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Tropical Storm Colin formed along the South Carolina coast on Saturday, bringing the threat of rain and high winds for a day or two during the holiday weekend before improving for Monday's July Fourth celebrations. The National Hurricane Center in Miami warned of the possibility of localized flash flooding along the Carolinas coast through Sunday morning. At 8 p.m. EDT Saturday, the storm’s center was about 35 miles (55 kilometers) west-southwest of Wilmington, North Carolina with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph). It was moving northeast at 7 mph (11 kph). The hurricane center said a tropical storm warning was in effect for a stretch from Cape Fear, North Carolina, to Duck, North Carolina, including Pamlico Sound. The storm is expected to weaken as moves into the Atlantic and dissipate by Sunday night. “Colin will continue to produce locally heavy rainfall across coastal portions of North Carolina and northern South Carolina through Sunday morning," the center said. Isolated amounts could reach up to 4 inches (10 centimeters). “This rainfall may result in localized areas of flash flooding,” the center said. Some Fourth of July celebrations planned Saturday in Charleston, South Carolina, were canceled after significant water had pooled on the field at Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park and more rain was expected. “Obviously, we’re disappointed,” said Scott Watson, the city's director of cultural affairs. “This promised to be a great family event, and we hate to have to cancel. Organizers were also forced to cancel a festival planned in Southport, North Carolina. “The safety of Festival goers, vendors, volunteers, emergency workers and everyone is our highest priority,” festival spokesperson Trisha Howarth said in a statement. Separately, the center of Tropical Storm Bonnie rolled into the Pacific on Saturday after a rapid march across Central America, where it caused flooding, downed trees and forced thousands of people to evacuate in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. There were no immediate reports of deaths. By Saturday evening, Bonnie was centered about 130 miles (205 kilometers) west-southwest of Managua, with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph). It was moving to the west at 16 mph (26 kph). It’s one of the rare storms to make an Atlantic to Pacific crossing without losing tropical storm force, thus maintaining its name. Forecasters said Bonnie is likely to become a hurricane this week off the southern coast of Mexico, but is unlikely to make a direct hit on land. Many Nicaraguans still remember Hurricane Joan, a powerful 1988 storm that wreaked havoc on the coast and caused almost 150 deaths in the country. “We are waiting for the storm to hit, hoping that it won't destroy our region," Bluefields resident Ricardo Gómez, who was 8 when Joan hit, said before Bonnie arrived. The area was also battered by two powerful hurricanes, Eta and Iota, in quick succession in 2020, causing an estimated $700 million in damage. Officials in Costa Rica expressed concern that the storm would unleash landslides and flooding in an area already saturated by days of rain. The government said seven shelters in the northern part of the country already held nearly 700 people displaced by flooding.

The Texas Supreme Court blocked a lower court order late Friday night that said clinics could continue performing abortions, just days after some doctors had resumed seeing patients after the fall of Roe v. Wade. It was not immediately clear whether Texas clinics that had resumed seeing patients this week would halt services again. A hearing is scheduled for later this month. The whiplash of Texas clinics turning away patients, rescheduling them, and now potentially canceling appointments again — all in the span of a week — illustrated the confusion and scrambling taking place across the country since Roe was overturned. An order by a Houston judge earlier this week had reassured some clinics they could temporarily resume abortions up to six weeks into pregnancy. That was quickly followed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asking the state’s highest court, which is stocked with nine Republican justices, to temporarily put the order on hold. “These laws are confusing, unnecessary, and cruel,” said Marc Hearron, attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, after the order was issued Friday night. READ: Post-Roe, states struggle with conflicting abortion bans Clinics in Texas had stopped performing abortions in the state of nearly 30 million people after the U.S. Supreme Court last week overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to abortion. Texas had technically left an abortion ban on the books for the past 50 years while Roe was in place. A copy of Friday's order was provided by attorneys for Texas clinics. It could not immediately be found on the court’s website. Abortion providers and patients across the country have been struggling to navigate the evolving legal landscape around abortion laws and access. In Florida, a law banning abortions after 15 weeks went into effect Friday, the day after a judge called it a violation of the state constitution and said he would sign an order temporarily blocking the law next week. The ban could have broader implications in the South, where Florida has wider access to the procedure than its neighbors. Abortion rights have been lost and regained in the span of a few days in Kentucky. A so-called trigger law imposing a near-total ban on the procedure took effect last Friday, but a judge blocked the law Thursday, meaning the state’s only two abortion providers can resume seeing patients — for now. The legal wrangling is almost certain to continue to cause chaos for Americans seeking abortions in the near future, with court rulings able to upend access at a moment's notice and an influx of new patients from out of state overwhelming providers. Even when women travel outside states with abortion bans in place, they may have fewer options to end their pregnancies as the prospect of prosecution follows them. Planned Parenthood of Montana this week stopped providing medication abortions to patients who live in states with bans “to minimize potential risk for providers, health center staff, and patients in the face of a rapidly changing landscape.” Planned Parenthood North Central States, which offers the procedure in Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska, is telling its patients that they must take both pills in the regimen in a state that allows abortions. The use of abortion pills has been the most common method to end a pregnancy since 2000, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone — the main drug used in medication abortions. Taken with misoprostol, a drug that causes cramping that empties the womb, it constitutes the abortion pill. “There’s a lot of confusion and concern that the providers may be at risk, and they are trying to limit their liability so they can provide care to people who need it," said Dr. Daniel Grossman, who directs the research group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California San Francisco. Emily Bisek, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood North Central States, said that in an “unknown and murky” legal environment, they decided to tell patients they must be in a state where it is legal to complete the medication abortion -- which requires taking two drugs 24 to 48 hours apart. She said most patients from states with bans are expected to opt for surgical abortions. Access to the pills has become a key battle in abortion rights, with the Biden administration preparing to argue states can’t ban a medication that has received FDA approval. Kim Floren, who operates an abortion fund in South Dakota called Justice Empowerment Network, said the development would further limit women's choices. “The purpose of these laws anyways is to scare people,” Floren said of states’ bans on abortions and telemedicine consultations for medication abortions. “The logistics to actually enforcing these is a nightmare, but they rely on the fact that people are going to be scared.” A South Dakota law took effect Friday that threatens a felony punishment for anyone who prescribes medication for an abortion without a license from the South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners. In Alabama, Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office said it is reviewing whether people or groups could face prosecution for helping women fund and travel to out-of-state abortion appointments. Yellowhammer Fund, an Alabama-based group that helps low-income women cover abortion and travel costs, said it is pausing operation for two weeks because of the lack of clarity under state law. “This is a temporary pause, and we’re going to figure out how we can legally get you money and resources and what that looks like,” said Kelsea McLain, Yellowhammer’s health care access director. Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, said staff members at its clinics have seen women driving from as far as Texas without stopping or making an appointment. Women who are past 15 weeks are being asked to leave their information and promised a call back when a judge signs the order temporarily blocking the restriction, she said. Still, there is concern that the order may be only temporary and the law may again go into effect later, creating additional confusion. “It’s terrible for patients,” she said. “We are really nervous about what is going to happen.”

New York lawmakers approved a sweeping overhaul Friday of the state’s handgun licensing rules, seeking to preserve some limits on firearms after the Supreme Court ruled that most people have a right to carry a handgun for personal protection. The measure, signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul after passing both chambers by wide margins, is almost sure to draw more legal challenges from gun rights advocates who say the state is still putting too many restrictions on who can get guns and where they can carry them. Hochul, a Democrat, called the Democrat-controlled Legislature back to Albany to work on the law after last week’s high-court ruling overturning the state’s longstanding licensing restrictions. Backers said the law, which takes effect Sept. 1, strikes the right balance between complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling and keeping weapons out of the hands of people likely to use them recklessly or with criminal intent. But some Republican lawmakers, opposed to tighter restrictions, argued the law violated the constitutional right to bear arms. They predicted it too would end up being overturned. Among other things, the state’s new rules will require people applying for a handgun license to turn over a list of their social media accounts so officials could verify their “character and conduct.” Applicants will have to show they have “the essential character, temperament and judgment necessary to be entrusted with a weapon and to use it only in a manner that does not endanger oneself and others.” As part of that assessment, applicants have to turn over a list of social media accounts they’ve maintained in the past three years. “Sometimes, they’re telegraphing their intent to cause harm to others,” Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said at a news conference. Gun rights advocates and Republican leaders were incensed, saying the legislation not only violated the Second Amendment, but also privacy and free speech rights. “New Yorkers’ constitutional freedoms were just trampled on,” state Republican Chair Nick Langworthy said. The bill approved by lawmakers doesn’t specify whether applicants will be required to provide licensing officers with access to private social media accounts not visible to the general public. People applying for a license to carry a handgun will also have to provide four character references, take 16 hours of firearms safety training plus two hours of practice at a range, undergo periodic background checks and turn over contact information for their spouse, domestic partner or any other adults living in their household. Hochul’s chief lawyer, Elizabeth Fine, insisted the state was setting out “a very clear set of eligibility criteria” and noted that the legislation includes an appeals process. The measure signed into law Friday also fixes a recently passed law that barred sales of some types of bullet-resistant vests to the general public. The previous law inadvertently left out many types of body armor, including the type worn by a gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racist attack on a Buffalo supermarket. The Supreme Court’s ruling last week struck down a 109-year-old state law that required people to demonstrate an unusual threat to their safety to qualify for a license to carry a handgun outside their homes. That restriction generally limited the licenses to people who had worked in law enforcement or had another special need that went beyond routine public safety concerns. Under the new system, the state won’t authorize permits for people with criminal convictions within the past five years for driving while intoxicated, menacing or third-degree assault. People also won’t be allowed to carry firearms at a long list of “sensitive places,” including New York City’s tourist-packed Times Square. That list also includes schools, universities, government buildings, places where people have gathered for public protests, health care facilities, places of worship, libraries, public playgrounds and parks, day care centers, summer camps, addiction and mental health centers, shelters, public transit, bars, theaters, stadiums, museums, polling places and casinos. New York will also bar people from bringing guns into any business or workplace unless the owners put up signs saying guns are welcome. People who bring guns into places without such signs could be prosecuted on felony charges. READ: Police: Officer, 2 women shot by man who exchanged gunfire That’s a reverse approach from many other states where businesses that want to keep guns out are usually required to post signs indicating weapons aren’t allowed. Gun advocates said the law infringes on rights upheld by the Supreme Court. “Now we’re going to let the pizzeria owner decide whether or not I can express my constitutional right,” said Sen. Andrew Lanza, a Staten Island Republican. “This is a disgrace. See you in the courts.”

In Arizona, Republicans are fighting among themselves over whether a 121-year-old anti-abortion law from the pre-statehood Wild West days, when Arizona was still a frontier mining territory, should be enforced over a 2022 version. In Idaho, meanwhile, it is not clear whether a pair of laws from the early 1970s making it a felony to “knowingly aid” in an abortion or to publish information about how to induce one will be enforced alongside the state’s newer, near-total ban. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade has advocates, prosecutors and residents of red states facing a legal morass created by decades of often conflicting anti-abortion legislation. Politicians and state government attorneys are trying to sort out which laws and which provisions are in force. And abortion rights advocates who are going to court to protect the right to terminate a pregnancy are finding themselves doing battle on multiple fronts. Lawyers in Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden’s office are going through all the state’s abortion statutes with a fine-tooth comb, said Wasden spokesman Scott Graf. “Following last week’s decision, part of our subsequent work is to now review Idaho’s existing abortion-related laws and examine them through a post-Roe legal lens,” Graf said. “That work has commenced and will continue in the weeks ahead.” In West Virginia, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit challenging an abortion ban that was put on the books in 1882. The organization says the law conflicts with newer ones and so should be void. “We will not stand by while this state is dragged back to the 1800s,” the organization’s legal director, Loree Stark, said in a statement. “Every day that uncertainty remains about the enforceability of this statute is another day that West Virginians are being denied critical, lifesaving health care.” In Wisconsin, Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a 173-year-old abortion ban, arguing that modern generations never consented to it. The 1849 law prohibits abortion in every instance except to save the pregnant person’s life — conflicting with Wisconsin laws from the mid-1980s that ban the procedure after a fetus reaches the point that it could survive outside the womb with medical intervention. Read: Overturning of Roe v Wade abortion law huge blow to women's rights: Bachelet Arizona GOP officials disagree over which abortion laws are enforceable. Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced Wednesday that a pre-statehood law banning all abortions is now enforceable, but Republican Gov. Doug Ducey has said a law he signed in March takes precedence over the 1901 ban. When the Idaho Legislature passed a “trigger law” in 2020 that would automatically prohibit nearly all abortions 30 days after the fall of Roe, lawmakers took some steps to avoid conflicts by making it clear that the law would supersede other bans. Lawmakers put similar language in another ban passed earlier this year, saying the 2020 law would take precedence. But they may have overlooked a few clauses in the decades-old statutes. The 2020 trigger law says specifically that the person seeking the abortion can’t be charged with a crime, instead focusing prosecution efforts on the abortion provider. That would seem to override a 1973 law that makes it a felony for a person to undergo an abortion, but it’s not clear if another portion of the older law making it a felony to knowingly aid in an abortion could still be enforceable. “It’s hard to see how much of it survives, because of all the conflicts,” Twin Falls County prosecutor Grant Loebs said of the nearly three dozen anti-abortion laws on the books in Idaho. It will be up to individual county prosecutors, at first, to decide how to proceed, said Loebs, who is also president of the Idaho Prosecuting Attorneys Association. From there, judges will figure it out. Ultimately, he expects Idaho legislators will have a lot of fine-tuning to do in the years ahead. “I think every state doing this is going to have the same problems,” Loebs said. It all means a lot of juggling for abortion rights advocates.   Read: Abortion foes, supporters map next moves after Roe reversal Planned Parenthood is suing over both of Idaho’s newer laws. It has asked the Idaho Supreme Court to hear arguments in both cases on the same day in early August in hopes of getting a ruling before the trigger law takes effect.

Nine people, including a teenager, were wounded Thursday evening in gunfire outside a neighborhood grocery shop in Newark, police said. All of the victims are expected to survive and police are searching for a vehicle believed to have been involved in the shooting, Acting Newark Public Safety Director Raul Malave told reporters at the scene. Five of the victims, including a 17-year-old, brought themselves to a hospital. Four other victims were taken to a hospital by emergency responders, Malave said. Also read: 2 killed in mass shooting in Norway; more than a dozen hurt Officers responded to the residential neighborhood at about 6:19 p.m. after an alert from the city's ShotSpotter system, which can detect gunfire. Police were looking for a white Honda Pilot that was stolen in Jersey City, Malave said. It wasn't immediately clear how many people were shooting or why the gunfire started. Also read: 2 dead, 2 wounded in Alabama church shooting; suspect held

When President Donald Trump learned his attorney general had publicly rejected his election fraud claims, he heaved his lunch at the wall with such force that the porcelain plate shattered and ketchup streamed down. On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, consumed by crowd size concerns, he directed staff in profane terms to remove metal detectors he thought would slow down supporters who’d amassed in Washington for a speech. Never mind that some were armed — they weren’t there to hurt him, he said. And later that day, irate at being driven back to the White House instead of the Capitol, Trump uttered words to the effect of, “I am the f’ing president. Take me up to the Capitol now” and grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle. Trump’s volcanic temper has been the stuff of lore throughout his career in business, but during his presidency it has rarely been described with such evocative detail as in the testimony Tuesday of Cassidy Hutchinson, a junior White House staffer whose proximity to the-then president and top aides that day gave her a remarkably close view. Hutchinson offered previously unknown details about the extent of Trump’s rage in his final weeks of office, his awareness that some supporters had brought weapons with them and his ambivalence as rioters later laid siege to the Capitol. READ: 51 migrants die after trailer abandoned in San Antonio heat The testimony came as the Justice Department expands its investigation into the insurrection and deepened, but did not resolve, questions about whether Trump himself could face criminal charges for his conduct. Though Attorney General Merrick Garland has given no hint about whether his department will bring a criminal case against Trump, some legal experts said Hutchinson’s testimony could give prosecutors additional facts to pursue. Potentially problematic for Trump could be his urging on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021 to take down metal-detecting magnetometers that he thought were slow down supporters who’d gathered for a rally near the White House. Upset that some in the crowd might not get to see him, Trump, according to Hutchinson, said words to the effect of, “I don’t care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f’ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.” “Mags” refers to magnetometers. “A congressional hearing is not a court of law, but if this isn’t powerful evidence that he wasn’t just aware of the possibility of violence on the 6th but that he actively wanted to encourage it, I’m not sure what is,” said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor. Whatever any outcome related to a criminal proceeding, the disclosures come as Trump is laying the groundwork for another presidential run in 2024. Aides have been debating the merits of when he should announce his intentions. Looking to blunt negative publicity surrounding her testimony, Trump issued statements Tuesday on his social media platform calling her accounts of his behavior “fake” and denying that he had requested “that we make rooms for people with guns to watch my speech.” Trump is well-practiced at marginalizing his critics and accusers, but Hutchinson’s well-calibrated testimony will test that power anew. Tuesday’s hearing, the sixth by the House committee investigating the insurrection, was accompanied by suspense even before it began. It was hastily announced on Monday, but the committee did not reveal the identity of the witness until Hutchinson entered the room. Where prior hearings have involved clusters of witnesses who have recounted pressure campaigns on the Justice Department, or on local election officials, to overturn the election results, Tuesday’s hearing involved a singular narrator with an easy-to-follow tale sprinkled with had-to-be-there color. Some anecdotes she witnessed herself. Others she heard second-hand. READ: Biden suspends rules limiting immigrant arrest, deportation She recalled, for instance, being in the White House on the afternoon of Dec. 1, 2020 when she heard noise coming from down the hallway. Trump, it turned out, had just learned of an interview Attorney General William Barr had given to The Associated Press in which Barr said the Justice Department had not found widespread fraud sufficient to alter the outcome of the election. Inside the dining room was a shattered porcelain plate on the floor, apparently thrown in anger by the president. Ketchup streamed down the wall. Hutchinson says she grabbed a towel to wipe it off. She says she later heard about a separate episode on the afternoon of Jan. 6 when Trump tried to grab at the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle so that it would take him to the Capitol and not to the White House. He was, he said, “the f’ing president.” Trump was directed to take his hand off the wheel. The story drew pushback after the hearing, with a person familiar with the matter saying the agent who was driving the vehicle and another official were prepared to testify under oath that Trump never lunged for the wheel. In that instance and others, according to the testimony, the president’s will did not always prevail and Hutchinson detailed aides’ best efforts to rein in Trump’s worst impulses. The morning of Jan. 6, for instance, White House counsel Pat Cipollone cautioned Hutchinson that if Trump did go to the Capitol to intervene in the certification of the election, “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.” Whether the Justice Department thinks it has a case against the president, especially one that could further divide an already polarized nation, remains an open question. But there’s also no doubt that the investigation is expanding far beyond the rioters themselves, with law enforcement officials last week serving a wave of subpoenas across the country to state elections officials. “When you have witnesses who are in these conversations, who are in these rooms, who are actively participating in the high-level discussions of Jan. 6, it seems to me that one of two things has to be true: either they’re lying, or President Trump and a lot of people close to him are in serious jeopardy,” Vladeck said.

Desperate families of migrants from Mexico and Central America frantically sought word of their loved ones as authorities began the grim task Tuesday of identifying 51 people who died after being abandoned in a tractor-trailer without air conditioning in the sweltering Texas heat. It was the deadliest tragedy to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico. The driver of the truck and two other people were arrested, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas told The Associated Press. He said the truck had passed through a Border Patrol checkpoint northeast of Laredo, Texas, on Interstate 35. He did not know if migrants were inside the truck when it cleared the checkpoint. Investigators traced the truck’s registration to a residence in San Antonio and detained two men from Mexico for possession of weapons, according to criminal complaints filed by the U.S. attorney’s office. The complaints did not make any specific allegations related to the deaths. The bodies were discovered Monday afternoon on the outskirts of San Antonio when a city worker heard a cry for help from the truck parked on a lonely back road and found the gruesome scene inside, Police Chief William McManus said. Hours later, body bags lay spread on the ground. More than a dozen people — their bodies hot to the touch — were taken to hospitals, including four children. Most of the dead were males, he said. The death count was the highest ever from a smuggling attempt in the United States, according to Craig Larrabee, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio. “This is a horror that surpasses anything we’ve experienced before,” San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. “And it’s sadly a preventable tragedy.” President Joe Biden called the deaths “horrifying and heartbreaking.” “Exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit is shameful, as is political grandstanding around tragedy, and my administration will continue to do everything possible to stop human smugglers and traffickers from taking advantage of people who are seeking to enter the United States between ports of entry,” Biden said in a statement. Read: Russian missile strike hits crowded shopping mall in Ukraine Authorities did not know the home countries of all of the migrants, nor how long they were abandoned on the side of the road. By Tuesday afternoon, medical examiners had potentially identified 34 of the victims, but they were taking additional steps, such as fingerprints, to confirm the identities, said Bexar County Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores. Among the dead, 27 are believed to be of Mexican origin based on documents they were carrying, according to said Rubén Minutti, Mexico consul general in San Antonio. Several survivors were in critical condition with injuries such as brain damage and internal bleeding, he said. At least seven of the dead were from Guatemala and two from Honduras, Roberto Velasco Álvarez, head of the North America department in Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department, said on Twitter. About 30 people had reached out to the Mexican Consulate looking for loved ones, the officials said. Attempts to cross the U.S. border from Mexico have claimed thousands of lives in both countries in recent decades. U.S. border authorities are stopping migrants more often on the southern border than at any time in at least two decades. Migrants were stopped nearly 240,000 times in May, up by one-third from a year ago. Comparisons to pre-pandemic levels are complicated because migrants expelled under a public health authority known as Title 42 face no legal consequences, encouraging repeat attempts. Authorities say 25% of encounters in May were with people who had been stopped at least once in the previous year. South Texas has long been the busiest area for illegal border crossings. U.S. authorities discover trucks with migrants inside “pretty close” to daily, Larrabee said. Migrants typically pay $8,000 to $10,000 to be taken across the border and loaded into a tractor-trailer and driven to San Antonio, where they transfer to smaller vehicles for their final destinations across the United States, he said. Conditions vary widely, including how much water passengers get and whether they are allowed to carry cellphones, Larrabee said. Authorities think the truck discovered Monday had mechanical problems when it was left next to a railroad track in an area of San Antonio surrounded by auto scrapyards that brush up against a busy freeway, Wolff said. San Antonio has been a recurring scene of tragedy and desperation in recent years involving migrants in semitrailers. Ten migrants died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck parked at a San Antonio Walmart. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of the city. More than 50 migrants were found alive in a trailer in 2018, driven by a man who said he was to be paid $3,000 and was sentenced to more than five years in prison. Read: Biden suspends rules limiting immigrant arrest, deportation Other tragedies have occurred long before migrants reached the U.S. In December, more than 50 died when a semitrailer rolled over on a highway in southern Mexico. In October, Mexican authorities reported finding 652 migrants packed into six trailers stopped at a military checkpoint near the border. Some of the 16 people taken to hospitals with heat-related illnesses remained hospitalized Tuesday in critical condition. Those taken to the hospital were hot to the touch and dehydrated, and no water was found in the trailer, said Fire Chief Charles Hood. “They were suffering from heat stroke and exhaustion,” Hood said. “It was a refrigerated tractor-trailer, but there was no visible working AC unit on that rig.” Temperatures in San Antonio on Monday approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). Big rigs emerged as a popular smuggling method in the early 1990s amid a surge in U.S. border enforcement in San Diego and El Paso, Texas. Before that, people paid small fees to get across a largely unguarded border. As crossing became much more difficult after the 2001 terror attacks in the U.S., migrants were led through more perilous terrain and had to pay thousands of dollars. Some advocates drew a link to the Biden administration’s border policies. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, wrote that he had been dreading such a tragedy for months. “With the border shut as tightly as it is today for migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, people have been pushed into more and more dangerous routes,” he wrote on Twitter. Migrants — largely from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — have been expelled more than 2 million times under the pandemic-era rule in effect since March 2020 that denies a chance to seek asylum. The Biden administration planned to end the policy, but a federal judge in Louisiana blocked the move in May. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 557 deaths on the Southwest border in the 12 months ending Sept. 30, more than double the 247 deaths reported in the previous year and the highest since it began keeping track in 1998. Most were related to heat exposure.

The Biden administration, reacting to a federal court ruling in Texas, has suspended an order that had focused resources for the arrest and deportation of immigrants on those who are considered a threat to public safety and national security. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Saturday it will abide by the decision issued this month, even though it “strongly disagrees” and is appealing it. Immigrant advocates and experts on Monday said the suspension of Biden’s order will only sow fear among immigrant communities. Many living in the country illegally will now be afraid to leave their homes out of concern they’ll be detained, even if they’re otherwise law-abiding, said Steve Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell University. Also read: Biden urges Western unity on Ukraine amid war fatigue Prioritizing whom to arrest and deport is a necessity, he said. “We simply don’t have enough ICE agents to pick up and put into proceedings everyone who violates our immigration law,” Yale-Loehr said. The Texas case centers around a memorandum Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, issued last September, directing immigration agencies to focus their enforcement efforts on those who represented a threat to national security or public safety or who recently entered the U.S. illegally. The approach was a departure from President Donald Trump’s administration, when immigration agencies were given wide latitude on whom to arrest, detain and deport, prompting many immigrants without legal status to upend their daily routines to evade detection, such as avoiding driving or even taking sanctuary in churches and other places generally off limits to immigration authorities. But on June 10, U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton in southern Texas voided Mayorkas' memo, siding with Republican state officials in Texas and Louisiana who argued the Biden administration did not have the authority to issue such a directive. In response, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will make enforcement decisions on “a case-by-case basis in a professional and responsible manner, informed by their experience as law enforcement officials and in a way that best protects against the greatest threats to the homeland,” the Department of Homeland Security said in its statement Saturday. Also read: G-7 to ban Russian gold in response to Ukraine war: Biden How the court ruling plays out in cities and towns across the country remains to be seen, advocates say. Sarang Sekhavat, political director at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, the largest such group in New England, said the outcome likely rests on the approach taken by local ICE field offices. Some ICE offices may elect to go after a wider range of immigrants, while others will continue to focus on going after ones that pose the greatest threats, he said. “This takes away any kind of centralized guidance,” Sekhavat said. “What this does is really leave it in the hands of the local field office and how they want to go about enforcement.” Nationwide, ICE officials arrested more than 74,000 immigrants and removed more than 59,000 in the fiscal year that ended in September, according to the agency’s most recent annual report. That’s down from the nearly 104,000 arrests and 186,000 deportations the prior fiscal year, according to ICE data. ICE spokespersons in Washington and the Boston field office, which covers the six-state New England region, declined to comment Monday, as did officials in ICE’s Los Angeles field office. But in a June interview with The Associated Press conducted before the Texas court ruling, Thomas Giles, head of ICE's LA office, said nine out of 10 immigration arrests locally involve people convicted of crimes. He said the Biden administration’s priorities didn’t bring a huge change for the region because officers were already focused on people with felony criminal convictions or prior deportations. It required them to weigh aggravating and mitigating factors and make more detailed evaluations on cases, he said, but the focus remained constant. “We’re out here enhancing public safety," Giles said.

An Amtrak passenger train traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago struck a dump truck Monday in a remote area of Missouri, killing three people and injuring dozens more as rail cars tumbled off the tracks and landed on their sides, officials said. Two of those killed were on the train and one was in the truck, Missouri State Highway Patrol spokesman Cpl. Justin Dunn said. It was not immediately clear exactly how many people were hurt, the patrol said, but hospitals reported receiving more than 40 patients from the crash and were expecting more. Amtrak's Southwest Chief was carrying about 207 passengers and crew members when the collision happened near Mendon at a rural intersection on a gravel road with no lights or electronic controls, according to the highway patrol. Officials were still trying to determine the exact number of people aboard. Seven cars derailed, the patrol said. Rob Nightingale said he was dozing off in his sleeper compartment when the lights flickered and the train rocked back and forth. Also read: 46 dead, 16 hospitalized after trailer of migrants found “It was like slow motion. Then all of a sudden I felt it tip my way. I saw the ground coming toward my window, and all the debris and dust,” Nightingale told The Associated Press. “Then it sat on its side and it was complete silence. I sat there and didn’t hear anything. Then I heard a little girl next door crying.” Nightingale was unhurt and he and other passengers were able to climb out of the overturned train car through a window. The collision broke the dump truck apart, he said. “It was all over the tracks,” said Nightingale, an art gallery owner from Taos, New Mexico, who said he rides Amtrak regularly to Chicago. It's too early to speculate on why the truck was on the tracks, said National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy. A team of NTSB investigators will arrive Tuesday, she said. Trains won't be able to run on the track for “a matter of days” while they gather evidence, she added. At one point, KMBC-TV helicopter video showed rail cars on their side as emergency responders used ladders to climb into one of them. Six medical helicopters parked nearby were waiting to transport patients. Close to 20 local and state law enforcement agencies, ambulance services, fire department and medical helicopter services responded, Dunn said. The first emergency responders arrived within 20 minutes of receiving a 911 call, he said. Passenger Dian Couture was in the dining car with her husband celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary when she heard a loud noise and the train wobbled and then crashed onto its side. Also read: Russian missile strike hits crowded shopping mall “The people on our left-hand side flew across and hit us, and then we were standing on the windows on the right-hand side of the car," Couture told WDAF-TV. “Two gentlemen in the front came up, stacked a bunch of things and popped out the window and literally pulled us out by our hands." Passengers included 16 youths and eight adults from two Boy Scout troops who were traveling home to Appleton, Wisconsin, after a backcountry excursion at the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. No one in the group was seriously injured, said Scott Armstrong, director of national media relations for the Boy Scouts of America. The Scouts administered first aid to several injured passengers, including the driver of the dump truck, Armstrong said. High school students from Pleasant Ridge High School in Easton, Kansas, who were headed to a Future Business Leaders of America conference in Chicago, were also aboard, Superintendent Tim Beying told The Kansas City Star. Cheryl Benjamin was on her way home to East Lansing, Michigan, after an Alasksan cruise and a trip to Disneyland. She said she felt a bump, then heard a squeal, then looked out the window and saw the cars in front of her falling to the right. Then her car fell, the last to derail. It all took about 45 seconds. Benjamin told The Associated Press that the passengers organized themselves to escape the cars. Some of the Boy Scouts on board helped her climb out of the train and onto the ground. She was spending Monday evening in a local high school gym, where community members had brought in food for the passengers as they waited for buses to take them to hotels. Republican state Rep. Peggy McGaugh was at the high school. She said locals heard about the crash and started frying chicken, making sandwiches and delivering pallets of water. “Being the small community this is, nobody wants to be the hero but everyone wants to help," McGaugh said. Mike Spencer, who grows corn and soybeans on the land surrounding the intersection where the crash occurred, said everyone in Mendon understands that the intersection is dangerous, especially for those driving heavy, slow farm equipment. The approach to the tracks is on an inclining gravel road and it’s difficult to see trains coming in either direction, he said. Spencer said he had contacted state transportation officials, Chariton County commissioners and BNSF Railway, which owns the track, about the potential danger. Spencer, who is on the board of a local levy district, said the dump truck driver was hauling rock for a levy on a local creek, a project that had been ongoing for a couple days. Amtrak is a federally supported company that operates more than 300 passenger trains daily in nearly every contiguous U.S. state and parts of Canada. It was the second Amtrak collision in as many days. Three people in a car were killed Sunday afternoon when an Amtrak commuter train smashed into it in Northern California, authorities said. The Southwest Chief takes about two days to travel from Los Angeles to Chicago, picking up passengers at stops in between. Mendon, with a population of about 160, is about 84 miles (135 kilometers) northeast of Kansas City.

Forty-six people were found dead and 16 others were taken to hospitals after a tractor-trailer rig containing suspected migrants was found Monday on a remote back road in southwest San Antonio, officials said. A city worker at the scene was alerted to the situation by a cry for help shortly before 6 p.m. Monday, Police Chief William McManus said. Officers arrived to find a body on the ground outside the trailer and a partially opened gate to the trailer, he said. Of the 16 taken to hospitals with heat-related illnesses, 12 were adults and four were children, said Fire Chief Charles Hood. The patients were hot to the touch and dehydrated, and no water was found in the trailer, he said. Also read: Morocco: 18 migrants dead in stampede to enter Melilla Three people were taken into custody, but it was unclear if they were absolutely connected with human trafficking, McManus said. Those in the trailer were part of a presumed migrant smuggling attempt into the United States, and the investigation was being led by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, McManus said. Those in the trailer were in a presumed migrant smuggling attempt in South Texas, according to an official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the information had not been authorized for public release. It may be the deadliest tragedy among thousands who have died attempting to cross the U.S. border from Mexico in recent decades. Ten migrants died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck that was parked at a Walmart in San Antonio. In 2003, 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of San Antonio. Big rigs emerged as a popular smuggling method in the early 1990s amid a surge in U.S. border enforcement in San Diego and El Paso, Texas, which were then the busiest corridors for illegal crossings. Also read: Global efforts must be enhanced to save lives, reduce risks of migrants: Shahriar Alam Before that, people paid small fees to mom-and-pop operators to get them across a largely unguarded border. As crossing became exponentially more difficult after the 2001 terror attacks in the U.S., migrants were led through more dangerous terrain and paid thousands of dollars more. Heat poses a serious danger, particularly when temperatures can rise severely inside vehicles. Weather in the San Antonio area was mostly cloudy Monday, but temperatures approached 100 degrees.