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WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - The Trump administration has scrapped plans for an immigration detention facility in Merrimack, New Hampshire, the state's Republican governor said on Tuesday, as localities grapple ‌with a surge in planned detention centers nationwide.

Republican candidates speak at the First in the Nation Leadership Summit in Nashua

"The Department of Homeland Security will not move ‌forward with the proposed ICE facility in Merrimack," the New England state's governor, Kelly Ayotte, wrote on X following a meeting ​with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in Washington last week.

Ayotte said she expressed the concerns of the town roughly 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) northeast of Boston, and that New Hampshire law enforcement would continue to cooperate with DHS to secure the state's northern border with Canada.

Noem, in a statement from DHS, confirmed the meeting and said ‌it would continue to work with ⁠New Hampshire, calling it "a strong partner."

The withdrawal comes as Republican President Donald Trump enacts his sweeping immigration campaign pledges. The deportation drive's aggressive tactics have been met ⁠with growing U.S. voter disapproval ahead of the November midterm election that will decide control of Congress.

ICE and U.S. Border Patrol agents have surged into major U.S. cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, sweeping through neighborhoods ​and ​clashing with residents. Federal agents shot and killed two ​U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January, and ‌another citizen was shot and killed last year in Texas.

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Trump's administration is also moving to increase detention centers to house immigrants as it ramps up its raids, spending more than $38 billion this year for facilities that have drawn criticism from Democrats as well as concerns from Ayotte and other Republicans.

Democrats, civil rights groups, clergy and other critics have cited human rights, legal and health concerns, including dismal conditions, poor ‌treatment and diseases such as measles at various detention facilities, ​which are run by companies including GEO Group and CoreCivic.

At ​least eight people have died in ICE detention ​centers since the start of 2026, following at least 31 deaths last year.

On ‌Tuesday, Democratic-led Maryland sued the Trump administration to ​halt a detention facility ​in its western Washington County.

DHS officials have rejected any claims that the buildings are akin to "warehouses."

Senate Democrats have blocked funding for DHS as they seek to rein in ICE. White House ​spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters on ‌Tuesday that Trump would use his State of the Union speech later that night to ​call for funding to be approved.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington; additional reporting by ​Ted Hesson and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

PARIS (AP) — The Louvre Museum's director resigned Tuesday, ending months of questions in France's cultural world over why no top official had stepped down after the Octobercrown jewels theft.

France Louvre

Laurence des Cars' departure closed a bruising chapter for the world's biggest museum. It came as the Louvre faces a widening narrative of an institution spiraling out of control.

In the last year alone, the museum has endured the high-profile jewels theft from the Apollo Gallery, water leaks that damaged priceless books, multiple staff walkouts and a wildcat strike over poor working conditions, mass tourism and understaffing.

That scrutiny intensified again in recent weeks, when French authorities revealed a suspected decadelong ticket fraud scheme — carried out under their noses — linked to the museum that investigators say may have cost the Louvre 10 million euros ($11.8 million).

PresidentEmmanuel Macronaccepted des Cars' resignation as "an act of responsibility" at a moment when the Louvre needs "calm" and new momentum for security upgrades, modernization and other major projects, according to a statement from his office.

Macron wants to give des Cars a new mission during France's presidency of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, focused on cooperation among major museums, the statement said.

For many in France's cultural world, the resignation answers months of head-scratching over why no top official had fallen after the heist: a daylight robbery that many here saw as the most humiliating breach of French heritage security in living memory.

Brazen theft

Thieves tookless than eight minutesin October to steal crown jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) from the Louvre, in a weekend operation that stunned visitors, exposed glaring vulnerabilities and left one of France's most symbolically charged collections in criminal hands.

Several suspects were later arrested, but the stolen pieces remain missing.

Des Cars, one of the most prominent museum directors in Europe, had reportedlyoffered to resignon the day of the robbery, but it was initially refused by the culture minister.

In remarks after the theft, she described the moment as a "tragic, brutal, violent reality" for the Louvre and said that, as the person in charge, it had felt right to offer her resignation.

She had led the Louvre since 2021, taking over one of the global museum world's most prestigious jobs at a time when the museum was still navigating the aftershocks of the pandemic and the return of mass tourism.

Multifaceted crisis

The latest announcement is the latest in a string of blows for the crumbling former royal palace, amid growing complaints that the museum's infrastructure and staffing haven't kept pace with the crowds pouring through its galleries.

In June, awildcat strikeby front-of-house staff and security workers forced the Louvre to halt operations, stranding thousands of visitors outside the glass pyramid and underscoring the depth of anger among employees over overcrowding, understaffing and what unions called untenable working conditions.

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Workers said that the pressure of daily visitor flows — particularly around the "Mona Lisa" — had become unmanageable and that promised reforms were arriving too slowly.

The resignation came at an especially punishing moment, less than two weeks after French authorities revealed the separate ticket fraud scheme.

That case widened scrutiny beyond the jewels robbery and toward the museum's day-to-day controls.

Fraud scheme

Prosecutors say tour guides are suspected of — up to 20 times a day — reusing the same tickets to bring in different visitor groups, at times allegedly with the help of Louvre employees, in a system investigators believe operated for a decade.

In a rare interview just days ago with The Associated Press after the fraud case was made public, the Louvre's No. 2, general administrator Kim Pham, said that fraud at an institution the size of the Louvre was "statistically inevitable."

He argued that the museum's sheer scale — millions of visitors, multiple checkpoints and a sprawling historic complex — makes it uniquely exposed.

But he also acknowledged shortcomings, and said that the museum had tightened validation checks and increased controls.

New Renaissance

The succession of crises has put new political weight on a project Macron has heavily championed: the Louvre's sweeping overhaul plan, branded the "Louvre New Renaissance."

Unveiled by Macron in January 2025, the renovation, which could take up to a decades, aims to modernize a museum widely seen as overstretched and physically worn down by mass tourism.

The plan includes a new entrance near the Seine River to ease pressure on I.M. Pei's pyramid, new underground spaces and a dedicated room for the "Mona Lisa" with timed access — all intended to improve crowd flow and reduce the daily crush that has become a symbol of the Louvre's success and its dysfunction.

The project is expected to cost roughly 700 million-800 million euros ($826 million-$944 million), with funding from ticket revenue, state support, donations and Louvre Abu Dhabi-related income.

Macron has framed the overhaul as a national priority, comparing its ambition to other landmark French restoration efforts and casting it as part of a broader defense of French cultural prestige.

But the events of the past year — staff unrest, security failures and now alleged fraud — have sharpened doubts over whether the Louvre can hold the line operationally, while preparing for a costly, yearslong transformation.

That tension defined des Cars' final months in office.

She was both the public face of the Louvre's modernization drive and the official left carrying the fallout from damaging failures.

Seventy-two tigers have died at a tourist parkin Thailandin less than two weeks.

The animals died at two facilities operated by Tiger Kingdom, in the northern city of Chiang Mai. Visitors to the park are allowed to touch and interact with the big cats.

Samples taken from the tigers showed signs of canine distemper virus, a highly contagious disease that attacks the respiratory, gastrointestinal and nervous systems, the local livestock department said.

The virus is normally found among dogs but can also infect big cats. It is not known to affect humans.

The carcasses also tested positive for a bacteria associated with respiratory disease, and some for feline parvovirus. The livestock department said it was expediting post-mortem examinations and would conduct an investigation into the deaths.

On Tuesday, officials said the virus was no longer spreading and no more tigers were dying, but the remaining gravely ill animals were recommended to be euthanised.

A veterinarian said nearly all the tigers across the park fell ill, but it is unclear how many will be culled.

At a news conference in Bangkok, Pattana Promphat, the public health minister, said no humans had been infected.

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"If we detect any sick persons, we will prepare for a nationwide monitoring measure," said Monthien Khanasawat, the director-general of the public health ministry's disease control department.

More than 240 tigers are kept at the park. The animals appeared to have been infected and become sick rapidly, with officials initially suspecting that the outbreak came from contaminated raw chicken used to feed them.

"By the time we realised they were sick, it was already too late," Somchuan Ratanamungklanon, the director of the national livestock department, previously told local media.

He said it was harder to detect sickness in tigers than animals such as common household cats or dogs.

Veterinarians or park staff working in the tiger enclosures were placed under observation for 21 days, but none had so far shown signs of illness, Thai PBS reported.

The deaths have prompted condemnation from animal rights groups over the treatment of captive tigers used as tourist attractions in Thailand.

"Currently, Thailand has approximately 1,500 captive tigers in over 60 locations. Many of these tigers are kept in deplorable conditions, bred for tourism, and it is believed that some may enter the illegal wildlife trade," Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand said in a statement.

"These venues prioritise entertainment and profit over animal welfare and conservation and this outbreak highlights the devastating consequences."

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ATLANTA (AP) — Left-hander Chris Sale and the Atlanta Braves agreed to a contract on Tuesday adding $27 million for the 2027 season.

CORRECTION Twins Braves Spring Baseball

A 36-year-old who won the 2024 NL Cy Young Award in his first season with Atlanta, Sale agreed to a deal that includes a $30 million team option for 2028.

Atlanta acquired Sale from Boston in December 2023and he agreed to a reworked $38 million, two-year contract that included an $18 million club option for 2026. The Bravesexercised the option in November.

Sale is 25-8 with a 2.46 ERA in 49 starts and one relief appearance with the Braves. He made the All-Star team twice, raising his total to nine.

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He is 145-88 with a 3.01 ERA is 15 major league seasons with the Chicago White Sox (2010-16), Boston (2017-23) and Atlanta, striking out 2,579 in 2,084 innings. His 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings are the most among pitchers with 1,500 or more innings.

Sale has thrived with the Braves after making nine trips to the disabled and injured lists with the Red Sox, mostly with shoulder and elbow ailments. He hadTommy John surgeryon March 30, 2020, and returned to a big league mound on Aug. 14, 2021.

AP MLB:https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Detroit Lions wideout Amon-Ra St. Brown has quite the connection to Germany. St. Brown's mother, Miriam, was born in the country, and St. Brown hosts football camps there. Now, he has another reason to visit, as the Lions were announced as participants in the NFL's 2026 Germany game.

The league announced the news Tuesday, though did not name the Lions' opponent just yet.

It will mark the first time in over a decade the Lions will play in an international game. The last time they played overseas occurred in 2015, when the Lions took on the Kansas City Chiefs in London. The Lions lost that contest 45-10.

While the Lions will play in Germany in 2026, the NFL has yet to reveal many details about the game. Fans know it will be played at FC Bayern Munich Stadium, but don't know the Lions' opponent, game date or kickoff time just yet. All of that information will be revealed — at the latest — during the league's schedule release.

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[Get more Lions news: Detroit team feed]

St. Brown, who isfluent in German, said it was adream of his to play in his mother's home country.

"I cannot wait to play in front of the incredible fans that I've gotten to know through my visits and football camps in the country,"said St. Brown, whose mother, Miriam, hails from Cologne."Their support for me and the country's instant connection to the Lions brand is inspiring, and I'm looking forward to our team getting to showcase Detroit football on an international scale."

The NFL will play a record nine international games in 2026. The league has revealed a few details about those games, including ahandful of teamsthat willplay overseas next season.

There are still three international games in which the league has yet to reveal much information, including two of the London games and the 2026 game in Spain.

In the midst of aThursday night onslaughtcourtesy of the San Antonio Spurs, Phoenix Suns center Mark Williams' internal frustrations had reached a boiling point. The 24-year-old, who was struggling to generate any clean looks with Victor Wembanyama draped all over him, sat on the bench unable to pay attention to anything else going on around him.

Jalen Green, who was in the huddle of players and coaches seeking to chip away at a double-digit deficit, noticed the sulking Williams and briefly broke away from the group to uplift his teammate, speaking words of encouragement before the buzzer sounded to get back on the floor.

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In that moment, Green — who had been shouldering the bulk of Phoenix's offensive burden with Dillon Brooks serving aone-game suspensionand Devin Booker sidelined with a hip injury — was suddenly thrust into a leadership role.

"I'm never going to complain about having the opportunity to be that," Green told reporters about being in a go-to role two days later after hitting agame-winning 3to lift the Suns over the Magic in double overtime, 113-110.

The reliance on Green wasn't in the cards when he arrived nearly eight months ago as part of the blockbuster Kevin Durant trade. Phoenix's hierarchy was already outlined, with Booker as the centerpiece and Brooks, who also was traded from Houston, emerging rapidly as an efficient two-way second fiddle. It also wasn't part of the plans when Green finally returned to action a month ago, having missed the bulk of the season with hamstring and hip ailments. The Suns, who were a surprising 30-19 at the time, opted to ease Green back into a rhythm by bringing him off the bench.

That luxury is now nonexistent for Green, whose minutes have nearly doubled since his return to a Suns team that is in a slump, having lost six out of their past nine games since Feb. 1. It's also indicative of Phoenix's unfortunate stop-and-start campaign, a season that has seen just 41 shared minutes between Green, Brooks and Booker. (The latter two have played just 37 out of 58 possible games together, and Brooks will nowmiss the next 4-6 weekswith a fractured left hand.)

"That's the NBA," head coach Jordan Ott said last week. "You never know. You can't really anticipate what's going forward, if we're going to get healthy. All those things change so fast; the ability to go out and compete every single night, no matter the circumstances, that's what this group does. We're gonna have to keep doing it, if or when we get healthy."

So what does that look like for Green in the interim? As of Tuesday morning, the fifth-year guard has played in just 10 games this season, averaging a modest 13.3 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.4 assists on .382/.313/.684 splits. There's some obvious context here in that one of the most athletically gifted talents in basketball has dealt with hamstring and hip problems, which raw data doesn't account for. Factoring in minutes restrictions, ramp-up periods and the Suns' lineup inconsistency, Green's production — or lack thereof — becomes clearer.

Last season in Houston, Greenled the teamin drives per game and was a 60th-percentile player in transition, scoring 1.174 points per chance, according to Synergy tracking data. This season, he's driving less and attacking the rim less because of the lack of normal burst (just 7.5 drives per game and 9% of his offense coming in transition, down from 16%), which puts the onus on his shot-making ability. As he continues to add games under his belt, expect these sectors of his arsenal to normalize.

"I think I bring a little bit of everything," Green told Yahoo Sports. "Play faster, get some steals and get into the open lane. I think that's where my biggest impact is, getting to the rim, the 3 and scoring."

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Green's efficiency struggles over the past three seasons are well-documented, although it's never been as low as it is currently, scoring just 93.4 points per 100 shot attempts — 6th percentile among wings, according to Cleaning the Glass. His playmaking, however, has improved considerably,turning the ball over less and creating moreopportunities for his new teammates. He's also converting 48% of his long 2s and 42% on midrange shots overall, the highest marks in his career by some distance.

In Ott's system, the offensive engines (Booker, Brooks, Green) are encouraged to be confident on the ball. It consistently puts them in ball screens and has others relocate and move without the ball. Essentially half of Green's possessions have come in pick-and-roll scenarios, according to Synergy, which, paired with the likes of Williams and Oso Ighodaro — smart screeners — give him a myriad of decisions to make.

"It's kind of how I've been playing my whole career," Green said. "It's either [the defender] will be up high or they're going to be in a drop. So just having that in-between game will open up a lot of things — especially when we have a healthy team."

[Get more Suns news: Phoenix team feed]

Giving Green the keys temporarily (Booker will miss at least a week, Brooks is likely to return right before the postseason)shouldmake the Suns a quicker unit overall. They're just 29th in pace since his return (again, the hamstrings!), but between him and Collin Gillespie, a quick-twitch, deep-shooting marksman, Phoenix should find it easier creating advantages and capitalizing on them. Advanced metrics like DARKO still have Green as a high-impact offensive option who parlays his high usage rate into a good helping of potential assists, rim creation and low turnover rate.

Green has actually fared well on defense, too, his biggest need for improvement since he entered the league. What he's lacked in offensive consistency, he's made up for with timing, anticipation and confidence at the other end. The Suns allow 12 fewer points per 100 possessions while he's on the floor, according to Cleaning the Glass. It's an extremely small sample size, but it's enough to make you go, "Hmmmm." Opponents are also shooting nearly 18% worse when Green contests and 26% worse at the rim,both in the 99th percentile, according to Databallr.

(Databallr has a new metric defined as "Stop Percentage," a combination of steals, drawn offensive fouls and blocks recovered by the defense per 100 possessions. Green ranks in the 78th percentile among NBA players. That's good!)

It's important for Phoenix, currently clinging to a play-in spot (2.5 games ahead of 8th), to find some consistency, though it'll be a difficult task with Boston and the Los Angeles Lakers being its next two games to close out the month.

(It should be noted that the Suns have arelatively light schedulefor the remainder of the season. There's not a realrest advantagethe rest of the way, though, which lines up with their 44.5 win projection, per CTG, and makes theirnet rating comparisonto 76ers teams of the late 2000s — good but not great playoff units — more palatable.)

Assuming Grayson Allen is able to return soon, the Suns will still have their three most voluminous 3-point shooters available (Allen, Gillespie and Royce O'Neale), all of whom are shooting better than 36%. And fortunately for the Suns, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, Phoenix was only a +2.6 with both Booker and Brooks on the floor — per CTG. It's not as if the Suns were completely blowing teams out of the water whenrelativelyhealthy; figuring out what this team looks like with Green manning the ship shouldn't be a night-and-day difference.

If the Suns continue to dominate on the offensive glass, convert 3s at a high clip, force opponent turnovers and win the possession battle, the math with Green — as incomplete as it may be — should work itself out until Booker and Brooks are back.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military forces boarded a third sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

An organization that tracks ship movements said the vessel was the only tanker left to pursue after more than a dozen fled the coast of Venezuela following the capture of the South American country's authoritarian then-president,Nicolás Maduro.

U.S. Southern Command said in a post on X that U.S. forces boarded the Bertha overnight, conducting "a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding."

The boarding is the tenth interdiction of an oil tanker conducted by the Trump administration since they began the practice in early December. It is also the third tanker to be seized in the Indian Ocean instead of the Caribbean or North Atlantic.

"The vessel was operating in defiance of President Trump's established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean and attempted to evade," Southern Command's post said. "From the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, we tracked it and stopped it."

A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss an ongoing operation noted that like the previous two boardings conducted in the Indian Ocean, the Bertha was not formally seized but rather placed under U.S. control. The official said that the Bertha's fate will be determined by agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.

Video posted by the Pentagon shows U.S. Navy military helicopters taking off from an identified ship and flying toward the tanker.

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Venezuela had faced U.S. sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers tosmuggle crude into global supply chains. President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure Maduro before he was apprehended in January during an American military operation.

The Bertha is a vessel that was flagged to the Cook Islands when it was placed under U.S. sanctions related to Iran, according to the website of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. However, the vessel was more recently listed under a false flag of the Caribbean island of Curacao and managed by a company in China, according to Equasis, a shipping information system.

Following Maduro's capture, at least 16 tankers fled the Venezuelan coast, according to Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, who said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document the ships' movements.

The Bertha was the only tanker left to pursue from the original 16, TankerTrackers.com said in a Feb. 15 post on X. Madani said in a message to The Associated Press on Tuesday that the Bertha was laden with 1.9 million barrels of crude oil.

Over the past few years, the ship has received Iranian crude from other vessels via hoses for deliveries to China, Madani said.

Trump's Republican administration has beenseizing tankersas part of its broader efforts totake control of Venezuela's oil. The Pentagon's post did not state whether the Bertha was formally seized and placed under U.S. control. The Pentagon said in an email that it didn't have more to add beyond Southern Command's post on X.

Maduro wasbrought to the U.S. to face chargesof working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment ofthousands of tons of cocaineinto the U.S. and has pleaded not guilty.