U.S.

July 24 (UPI) — Measles cases have hit a record high in the United States since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The CDC said there have been 2,318 confirmed cases of measles so far this year, which beats last year’s record-breaking number of 2,289. Last year, two unvaccinated children died of the disease. More measles cases have been reported in the United States in the past two years than in all the years from 2000 through 2024 combined, The New York Times reported.

In November, a panel of experts will meet to decide if the United States has lost its status as a country that has “eliminated” the disease.

“This is just going to keep happening,” Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, told The Times. “It’s going to mean living in a perpetual state of vulnerability and risk until we get vaccination levels up.”

Last year, the largest outbreak was in South Carolina, and many of this year’s cases stem from that event. It was declared to have ended in April. Now, there’s an outbreak that started last summer along the Utah-Arizona state line and has spread throughout the Beehive State. More than 100 cases have also been reported in Lancaster County, Pa., this year.

The CDC reported 35 new measles outbreaks this year.

Measles is especially good at finding pockets of people with weak immunity.

“It’s going to find people who aren’t immune,” Dr. David Kimberlin, a pediatric infectious disease expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told The Times. “It’s like a heat-seeking missile.”

Funding cuts to public health are also a concern.

Dr. Farrell Tobolowsky, medical director the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s communicable disease program, said two cases this year meant activating several contract tracing investigators.

“I don’t think our department can currently handle more than one (case) without calling in additional staff,” Tobolowsky said at a briefing hosted by the Big Cities Health Coalition, CNN reported.

“It is something that we’re concerned about all the time and is on our minds all day, every day,” she said. “Not only if there’s another measles case, but if anything else comes that is of high consequence at the same time, it will be difficult to manage two things at once.”

Courtney Spencer, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the department has mounted an “aggressive outbreak response,” and said it’s given $8.5 million to states to help contain outbreaks.

She added that the department has said, “[The measles, mumps and rubella] vaccination remains the best protection against measles.”

But other professionals blame the federal government for at least part of the spread.

“We have seen virtually no national messaging. We’ve seen no ad campaigns,” Dr. Jonathan Temte, a former chair of the CDC vaccine advisory committee, said of HHS. “I think that really tells us something about their priorities.”

Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, called it a failure: “This essentially is a public health failure, and it’s avoidable.”

July 24 (UPI) — A Georgia teenager changed his plea to guilty Friday in the shooting deaths of four people at Apalachee High School in 2024.

Colt Gray, 16, entered a non-negotiated plea of guilty to 55 charges, including malice murder, aggravated battery and aggravated assault, CBS News reported. He was charged as an adult.

A non-negotiated plea means that though he’s changed his plea to guilty, he has not made a deal with prosecutors concerning his sentencing.

The judge in the case will determine his sentence, which ranges from life with parole to life without parole. The defense and prosecutors will each present a case for their preferred sentence, ABC News reported.

Gray is accused of fatally shooting two students — Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn — and two teachers — Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irmie — at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., in 2024, when he was 14 years old. He’s also accused of injuring nine others in the shooting.

Breanna Schermerhorn, Mason’s mother, presented a victim impact statement Friday in court, saying her son “was so much more than victim.”

“Mason was kind, compassionate, funny and fiercely protective of others,” she said. “As a child with exceptional needs, he understood what it felt like to struggle and be overlooked by others. Instead of becoming bitter, he became an advocate.”

Breanna Schermerhorn said Gray knew that the shooting was wrong and would impact countless lives.

“I had no doubt in my mind if Cole had actually attended school as he should have, that Mason would have befriended him,” she said.

Prosecutors said Colt Cray used an AR-style rifle his father, Colin Gray, gave to him for Christmas despite being warned by sheriff’s deputies that his son had threatened an attack at school.

In May, a jury found him guilty of 29 charges, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Colin Gray was the first adult charged in Georgia in connection with a school shooting by their child.

July 23 (UPI) — A Senate committee delayed a vote on the Trump administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director nominee, Erica Schwartz, because enough members were not present.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was absent from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions meeting on Thursday because of a family emergency, which led committee chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., to postpone the vote, Politico reported.

Cassidy also said Thursday that he decided to vote for Schwartz because of a “good faith action” the CDC reportedly made to its website earlier in the day.

The action included changing language on its website about the lack of an association between vaccines and autism, which had been ordered changed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last year.

Cassidy asked detailed questions during her nomination hearing about vaccines and how the agency, which has had a full-time director for just one month since President Donald Trump re-entered the White House, would restore confidence in its public health mission, The Hill reported.

“I’m confident that she knows what she’s doing and will stand against those who do not,” Cassidy said during the meeting.

“If confirmed, I look forward to working with Dr. Schwartz to protect children’s health and regain trust in the CDC,” he said.

“There’s more to do to repair the damage that has been done to the U.S. public health response, but this is a start,” the Louisiana Republican added.

Even with Cassidy deciding to vote for Schwartz, Republicans on the committee would have needed a Democrat or Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with the Democrats, to vote in favor.

Sanders ended that possibility when he expressed respect for Schwartz’s career but said that he was concerned she would not be able to hold off some of the controversial changes Kennedy has either proposed or forced on the agency.

“I will be voting against Dr. Schwartz because we need people in this country who are going to stand up, protect the American people and I don’t think you can see that right now with Secretary Kennedy in his position,” Sanders said.

The HELP committee’s next executive session is scheduled for July 30, which is also the next time it will consider nominations, making it the next opportunity for Schwartz’s nomination to come up for a vote.

The committee also put off a vote on Sean Kaufman, who is nominated to lead the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, because Republicans did not have enough votes to forward the nomination to the full Senate.

July 24 (UPI) — The United States and Iran traded attacks Thursday night and Friday morning, as President Donald Trump announced that damage inflicted by Iran on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz would be paid with U.S.-held Iranian assets.

U.S. Central Command said its latest wave of attacks, which were completed at 9 p.m. EDT Thursday, lasted for about two hours, 15 minutes, during which its forces hit Iranian military command centers, drone storage facilities, communications networks, coastal surveillance sites and maritime capabilities.

State-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported explosions early Friday local time across the country, with strikes in Ahvaz, Bandar Abbas, Omidiyeh, Qeshm and Andimeshk. Officials in Bandar Abbas reported that two people were injured.

Explosions were also reported by the IRIB in southern Khorramabad.

The Iranian Army announced retaliatory drone strikes on U.S. bases in Jordan and Bahrain.

Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior said sirens were sounding. It urged residents to remain calm and seek shelter.

The United States has been hitting Iran for nearly a fortnight as it seeks to regain freedom of navigation of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy route that Iranian forces have tried to seize amid the war by attacking commercial tankers that try to transit it.

Maritime traffic freely flowed through the Hormuz until the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February. Iran responded with its maritime blockade of the chokepoint, causing gas prices to spike and threatening nations with an energy crisis.

Mid-June, the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to lay foundations to end the war, but fighting resumed earlier this month over a dispute over what the agreement meant for control of the strait. Iran says the agreement recognizes its authority over Hormuz transit. Washington says Tehran committed to freedom of navigation.

CENTCOM said Thursday, as it has after the completion of each new wave of attacks, that it was seeking to further degrade Iran’s ability to attack vessels transiting the Hormuz.

“The international waterway remains open for transit despite recent attacks from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” the statement said.

“Commercial vessels continue to free navigate the strait with U.S. military support.”

Late Thursday, President Donald Trump announced online that damage ships incur while traveling the Strait of Hormuz would be paid by for with the hundreds of millions of dollars in Iranian assets that the United States has frozen via sanctions.

“These damages may be very substantial but, nevertheless, this is the fair and equitable thing to do,” he said in a statement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi lashed out in response online, warning the international community that “Seizing another nation’s assets to pay for unrelated future claims is an incendiary precedent.”

“Those who celebrate or profit from such funds should remember: once governments normalize confiscation, no one’s assets are safe,” he said in a statement.

“Ensuing chaos will not be pretty or peaceful.”

July 24 (UPI) — A federal court has allowed Tennessee to use a new congressional map that eliminates the state’s only majority-Black district in November’s midterm elections, rejecting a challenge from civil and voting rights advocates.

The three-judge panel on Thursday denied a motion filed by Black Memphis voters for a preliminary injunction against implementing the map, ruling they lacked evidence of racial motivation for the map’s unorthodox mid-decade redistricting, which could be explained by a political motivation.

“The road to a reliably 9-0 map runs through Memphis. Thus, political motivations readily explain the map’s dilutive effects,” the panel, which consisted of two Trump appointees and one Obama appointee, wrote in its decision.

With the ruling, Tennessee may use the map in next month’s primaries.

November’s midterms have been of increasing concern for President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly voiced worries about impeachment proceedings and investigations if Republicans lose the House to Democrats, and has pushed GOP-led states to redraw their congressional maps to create additional Republican-favored districts.

Texas was the first last summer to agree to Trump’s request, sparking a gerrymandering arms race, with at least 10 states have redrawn their maps. All but Democrat-led California and North Carolina, which has a Democratic governor, are Republican-led.

Tennessee’s GOP-majority legislature passed its redistricting map to eliminate the one Democrat-held seat in May, a week after the Supreme Court issued a controversial decision that weakened a key part of the Voting Rights Act, by greatly limiting the use of race in drawing electoral districts.

The three Black Memphis voters, along with the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis, the Memphis A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Equity Alliance sued days later, alleging that the new map unlawfully discriminates against Black Memphis voters by dismantling a district where they had long been able to meaningfully participate in the political process.

In its ruling Thursday, the court said that the plaintiffs had to show that the map redraw was racially motivated, which they failed to do.

“The map’s effects — breaking Black Memphians into three separate congressional districts — are readily explainable by political motivations,” the court said.

“It’s no secret (supported by Plaintiffs’ own statements) that city voters prefer Democratic candidates and that rural voters prefer Republican candidates. So, it makes sense that Tennessee’s legislature would split Memphis into thirds when attempting to create a map that favors Republican candidates. And it’s no surprise that the resulting map would also split the Black population of Memphis into thirds.”

Amber Sherman, a plaintiff in the case, said the court’s decision further disenfranchises Black voters in Memphis.

“It’s painful to know we’ll head into another election under a map that was designed to weaken the Black voters in Memphis,” she said in a statement.

“We deserve the same opportunity to shape our future as anyone else.”

July 23 (UPI) — A magnitude 5.0 earthquake struck the northeastern Texas Panhandle on Thursday morning, seemingly causing no damage.

The temblor struck at 5:21 a.m. CDT nearly 24 miles south-southeast of Spearman, a city of about 2,800 people, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement.

It struck at a depth of 3 1/2 miles, it said.

Spearman experienced no damage or injuries, the city said in a statement, warning residents to brace for potential aftershocks in the days to come.

“Most will be minor, but stay alert,” the city said.

It said the earthquake was felt as far east as Tulsa, Ok., located about 315 miles from Spearman.

The USGS said most buildings in the region are resistant to earthquake shaking, though there are vulnerable buildings, including those made from unreinforced brick masonry and reinforced masonry construction.

Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, reached profitability for the first time, boosted by FIFA World Cup, NBA playoffs and reality dating show “Love Island USA.”

The milestone comes as Comcast Corp. prepares to spin off NBCUniversal entertainment and news media businesses into a separate company. Peacock, which launched in 2020, grew its paid subscribers by 4% to 48 million in the second quarter, compared to the previous quarter. The company said Peacock’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization was $189 million.

“In just six years, we built Peacock into a streaming business with real scale in the U.S.,” said Brian Roberts, chairman and co-CEO of Comcast on Thursday in an earnings call, adding that Peacock has added 2 million paid subscribers in each of the last two quarters.

Co-CEO Mike Cavanagh said that performance “reinforces the value of NBC, Telemundo, Bravo, and Peacock together as one integrated media business with continued opportunity to drive stronger engagement, advertising, and profitability into the future.”

Comcast plans to spin off Peacock, NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, Bravo, Universal film, television studios and theme parks and British TV service Sky into its own separate company, with a goal of completing the separation in about a year.

Michael J. Wolf, CEO of Activate Consulting, said Peacock’s first profit proves that live sports and premium programming “remain the single most powerful anchors for consumer attention and subscriber growth.”

“As Comcast prepares to spin off NBCUniversal, freeing it from legacy cable, a standalone NBCU is now structurally positioned to compete at the highest level of streaming,” Wolf said in a statement.

Peacock was the last major premium subscription video-on-demand service launched by a legacy studio to reach profitability, said Brandon Katz, director of insights and content strategy at Greenlight Analytics. The streaming service is available only in the U.S. and certain U.S. territories. Its reach is much smaller than other rivals like Netflix, which has about 80 million households in the U.S. and Canada.

“It was a long and arduous process for Peacock to reach profitability, and this is obviously a very important step for their business, but one small step in a much larger journey,” Katz said.

The Peacock news was part of Comcast’s earnings results. Comcast said revenue declined 1% to $29.9 billion in the second quarter, compared to a year ago, hurt by the loss of broadband residential customers.

Net income was $3.5 billion, down 68% from a year ago, when its profit was boosted by a $9.4 billion gain from Comcast’s sale of its share in Hulu.

Content and experiences revenue increased 22.9% to $10.7 billion, thanks to increases in advertising and theatrical revenue from popular movies including “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” horror movie “Obsession” and the international distribution of “Michael.”

Comcast’s stock closed Thursday at $21.92 a share, down about 7%.

July 23 (UPI) — The head of the U.S. mission in Cuba met with the Cáritas Cuba director Wednesday as the Catholic charity began distributing humanitarian aid sent by President Donald Trump‘s administration to vulnerable families in western Cuba, the U.S. Embassy in Havana said.

The meeting between Mike Hammer and Carmen María Nodal Martínez came a day after the first shipment from a $100 million humanitarian assistance package arrived in Havana. it was announced in May by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The shipment includes prepackaged food and hygiene kits for about 700 families, the U.S. State Department said. Catholic Relief Services is distributing the aid in coordination with the Catholic Church and Cáritas Cuba.

The U.S. Embassy said Hammer and Nodal reviewed the distribution process through Catholic parishes and planned visits to volunteers and beneficiaries as the humanitarian program expands across the island.

The first deliveries began in the municipalities of Bejucal, in Mayabeque province, and Alquízar, in Artemisa province, targeting families previously identified by local communities as the most vulnerable.

Cáritas Cuba confirmed that volunteers from parish communities started to deliver the food and hygiene kits on Wednesday. The organization said the assistance is being distributed according to humanitarian vulnerability criteria, with an emphasis on transparency throughout the distribution process.

According to the State Department, the packages contain rice, beans, pasta, canned tuna and sardines, cooking oil, sugar and salt, along with soap, detergent, toothbrushes, sanitary pads, water purification tablets, solar lamps and other household supplies intended to meet a family’s basic needs for about 10 days.

Washington has said it is using Catholic Relief Services, Cáritas Cuba and the Catholic Church to ensure the aid reaches recipients directly without being diverted by the Cuban government. State Department officials said they will closely monitor the distribution process to prevent the assistance from being misappropriated.

Cuba authorized the shipment’s entry, but government officials criticized Washington for providing humanitarian assistance while maintaining sanctions and what Havana describes as a de facto oil embargo that has worsened the island’s economic crisis.

Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment acknowledged receiving the shipment, while reiterating that U.S. restrictions continue to affect the country’s economy.

Several Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives who recently visited Cuba have also called on Washington to lift the restrictions, arguing they amount to collective punishment.

Rubio and other U.S. officials have rejected that criticism, arguing that Cuba’s ruling elite and the military-run conglomerate GAESA have diverted the country’s resources and prioritized scarce fuel supplies for the government and its security apparatus rather than the general population.

July 23 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said on social media Thursday that Saudi Arabia must sign the Abraham Accords as part of its nuclear deal with the United States.

Trump added that the nuclear deal will be approved but Saudi Arabia’s entry into the Abraham Accords is a required condition.

“The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but it is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote. “The United States is not opposed to Civil (Non-Enriched) Nuclear Facilities.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed the agreement on Wednesday. The Department of Energy says U.S. companies will benefit from the deal with involvement in establishing nuclear facilities in Saudi Arabia to the tune of billions of dollars.

The nuclear deal is to last 30 years and will involve the United States supporting Saudi nuclear development.

The Abraham Accords are meant to normalize relations between Israel and Arab nations in the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia’s entry into the Abraham Accords would be a step toward a diplomatic relationship with Israel.

Saudi Arabia has called for progress toward Palestinian statehood, a sticking point that has drawn Israel’s criticism of the nuclear deal with the United States.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have also voiced skepticism over the nuclear deal, fearing that it may ultimately lead to the enrichment of uranium and plutonium for the development of nuclear weapons.

“This agreement will set off a nuclear race in the region, further disincentivizing Iran from limiting its own program,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., posted on social media.

July 23 (UPI) — Arizona health officials have confirmed the state’s first infection of an mpox strain responsible for a global outbreak, identifying the case as having been infected while traveling outside the United States.

The Arizona Department of Health and Services said in a statement Wednesday that it has confirmed its first case of Clade I mpox, involving a person with recent international travel.

“ADHS and local public health officials are working to prevent additional infections through monitoring and follow-ups with people who may have been exposed,” the state health agency said.

“There is currently no evidence of local transmission connected to this case.”

Little information about the patient was made public. The ADHS said it was notified of a confirmed travel-associated case of the mpox strain this month.

It is the state’s 34th case of the disease this year, with all but the most recent patient having contracted Clade II mpox.

Mpox is an infection caused by the monkeypox virus, which is spread through physical contact, including direct skin-to-skin contact and sharing of personal items, including bedding, towels and clothing, the ADHS said.

The virus has two main clades: Clade I, which is endemic to Central Africa, and Clade II, which is associated with West Africa.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Clade I was historically reported to have a much higher case-fatality rate than Clade II, though recent data suggest case-fatality rates for both clades are low, especially when medical care is provided.

Clade II is the cause of the ongoing mpox outbreak that began in 2022, infecting more than 114,000 people worldwide, including about 37,500 people infected in the United States, CDC statistics show. ADHS statistics show Arizona had 582 mpox infections in 2022, followed by 20 in 2023, 66 in 2024 and 17 last year.

Clade I is also responsible for an ongoing mpox outbreak that began in Central Africa in late 2023, and which has since spread internationally, resulting in more than 55,000 confirmed cases, including more than 150 deaths, since January 2024, the CDC said.

The United States reported between 1,700 and 2,800 mpox cases a year from 2023 through 2025, though nearly all have been Clade II.

The CDC said Clade I cases have increased in frequency in the country since March, with more than 20 cases reported in the United States as of June.

July 23 (UPI) — Tropical Storm Bertha was nearing southern coast of Louisiana late Wednesday, hours after it made landfall over the state, according to forecasters.

The center of the storm was about 75 miles southwest of New Orleans and about 135 miles east-southeast of Lake Charles, La., the National Hurricane Center said in its 10 p.m. CDT update. The storm was traveling west at 12 mph and had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph, marking no change in strength or direction.

There was a tropical storm warning in effect from the Alabama-Mississippi border to Sargent, Texas, and metropolitan New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain.

The NHC said a faster westward or west-southwestward track is expected for Bertha over the next day or so.

“On the forecast track, the center of Bertha will move near or along the Louisiana and upper Texas coasts through Thursday afternoon, and then move farther inland into Texas Thursday evening and Thursday night,” the NHC said.

Little change in strength in the storm is expected over the next day or so. Bertha is expected to maintain tropical storm intensity until it reaches the upper Texas coast on Thursday. It’s expected to dissipate inland over Texas by Thursday night or Friday.

Bertha, which formed Monday night, is expected to produce total rainfall amounts of 1 to 4 inches with isolated higher totals through Thursday along the central Gulf Coast from western Florida into southern Louisiana. This could produce isolated flash flooding, especially in urban areas, the NHC said.

Surf conditions caused by Bertha will continue spreading west along the northern Gulf Coast, with swells likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions

July 22 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Manila on Wednesday for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations, met with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his counterpart in China, Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Meanwhile, police clashed with protesters outside who criticized the United States’ involvement in area conflicts and blamed the Trump administration for fueling tension in the region. Some protestors held up signs that said, “U.S. out of everywhere!” and “War criminals not welcome! Ban Rubio! Ban Trump!”

Rubio spokesman Tommy Pigott said the secretary of state met with Marco “to reaffirm our ironclad alliance and our shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The two men confirmed that “there is no legal basis for China’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea” and discussed other matters, Pigott said.

Tensions between the Philippines and China have been high lately over the disputed South China Sea. On Monday, the Philippine military accused Chinese coast guard personnel of striking and injuring a Philippine sailor. China said the Philippine officers instigated the conflict.

China claims most of the South China Sea, including areas that hold the exclusive economic zones of other countries including the Philippines.

In person at the ASEAN conference, Rubio behaved politely toward his Chinese counterpart, saying he appreciated China withholding support for Iran and opposing a toll in the Strait of Hormuz. He also said the countries were taking steps to establish boards of investment and trade.

He did not mention recent claims by U.S. President Donald Trump that China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

“Look, these are the two most powerful countries in the world,” Rubio told reporters Wednesday. “It would frankly be reckless and irresponsible for the U.S. and China not to have a relationship.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit the United States in September.

In contrast to his remarks Wednesday, Rubio’s words in an opinion column that the U.S. State Department placed in Philippine newspapers this week were somewhat less measured when it came to the conflict over the South China Sea.

“If those waters fall under the control of a power willing to use commerce as a geopolitical weapon, both the United States and the ASEAN states would face dire new threats to their sovereignty, security and economic futures,” he wrote.

July 22 (UPI) — Tropical Storm Bertha moved somewhat westward over southeast Louisiana on Wednesday evening, hours after it made landfall over the state.

The center of the storm was about 40 miles southwest of New Orleans and about 165 miles east-southeast of Lake Charles, La., the National Hurricane Center said in its 7 p.m. CDT update. The storm was traveling west at 7 mph and had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph, marking no change in strength or direction.

There was a tropical storm warning in effect from the Alabama/Florida line west to Cameron, La., metropolitan New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. A tropical storm watch was in place from west of Cameron, La., to Sargent, Texas and Lake Maurepas.

The NHC said a faster westward or west-southwestward track is expected for Bertha over the next day or so.

“On the forecast track, the center of Bertha will move near or along the Louisiana and upper Texas coasts through Thursday, and then move farther inland into Texas Thursday night,” the NHC said.

Little change in strength in the storm is expected over the next day or so. Bertha is expected to maintain tropical storm intensity until it reaches the upper Texas coast on Thursday. It’s expected to dissipate inland over Texas by Thursday night or Friday.

Bertha, which formed Monday night, is expected to produce total rainfall amounts of 1 to 4 inches with isolated higher totals through Thursday along the central Gulf Coast from western Florida into southern Louisiana. This could produce isolated flash flooding, especially in urban areas, the NHC said.

Surf conditions caused by Bertha will continue spreading west along the northern Gulf Coast, with swells likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions

A Ukrainian F-16 has shot down a Russian fighter jet for the first time, according to the highest-ranking U.S. military officer. This engagement would represent a significant development in the air war over Ukraine and a notable addition to the air-to-air tally for the Ukrainian F-16s, which already includes “more than a thousand” drones and cruise missile ‘kills.’ It would also be a remarkable addition to the F-16 story, with the jet, which was built to shoot down Soviet combat aircraft, downing a Russian-flown fighter over Europe more than half a century after it first flew.

Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly confirmed the milestone during a hearing before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee in Washington, D.C.

LIVE: Hegseth, Caine and others testify on supplemental funding request

He told lawmakers:

“I want to highlight the incredible work that the Ukraine industrial base is doing as they scale their air-to-air capabilities,” Caine said. “It ranges from their surface-to-air capabilities to their air-to-air capabilities.”

After being asked by Senator Richard Durbin about the potential impact of a three-year halt in funding for Ukrainian air defenses, Caine added:

“I’ll note that recently we had the first air-to-air kill where a Ukrainian F-16 shot down a Russian fighter. So I think their ability to scale their layered air defense has come a long, long way over the past couple of years with the help and assistance of many.”

No further details were provided, leaving unanswered questions about when and where the engagement occurred, the identity of the Russian aircraft, the weapon employed, and the evidence that led U.S. officials to conclude the kill had taken place.

Nevertheless, it marks the first time a senior U.S. military official has publicly stated that a Ukrainian F-16 has destroyed a crewed Russian combat aircraft in air-to-air combat.

Since beginning operations, Ukraine’s F-16s have already downed huge numbers of Russian cruise missiles and one-way attack drones while also conducting air-to-ground strike missions.

The engagement referenced by Caine may have been the July 8 shootdown of a Russian Su-35S multirole fighter. Ukrainian military officials announced the destruction of the aircraft at the time, while pro-Kremlin Russian military bloggers also acknowledged the loss, claiming the pilot survived and returned safely to base.

⚡️ CONFIRMED!
On July 8, 2026, a Russian Su-35 multi-role fighter was shot down on the eastern sector!

🇺🇦 Glory to Ukraine!
✊ Together to victory! pic.twitter.com/r8S9fgQaC5

— Ukrainian Air Force (@KpsZSU) July 8, 2026

A Telegram channel affiliated with the Ukrainian Air Force, Sunflower, claimed the Russian was “the very same experienced enemy pilot who had been causing us a lot of trouble in this area.”

Earlier speculation suggested the Su-35S may instead have been destroyed by a Patriot surface-to-air missile after being lured into range by one or more Ukrainian F-16s. No evidence was presented to substantiate that theory.

Regardless of the precise circumstances, destroying a Su-35S would represent a notable achievement given the aircraft’s superior long-range air combat capabilities.

The Su-35S is among Russia’s most capable fighters and has long been regarded by Ukrainian pilots as one of their most dangerous opponents.

At the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the late Ukrainian MiG-29 Fulcrum pilot Andrii Pilshchykov, better known by his callsign “Juice,” described the Su-35S as the greatest airborne threat because of its powerful radar and R-77-1 active radar-guided air-to-air missiles. The upgraded R-77-1 reportedly has a range of around 68 miles, improved resistance to electronic countermeasures, and a true fire-and-forget capability—something Ukraine’s Soviet-era fighters lacked.

The Su-35S later gained an even more formidable weapon: the R-37M very-long-range air-to-air missile. Introduced into combat during the summer of 2022, the missile reportedly has a range of up to 124 miles, allowing Russian fighters to threaten Ukrainian aircraft while remaining deep inside Russian-controlled airspace. That range likely refers to only larger, less agile aircraft targets and is very much a “sales brochure figure,” with all the caveats that entails. Nevertheless, Pilshchykov bluntly described the weapon as “fucking dangerous.”

The longest-range modern air-to-air missile available to Ukrainian F-16s is the AIM-120C-8 version of the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). An active-radar-guided air-to-air missile is something that Ukraine long campaigned for. Pilshchykov told TWZ back in 2022: “The lack of fire-and-forget missiles is the greatest problem for us.”

As we have discussed in the past, while official performance figures are classified, the AIM-120C-8 is generally assumed to be able to hit targets at a distance of between 75 and 100 miles. Of course, in practical applications, a whole range of factors impacts any missile’s reach, above all, the energy and altitude state of the launching aircraft and the target.

Combined with the Su-35S’s sophisticated electronic warfare systems and Russia’s numerical advantage, these technical capabilities have allowed Russian fighters to operate with relative confidence. In 2022, Pilshchykov recalled occasions when as many as two dozen Su-35s patrolled along the Russian side of the border, waiting for opportunities to engage Ukrainian aircraft.

Based on available reports, Russia was initially satisfied with the results of its R-37M tactics, which relied heavily on surprise. Fighters launched air-to-air missiles at moments the target did not expect, after first employing diversionary and deception measures to mask the attack. However, increased Ukrainian aircraft losses forced Kyiv to develop new tactics to counter the threat.

According to Russian accounts, Ukraine’s tactical changes were enabled by NATO intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, which provided Ukrainian forces with near-real-time information on Russian fighter activity and detected long-range missile launches. Armed with this warning, Ukrainian pilots reportedly had sufficient time to execute defensive maneuvers, combining aggressive evasive flying with electronic jamming to break the missile’s lock and reduce the likelihood of a successful kill.

Several stills from a newly released Russian MoD video showing one or more VKS Su-35S multirole fighters departing on, conducting, and returning from a combined CAP/SEAD mission. The loadout shown here can often be seen in such videos: one Kh-31PM ARM, one R-37M long-range AAM… pic.twitter.com/KmPvdr1HKV

— Guy Plopsky (@GuyPlopsky) July 14, 2026

Whether or not these tactics helped the F-16 score a famous air-to-air kill is unclear, but they reflect the cat-and-mouse nature of the air war in Ukraine.

Certainly, the Su-35S is far from immune to Ukrainian air defenses.

According to the Oryx open-source tracking group, nine Su-35s have been destroyed in the war. The figure could be higher since Oryx only tabulates losses for which it has visual confirmation.

There have also been close calls.

Russian accounts describe a Su-35S flown by Colonel M. Stefanov landing at an airfield, where, during a post-flight inspection, maintainers counted 28 holes in the fuselage.

If Caine’s statement reflects U.S. intelligence assessments — as seems likely — it suggests Ukraine is becoming increasingly proficient at integrating its Western-supplied F-16s with its broader, layered air defense network. At the same time, Russia has never enjoyed air supremacy over Ukraine, its aircraft even being at risk in some of the areas on its side of the front lines and even in Russia itself.

Even so, this should not be viewed as a turning point in the air war. Russia still fields significantly larger numbers of combat aircraft, retains extensive long-range surface-to-air missile coverage, and continues to pose a serious threat to Ukrainian aviation.

One successful engagement, even against one of Russia’s premier fighters, does not fundamentally alter the balance of air power. It does, however, demonstrate that Ukraine’s expanding fleet of Western fighters, integrated air defenses, and increasingly experienced air defenders of all kinds continue to raise the risks faced by the Russian Aerospace Forces.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

July 22 (UPI) — The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to pass a bill that adds new limits on congressional stock trading, though it does not quite enact a complete ban.

House Republicans also attached a section requiring people to provide photo identification in order to vote, a provision from the controversial SAVE America Act, The Hill reported.

Lawmakers voted 232-198 to pass the bill, which would still need to pass the Senate. Thirteen Democrats joined Republicans in voting for it.

The bill would restrict active members of Congress, their spouses and any dependent children from buying new stocks of any publicly traded company. It would allow them to keep stocks they already own. Lawmakers would also have to file a public notice with the House clerk at least seven days before they sell a stock.

Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wisc., chairman of the House Administration Committee, led the bill and said it is “critical to restoring public trust in this institution.”

“I believe it is time we just stop allowing members to buy new stock,” he said. “Doing so removes the appearance of impropriety altogether.”

Many Democrats said the bill doesn’t go far enough — it doesn’t apply to the executive branch — and opposed the addition of changes to voting measures.

“House Republicans are pushing (a) voter suppression bill that will upend mail-in voting and throw the elections into chaos, and are trying to trick members into supporting it by linking it to a partial stock trading ban that falls short of the full congressional stock trading ban the American people want,” Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., told CNN.

Magaziner previously co-led a stalled bipartisan bill to ban stock trading.

If lawmakers violate the new rules, they would have to pay a fee of $2,000 or 10% of the value of the transaction, whichever is greater, and forfeit any profit.

Fox TV executives knew their telecast of Sunday’s 2026 FIFA World Cup Final would be big.

But bigger than every NFL game outside of the Super Bowl, the perennial ratings blockbuster, was not on their radar.

“I have to admit that I didn’t see it coming, that we and Telemundo would combine for almost 65 million viewers for the final,” Mike Mulvihill, executive vice president and head of strategy and analytics for Fox Sports. “That’s beyond what we could have hoped for.”

Spain’s World Cup victory over Argentina by a 1-0 score attracted the largest audience for any sports telecast outside of the Super Bowl since the 1994 Winter Olympics when Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding competed in the women’s figure skating short program.

The 38.9 million viewers who tuned in on Fox was enough to make the final the most-watched soccer telecast in history. Telemundo’s coverage set the record for a Spanish language soccer telecast with 23.9 million viewers.

It capped a month of massive viewing for the quadrennial tournament. In the United States,128.4 million people watched some portion of the World Cup across Fox’s broadcast network, its cable outlet FS1 and streaming platform Tubi. The 104 matches averaged a record high 7.7 million viewers, a 116% increase over the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Spanish language coverage on NBCUniversal’s Telemundo and the Peacock streaming platform combined to average 6.3 million viewers across the 104 matches, up 143% over the 2022 tournament.

Ad revenues for the tournament topped $1.2 billion, according to data from Guideline, which tracks media spending.

Having the tournament in the U.S. with games airing in daytime and prime time helped. Mulvihill noted the tournament came up at a fortunate time on the sports viewing calendar. The NBA Finals were over and Major League Baseball’s post-season and the NFL season are months away.

But even with that soft competition for sports fans’ attention, the World Cup demonstrated an ability to bring in viewers who don’t follow the sport. Fox data showed 53% of viewers who tuned into its coverage had not watched any soccer in the past year. The network’s research found that a majority of U.S. sports fans could name only two stars, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, and their home countries.

What brought the audience in? Mulvihill credits social media, which tends to be an angry place during big sporting events. The lead up to the World Cup was no different, but the doom and gloom went away once the action began.

“There was a lot of negativity around this tournament on social as there always is about everything related to the cost of tickets and related to challenges that foreign visitors might face coming to the U.S.,” Mulvihill noted. “As soon as the ball was kicked, and the matches were in progress, that just completely pivoted to overwhelming positivity.”

Patrick Rishe, director of the sports business program at Washington University in St. Louis, said the global reach of social media made the international stars accessible to U.S. fans and created a “fear of missing out” effect that likely drove them to watch.

“There is a communal aspect of soccer, in particular, where you can be in a room with people wearing 10 different colored jerseys, and they all just kind of get into the camaraderie of it, and the highs and lows of it, and the drama of it,” Rishe said. “So even if you don’t have rooting interests, it’s just fun to be a part of it.”

The appeal of communal viewing showed up in the Nielsen data. Out-of-home viewing accounted for 27% of the audience. For Sunday’s final, the figure was 35%

People were having viewing parties or gatherings at home as well. An average of 1.955 viewers per home watched the World Cup. The figure for last year’s regular season NFL games was 1.685 viewers.

The question going forward is whether the World Cup will spur more interest in soccer in the U.S. Major League Soccer has reportedly seen significant increases in ticket sales. The league, which has most of its matches on Apple TV, launched an ad campaign with the tagline, “Thanks World, We’ll Take It From Here.”

Versant acquired the rights to carry 300 Bundesliga matches. The company’s USA Network will carry at least 30 matches from the German domestic league, with the rest streaming on the company’s free Fandango platform. The league was previously available on ESPN’s streaming service, which required a subscription.

Telemundo acquired the Spanish-language TV rights to the Union of European Football Assns. men’s club competitions, including the Champions League.

Fox paid $485 million for the rights to the 2026 World Cup, while Telemundo shelled out $600 million for the Spanish-language telecasts.

But the real prize is the rights for the 2030 World Cup, which both TV networks and streamers are expected to vigorously pursue, even though the time zones will not be as hospitable to the U.S. (The host countries are Morocco, Portugal, and Spain.)

During a recent appearance at the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit in New York, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro made it clear where he stands.

“Of course we’re interested,” Pitaro said. “This has been a juggernaut. We’re not at all surprised by it.”

July 22 (UPI) — The man who rushed a stage to attack author Salman Rushdie will face federal terrorism charges in a trial that began Wednesday in New York.

Hadi Matar, 28, was found guilty of murder in state court last year and was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the August 2022 attack that left Rushdie blind in one eye and without use of one hand.

The federal case will determine if the attack was an act of terrorism and if he was carrying out a fatwa against Rushdie, set by the former Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, or if it was for Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon, or neither.

Khomeini, then the ayatollah of Iran, created the fatwa in 1989 because of Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988. Hardline Muslims considered the book blasphemous because of the way it portrayed the Prophet Muhammad.

The attack on Rushdie happened at the Chautauquah Institution in Chautauquah, N.Y., as he was delivering a speech for more than 1,000 people on writers in political exile. Matar rushed the stage and stabbed Rushdie more than a dozen times.

Matar is a U.S. citizen of Lebanese origin who was raised in New Jersey and California. His friends and relatives said that after some professional and academic frustration, he became religious. His mother told The New York Times that she could not support him.

Rushdie, 79, wrote and published in 2024, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, a memoir about the attack and his recovery.

Matar had written in his notebook a list of pros and cons to attacking Rushdie. The Times reported that a page provided by prosecutors showed that he wrote one reason not to do it was: “Could make life worse. But I doubt that. It kind of sucks already.”

July 21 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told a Senate committee Tuesday that the financial cost of the Iran war has now reached about $37.5 billion according to Defense Department estimates.

Lawmakers questioned Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine during a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting as the Pentagon and President Donald Trump are seeking up to $70 billion in emergency military funds.

This is in addition to the $1.5 trillion the Pentagon has requested in the upcoming defense budget. Trump has also asked for about $18 billion more in emergency funds for unrelated programs, including $11 billion for agriculture. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was also present at the hearing, although the focus remained on military spending.

Some Senate lawmakers, both Democrats and some Republicans, questioned the need for the money on top of the defense request and the roughly $150 billion in additional funding the military received through Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the committee’s top Democrat, said the request for emergency funds “may be better understood as an attempt toskirt the normal appropriations process.”

“The problem is not a lack of money, but poor planning,”Murray said. “So I’ll be blunt. The truth is, your request does not make a lotof sense.”

Hegseth, in response, blamed “gross negligence and neglect”by the Biden administration.

Some asked about Iran’s military capabilities and theobjectives of the war, as Hegseth and Trump have both previously said that the war had been won. The defense secretary also said in the early days of the war that Iran’s military had already been “destroyed and made combat-ineffective.”

Hegseth said that he never meant that Iran would be unable to launch any attack. He said he meant Iran “can lob missiles, but it’s not an effective military.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Ala., asked Hegseth if the Trump administration believes it does not need authorization from Congress to continue the war. Hegseth replied that the administration believes it already has the authority it needs.

The hearing lasted more than three hours and ended in a shouting match between Hegseth and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., who questioned the war’s objectives, called Hegseth a “failure” and said the Trump administration has created another “forever war.”

Hegseth responded by telling Peters “shame on you” and saying he has “Trump derangement syndrome.”

July 21 (UPI) — Conditions from Tropical Storm Bertha will continue to spread into Wednesday across parts of the north Gulf Coast, the National Hurricane Center said. Tropical storm conditions are possible in Louisiana by late Wednesday.

The storm, which isn’t expected to become a hurricane before fizzling out, formed Monday night.

The epicenter of the storm was located about 120 miles west-southwest of Panama City, Fla., and 105 miles south-southeast of Mobile, Ala., the NHC said in its 7 p.m. CDT update. The storm was traveling west at 6 mph and had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph.

Winds must reach at least 74 mph for a storm to be considered a hurricane.

There was a tropical storm warning in effect from the Bay/Gulf County line in Florida west to Morgan City, La., metropolitan New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. A tropical storm watch was in place from Morgan City, La., west to Cameron, La., and Lake Maurepas. This marked no change from the 4 p.m. CDT update.

“Little change is strength is expected tonight, and gradual weakening is forecast Wednesday through Friday,” the NHC said.

Bertha is expected to produce total rainfall amounts of 2 to 4 inches with isolated higher totals through Thursday along the central Gulf Coast from western Florida into southern Louisiana. This could produce isolated flash flooding, especially in urban areas, the NHC said.

Surf conditions caused by Bertha will continue spreading west along the northern Gulf Coast, with swells likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.

After U.S. strikes on Iran’s largest nuclear facilities last year, both President Trump and the White House were adamant that the Middle East nation’s nuclear program had been destroyed.

“Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images. Obliteration is an accurate term!” Trump wrote on social media.

“Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News,” the White House wrote in a press release.

A year later, the U.S. and Iran are five months into a war Trump said would be over in weeks. Iran has gained leverage by seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy corridor, and the U.S. has been forced to the negotiating table as global gas prices have spiked — including again this week after a ceasefire agreement collapsed.

And Trump — facing mounting criticism that he has pushed the U.S. into another “forever war” despite campaigning on doing exactly the opposite — is leaning back into the notion that Iran presents an unacceptable nuclear threat and strikes are needed, namely at another Iranian nuclear facility known as Pickaxe Mountain.

“Pickaxe is a possible target for a nice big fat shot right near the front door,” the president recently said on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.” “We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready.”

Pickaxe, a heavily fortified facility deep underground that would be difficult to penetrate even with powerful “bunker buster” bombs, was not targeted during last year’s 12 Day War between Iran and the U.S. and Israel, nor in the full-scale war of the last five months.

However, it is less than two miles from Natanz, one of Iran’s primary nuclear enrichment facilities, which was struck both last year and this year. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges into Pickaxe last fall — bolstering its ability to reconstitute a nuclear program that threatens the U.S. and regional allies.

Trump’s sudden focus on Pickaxe as a suspected hub of Iranian nuclear activity, which comes as his administration is trying to justify its continued entanglement in its unpopular war there, is an acknowledgment that two prior military campaigns and years of attempted diplomacy by his administration have failed to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Few experts ever bought into the Trump administration’s claims that Iran’s nuclear program had been completely destroyed, and even Trump and his closest allies have walked some of those comments back — including in discussions about Iran’s ability to retrieve and repurpose enriched material buried at Natanz and other targeted sites.

Some experts have cited construction activity around Pickaxe as evidence Iran is continuing to develop the facility in violation of recent agreements with the U.S., but have said the exact nature of the work isn’t known. They’ve also wondered if the Trump administration intends to use the work there to lay the groundwork for a broader, boots-on-the-ground war effort that would be unpopular in the U.S. but necessary to truly accomplish Trump’s stated goal of ending Iran’s nuclear program for good.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based think tank, said last week that it wasn’t clear “if Iran still plans on installing a large-scale assembly facility” at Pickaxe Mountain “given the destruction of Iran’s centrifuge program,” but “if Iran starts to rebuild its centrifuge manufacturing capability, it could plan to install a smaller centrifuge assembly facility in Pickaxe Mountain able to serve a nuclear weapons program.”

The space under the mountain, the institute said, may be “large enough to also hold a centrifuge enrichment plant capable of producing weapon-grade uranium” and is “likely large enough to also hold certain nuclear weaponization activities such as making weapon-grade uranium metal and shaping it into nuclear weapon components.”

Retired Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the former head of U.S. Central Command, told The Times that Iran has had a substantial amount of time to relocate equipment since the bombings of last year and has “demonstrated that they are savvy on these kinds of things,” and the U.S. “should be serious about it and try to confirm the intelligence.”

And “if there have been centrifuges that have been moved there and are underground and spinning and developing nuclear bomb grade materials,” he said, “we should be very, very concerned about that.”

Benjamin Radd, a political scientist and senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, said it is true that Iran is continuing its enrichment program in clandestine ways that present an ongoing threat and that “the war is not going the way the president wanted.” He also said Iran’s activity around Pickaxe helps Trump justify the war — and its possible expansion.

Radd said Iran has used the war to block independent inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency and reconstituted some of its nuclear capabilities in the process, including as talks with the U.S. shifted from its nuclear program to the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump and the U.S., meanwhile, have “vacillated” between trying to “manage” the Iranian nuclear program by reining in enrichment, to trying to “neutralize” the program with targeted attacks on its nuclear infrastructure. Radd said that “even though his rhetoric is there,” Trump hasn’t had “the resolve or the ability or the mandate” to move to fully eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, because that would require “much more forceful intervention” than the American public is willing to accept, such as U.S. troops on the ground in Iran.

He said he wonders now if the president’s talk about Pickaxe is part of a shift in that direction — or at least threatening it — after Trump and his advisors realized that the current cycle of war, negotiations and then more war is giving Iran the time it needs to reconstitute its nuclear program.

“I’m wondering if that is just a threat, or if it’s a genuine option that the president is actually considering,” Radd said.

Under Senate questioning Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declined to say whether American bombs were capable of destroying whatever is under Pickaxe Mountain.

July 21 (UPI) — A father and son have been arraigned on charges for kidnapping two federal biologists at gunpoint in California.

Joseph Charles Henrichsen, 49, and his son Phoenix Henrichsen, 23, were in federal court in Sacramento, Calif., on Monday when they were charged with kidnapping a federal employee and aiding and abetting.

The charges stem from the Henrichsens allegedly confronting two female U.S. Forest Service staff biologists last week at Gumboot Lake Campground in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in California. Joseph was armed with a rifle when he approached the biologists in a remote area of the forest. He zip-tied their hands behind their backs and ordered them to a trailer nearby where they were held.

When they arrived at the trailer, Phoenix joined them, court documents say.

At one point, Joseph took one of the biologists in the Forest Service Nissan that they were using before the kidnapping and drove her several miles away where he used her phone to call a federal forest ranger. He left a message for the ranger informing them that he had taken two hostages and was armed.

“I’ve taken two fed biologists hostage from the Forest Service,” Joseph said, the affidavit reads. “I’m driving in the ranger vehicle right now. Her hands are behind her [expletive] back, and I’ve got live rounds ready.”

Law enforcement officials responded after the message was received, beginning an hourslong standoff on Friday. The Henrichsens surrendered and were arrested that day after hostage negotiations.

The victims were released safely.

The affidavit accuses Phoenix of aiding and abetting for keeping “watch” of the trailer when his father was not around.

The Henrichsens face a maximum penalty of life in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. A preliminary examination is scheduled for Aug. 3.