AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Grandmother of French teen shot dead by police officer pleads with rioters to stop the violence

PARIS (AP) — The grandmother of the French teenager shot dead by police during a traffic stop pleaded Sunday for rioters to stop after five nights of unrest, while authorities expressed outrage at an attack on a suburban mayor’s home that injured family members.

The grandmother of 17-year-old Nahel, identified only as Nadia, said in a telephone interview with French news broadcaster BFM TV, “Don’t break windows, buses … schools. We want to calm things down.”

She said she was angry at the officer who killed her grandson but not at the police in general and expressed faith in the justice system as France faces its worst social upheaval in years. Nahel, whose full name hasn’t been disclosed, was buried on Saturday.

The violence appeared to be lessening. Still, the office of Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 45,000 police officers would again be deployed in the streets to counter anger over discrimination against people who trace their roots to former French colonies and live in low-income neighborhoods. Nahel is of Algerian descent and was shot in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

President Emmanuel Macron held a special security meeting Sunday night and plans to meet Monday with the heads of both houses of parliament and Tuesday with the mayors of 220 towns and cities affected by the protests, said a participant in the meeting, who spoke anonymously in line with French government practices. Macron also wants to start a detailed, longer-term assessment of the reasons that led to the unrest, the official said.

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Baltimore block party shooting victims include more than a dozen minors, police say

BALTIMORE (AP) — Gunfire erupted at a block party in Baltimore on Sunday — killing two people, wounding 28 and leaving an extensive crime scene that marred the U.S. holiday weekend, police said. Three of the wounded were in critical condition and more than a dozen were under 18.

The shooting took place just after 12:30 a.m. when at least two people opened fire at a block party in the Brooklyn Homes area in the southern part of the city, said Richard Worley, Baltimore’s acting police commissioner. No arrests had been made by late afternoon. It wasn’t clear if the shooting was targeted or random, Worley said.

The shooting comes amid gatherings around the country leading up to the July Fourth holiday. Elsewhere, a shooting in Kansas left seven people with gunshot wounds and two more victims hospitalized after being trampled as people rushed out of a nightclub early Sunday morning, police there said.

The violence in Baltimore occurred as federal prosecutors there this week touted their efforts to reduce violent crime in the city. Police have reported nearly 130 homicides and close to 300 shootings so far this year, though that’s down from the same time last year. Authorities have vowed to crack down aggressively on repeat violent offenders.

Nine of Sunday’s victims were taken by ambulance and 20 walked into area hospitals with injuries from the shooting, Worley said. Nine remained hospitalized Sunday afternoon.

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Moms for Liberty’s focus on school races nationwide sets up political clash with teachers unions

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Moms for Liberty, a “parental rights” group that has sought to take over school boards in multiple states, is looking to expand those efforts across the country and to other education posts in 2024 and beyond. The effort is setting up a clash with teachers unions and others on the left who view the group as a toxic presence in public schools.

The group’s co-founder, Tiffany Justice, said during its annual summit over the weekend in Philadelphia that Moms for Liberty will use its political action committee next year to engage in school board races nationwide. It also will “start endorsing at the state board level and elected superintendents.”

Her comments confirm that Moms for Liberty, which has spent its first two years inflaming school board meetings with aggressive complaints about instruction on systemic racism and gender identity in the classroom, is developing a larger strategy to overhaul education infrastructure across the country.

As the group has amassed widespread conservative support and donor funding, its focus on education ensures that even as voters turn their attention to the 2024 presidential race, school board elections will remain some of the most contentious political fights next year.

Moms for Liberty started with three Florida moms fighting COVID-19 restrictions in 2021. It has quickly ascended as a national player in Republican politics, helped along the way by the board’s political training and close relationships with high-profile GOP groups and lawmakers. The group’s support for school choice and the “fundamental rights of parents” to direct their children’s education has drawn allies such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a leading GOP presidential contender, and the conservative Heritage Foundation.

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Russia launches the first drone strike on Kyiv in 12 days and all are shot down

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — After a relative lull, Russia launched a drone attack early Sunday on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, officials said. It was the first such attack of the war in 12 days.

All of the Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones were detected and shot down, according to Serhii Popko, the head of the Kyiv city administration. In addition to the city itself, the surrounding Kyiv region was targeted. Kyiv regional Gov. Ruslan Kravchenko reported that one person was wounded by falling debris from a destroyed drone.

Officials in the Ukrainian capital didn’t provide an exact number of drones that attacked the city. But Ukraine’s air force said that across the country, eight Shaheds and three Kalibr cruise missiles were launched by the Russians.

Further south, a 13-year-old boy was wounded in overnight shelling of Ukraine’s partially occupied southern Kherson province, said Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, spokesman for the Ukrainian administration of the province.

The child was wounded when the Russian army shelled the village of Mylove on the banks of the Dnieper River in the Beryslav district, Tolokonnikov said.

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Olympic champion Warholm boos protesters on track who disrupted his 400-meter hurdles race

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Olympic champion Karsten Warholm won his 400-meter hurdles race on Sunday and then turned to join in the crowd booing environmental protesters who disrupted the Diamond League event near the finish.

Three people kneeled on the track about eight meters (yards) from the line holding two banners that spanned from lanes one to six, forcing runners to break through them. No athlete appeared to be hurt.

Warholm running in lane eight had no barrier in his way though seemed distracted, with a fourth apparent protester squatting in lane seven seeming to photograph the incident.

He was visibly angry with the protesters as they were led away while spectators booed.

The Norwegian star later told national broadcaster NRK the protest was disrespectful to athletes doing their job.

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The 2024 Republican presidential field keeps growing. So why aren’t there more women?

CHICAGO (AP) — As Republicans keep jumping into the 2024 race for president, one demographic group seems notably lacking: women.

More than a dozen candidates are seeking the nomination, including several long shots who announced their bids in recent weeks, in what is the party’s most diverse presidential field ever. Yet Nikki Haley, a former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor, is the only woman in the bunch.

America has never had a female commander in chief and Republicans historically have focused less on electing female candidates in general than the Democratic Party. And while women make up more than 50% of the population, they are underrepresented in public office, whether at city halls, state legislatures or in Washington.

In recent years, multiple organizations have helped women win election in higher numbers and capture races at the same rate as men. But they are still much less likely than men to run for office, even if they are equally qualified, research shows.

Women accounted for roughly 21% of the major party candidates for U.S. Senate last year and about 31% of U.S. House candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. That follows election cycles in which each party had a record number of women elected. Women constitute less than one-third of the U.S. House and Senate and 31% of statewide elected offices, even with a record 12 female governors after last year’s midterms.

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Trump’s South Carolina rally attracted a massive crowd in heavily Republican area

PICKENS, S.C. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump marked a return to the large-scale rallies of his previous presidential campaigns, speaking to a massive crowd gathered in the streets of a small South Carolina city on a blazing summer weekend.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be to kick off the Fourth of July weekend than right here on Main Street, with thousands of hardworking South Carolina patriots who believe in God, family and country,” Trump said Saturday to a roaring crowd in downtown Pickens as temperatures climbed into the 90s.

Randal J. Beach, the police chief in the conservative Upstate community of about 3,400 residents, told The Associated Press on Sunday that his estimates of the crowd “were somewhere between 50-55,000.”

The heavily Republican area is a popular one for GOP hopefuls as they aim to attract support for South Carolina’s first-in-the-South presidential primary. In recent months, other candidates including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have all held events in the Upstate, as well as the two South Carolinians in the race: former Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott.

But none drew an audience like Trump, whose appearance effectively shuttered Pickens’ quintessential Southern downtown.

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Are you confronting a big medical bill? Attack it with a plan — and these tips

An enormous medical bill can trigger a wave of panic, but try to resist.

That startling invoice that arrived in the mail may not be what you wind up paying. Errors or slow insurance payments may have inflated the total. Even if it’s accurate, financial aid or other assistance might help pare it.

Sometimes a simple phone call clears up a problem. Other times, reinforcements are necessary.

Debt experts say patients should attack medical bills with a plan. Here are key steps to take.

Don’t stash the bill in a pile of mail and hope it goes away, but don’t rush to pay it without first understanding the amount.

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Drug cartel violence flares in western Mexico after vigilante leader’s killing

APATZINGAN, Mexico (AP) — The drug cartel violence that citizen self-defense leader Hipolito Mora gave his life fighting flared anew on Sunday, just one day after he was buried, as shootings and road blockades hit the city of Apatzingan, a regional hub in Mexico’s hot lands.

Roads in and out of Apatzingan were blocked Sunday morning by trucks and buses pulled across the road by cartel gunmen, as the vehicles’ owners stood by helplessly.

“They told me to park my truck across the road. They said if I moved it, they would burn it,” said one truck driver, who asked his name not be used for fear of reprisals.

And in the city of Apatzingan, the regional hub where the area’s agricultural products are traded, gunmen carjacked a family, took their auto at gun point and used it to shoot another driver to death just a few blocks away.

The victim’s car was left dangling from a bridge as he lay dead inside, slumped onto the passenger’s side seat.

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Cleanup begins after asphalt binder spill into Montana’s Yellowstone River after train derailment

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Globs of asphalt binder that spilled into Montana’s Yellowstone River during a bridge collapse and train derailment could be seen on islands and riverbanks downstream from Yellowstone National Park a week after the spill occurred, witnesses report.

Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency said cleanup efforts began on Sunday, with workers cooling the gooey material with river water, rolling it up and putting the globs into garbage bags. It will probably be recycled, said Paul Peronard with the EPA.

Alexis Bonogofsky, whose family’s ranch was impacted by an oil spill on the Yellowstone River near Billings in 2011, took pictures Saturday of the refined petroleum product covering rocks and sandbars. She also snapped an image of a bird that had died in the black substance.

“This killdeer walked across the asphalt, which had heated up in the sun, and it got stuck and died with its head buried in the asphalt,” Bonogofsky wrote in the caption of an image she posted on social media. “You could tell where it had tried to pull itself out.”

A bridge over the river collapsed as a train crossed it early on June 24 near the town of Columbus and 10 cars fell into the water, spilling liquid asphalt and molten sulfur, officials said. Both materials were expected to cool and harden when exposed to the cold water, and officials said there was no threat to the public or downstream water supplies, officials said.