special.”

Seth Brown came the closest to reaching base for the A’s, hitting a sharp grounder in the fifth inning to first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who made a diving stop and tossed to Germán for the out.

With the crowd of 12,479 on its feet for the ninth, Germán quickly finished what he started. He got Aledmys Díaz to ground out before Shea Langeliers flied out to short center field. When Esteury Ruiz grounded out to third baseman Josh Donaldson to end it, New York’s dugout and bullpen emptied as Germán’s teammates raced out to the mound to celebrate.

“That last inning was very different — very different. I felt an amount of pressure that I’ve never felt before,” Germán said. “I’m trying to visualize what I want to execute there. At the same time, I don’t want to miss. So much pressure, but yet so rewarding.

“The key there was not to overthrow,” he added.

A’s leadoff hitter Tony Kemp said Germán’s curveball set up everything else.

“He threw that curveball in any count that he wanted to,” Kemp said. “It was spinning differently and moving differently. He put his fastball where he wanted to. Changeup as well. He just kind of mixed them. Got a couple of good swings off him, but no results.”

Six days after allowing a career-high 10 runs (eight earned) and four homers over 3 1/3 innings in a loss to the Mariners at home, Germán got his 500th career strikeout and was the definition of perfection.

“This has not been an easy week or time for him,” Boone said. “For him to go out there and paint that masterpiece was really just a lot of fun just to be able to watch.”

It was the 13th no-hitter in Yankees history, including Larsen’s perfect game in the World Series. Corey Kluber pitched their previous no-hitter against the Texas Rangers on May 19, 2021.

Germán, who idolized Hernández growing up, is the rare pitcher who wears zero on the back of his uniform.

Never has that number been more appropriate.

“I’m just happy for Domingo. He’s had a rough last couple starts and he’s kind of been dragging a little bit,” Yankees catcher Kyle Higashioka said. “I kind of always felt like of anyone, he has a really good chance to do something like this and for it all to come together tonight is just amazing.”

It marked quite a personal turnaround for Germán, who went 18-4 in 2019 with the Yankees but was put on administrative leave late that season while Major League Baseball investigated an alleged domestic violence incident involving his girlfriend.

He missed the entire pandemic-shortened 2020 season and playoffs while serving an 81-game suspension, then met face-to-face with Yankees teammates and made a public apology at spring training when he returned to the club in February 2021.

Giancarlo Stanton homered for the first time in more than two weeks and drove in three runs, and Donaldson added three RBIs against his former team to help the Yankees to their 15th win in 21 games against the A’s since Aug. 31, 2019.

Stanton crushed a 422-foot homer on a first-pitch fastball from former Yankees pitcher JP Sears (1-6) in the fourth. The slumping slugger added a two-run single off Shintaro Fujinami in the fifth when the Yankees scored six runs and benefited from two errors by the A’s.

Higashioka had an RBI double, then scored when Anthony Volpe reached on an infield single and Sears flipped the ball wildly into foul territory. Volpe took second on the error, stole third and then scored on DJ LeMahieu’s single.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who walked leading off the inning and scored, capped the uprising with a two-out RBI single.

But the night belonged to Germán, who was loudly cheered as the game unfolded. Many fans in Oakland were decked out in Yankees colors or jerseys.

“Unfortunately, two days ago an uncle of mine passed away and I cried a lot yesterday in the clubhouse. So I had him with me throughout the whole game. I was thinking about him,” Germán said. “This game is a tribute to him. He would have been so happy. He was always someone that really brought a joy to our family and it happened for him to watch it this way, from up there.”

STATS AND STUFF

The Yankees became the first franchise with four perfect games (the Chicago White Sox have three). … The Coliseum joins Yankee Stadium as the only ballparks to be the site of three perfect games. … Oakland had played 5,063 games since the last time the team was no-hit. Now, the Washington Nationals franchise holds the longest active streak in the majors, going 3,812 games (including playoffs) since Cone’s perfect game against the Montreal Expos at Yankee Stadium in July 1999.

ROSTER MOVES

Yankees RHP Jhony Brito, the losing pitcher Tuesday, was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. RHP Ian Hamilton was activated off the injured list after missing 35 games with a right groin strain.

UP NEXT

Yankees RHP Clarke Schmidt (2-6, 4.32 ERA) starts Thursday afternoon and has pitched to a 2.19 ERA over his past seven outings dating to May 19. A’s manager Mark Kotsay said LHP Hogan Harris (2-1, 4.91) would either start or come in following an opener.

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