AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT

US Rep Byron Donalds wins GOP nod for Florida governor against Ex-Rep David Jolly for the Democrats

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds won the Republican nomination for Florida governor and former Rep. David Jolly picked up the Democratic nod in Tuesday’s primaries, setting the stage for a fall campaign to replace outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis and decide the state’s future political direction.

November’s election will test President Donald Trump’s grip on his adopted state and Democrats’ ability to resurrect Florida as a national political battleground. Florida has moved notably to the right since Trump’s victory in 2016, though Democrats hope to regain ground from his slumping popularity ratings.

DeSantis, a leading conservative figure who has both clashed and collaborated with Trump over the years, is barred from running for a third consecutive term.

Also Tuesday, progressive state Rep. Angie Nixon won the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate special election, defeating retired Army Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, a onetime National Security Council official who testified in Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.

Nixon, who was heavily outspent by Vindman, will face Sen. Ashley Moody, winner of the Republican nomination, in November to fill the last two years of Marco Rubio’s Senate term. Rubio left the seat to become Trump’s secretary of state last year.

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The Latest: Byron Donalds and David Jolly will compete to replace Ron DeSantis as Florida governor

Voters in Alabama, Florida and Wyoming are deciding Tuesday which candidates to advance to the general election in key races for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House, as California holds a special election to decide who will serve out the rest of U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s term.

Swalwell resigned from Congress amid sexual assault allegations earlier this year. Regardless of who is chosen to replace him, the 14th Congressional District seat is guaranteed to remain under Democratic control.

In an open contest to replace term-limited Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Rep. Byron Donalds won the nomination on the Republican side and former Rep. David Jolly won the Democratic nomination. Sen. Ashley Moody won the Republican nomination to finish the remainder of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s term in the U.S. Senate.

Alaska voters will narrow down a wide field of candidates for a competitive U.S. Senate seat that’s expected to play a pivotal role in determining which political party will hold a majority in the Senate next year. Among the 16 candidates running in the all-party primary, the most notable are Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. The top four vote-getters will advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation and the winner in November will be determined by ranked choice voting.

An unusually high number of open-seat races are on the ballot in Wyoming’s primary after two prominent Republican officials announced their retirements. The upcoming departures of Gov. Mark Gordon and U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, along with U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman’s decision to run to replace Lummis, mark the first time in 32 years that Wyoming has had open seats for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House at the same time.

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Trump threatened to bomb Oman because he’s unhappy with country’s deal with Iran, officials say

CAIRO (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Oman because he is unhappy the country is close to a deal with Iran to manage ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, two regional officials said on Tuesday, a day after Trump leveled the threat.

The officials said the Trump administration has told Oman it is opposed to parts of the yet-to-be-announced deal, including the joint Iranian and Omani management of the exit route out of the passage that’s critical to global supplies of oil and natural gas. The officials were briefed on the U.S. position and how the administration views Oman’s position.

Meanwhile, a projectile hit a ship as it sailed out of the strait, and a cargo vessel was rendered a “constructive total loss” by multiple projectiles off the coast of Yemen, according to the British military’s maritime monitoring agency. The defense ministry of the United Arab Emirates said two ballistic missiles were launched from Iran toward the UAE.

An Iranian official said the strait would not reopen until the United States meets Iran’s conditions.

The U.S. believes Oman has not been tough enough in its negotiations with Iran and is unhappy with Oman’s agreement to collect voluntary fees from vessels, even if the charges are related to security and maritime environmental protection, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

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Trump says US and Canada have reached last-minute deal to delay 50% US tariffs on Canadian imports

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he was delaying the 50% U.S. tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports after the two countries reached a last-minute deal less than two hours before the sanctions were to go into effect.

The announcement, which Trump made on his social media platform, buys time for more negotiations and avoids, for now, another strain in already tense relations between the historic allies.

“I have paused the 50% Tariffs against Canada, that were scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

If they had gone into effect as scheduled at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, Trump’s import taxes would have hit Canadian products ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors.

But the political impact would likely have been bigger than the economic one. Canada had threatened to retaliate against any new tariffs with levies of its own, aggravating a trade fight between countries that sold each other $880 billion worth of goods and services last year.

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Hayden Panettiere’s on-and-off boyfriend was at apartment where she died, police report says

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Hayden Panettiere’s on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother Zach Hickerson were at the South Carolina apartment where the actor died over the weekend, according to a police report released Tuesday.

A Greenville police officer who responded to the residence Sunday afternoon was met by the brothers and then observed paramedics performing CPR on an unresponsive woman, the report states.

“The patient did not seem to have any obvious physical reasons to be unresponsive,” the officer notes. After attempting lifesaving measures, the emergency workers declared Panettiere dead at 2:31 p.m.

No cause has been determined, and her death remains under investigation. An autopsy found no signs of trauma, and police said officers saw no signs of foul play.

The onetime child star, who soared to fame in the TV shows “Heroes” and “Nashville” while enduring struggles with alcohol addiction and depression, would have turned 37 on Friday.

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ABC sues FCC over challenge to its broadcast licenses, saying actions present ‘existential threat’

Further escalating its battle with the Trump administration, ABC on Tuesday took the rare step of suing the Federal Communications Commission on First Amendment grounds, saying the agency’s demand for early review of its broadcast licenses posed an “existential threat” to the network.

In the lawsuit, ABC, its parent company Disney and the eight ABC-owned stations whose licenses are affected asked a federal court to stop the early renewal proceedings.

The FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr, an ally of President Donald Trump, had ordered the early review in April — itself a rare move — of all eight licenses owned by ABC, years before they are set to expire. Licenses are issued for eight-year periods. The FCC cited the network’s diversity and inclusion practices as a reason, but the development came shortly after a joke by ABC’s late-night host Jimmy Kimmel — an outspoken Trump critic — had infuriated the president, who has called for Kimmel’s firing.

“Again and again, the Administration has attacked ABC’s speech — the stories its journalists report and the viewpoints its network programs air,” the network alleged in its lawsuit Tuesday. “Over time, those attacks have escalated into express demands that ABC be stripped of its broadcast licenses because of its speech.”

“Facing this existential threat,” it added, “Plaintiffs have no choice but to seek redress from the judicial branch for the Administration’s blatant retaliation for their First Amendment speech.”

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Liberia agrees to take 1,200 third-country deportees from the US

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia has agreed to accept up to 1,200 third-country deportees from the United States, authorities in the West African country said Tuesday, in one of the largest such arrangements under the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on immigration.

The deportees will be received within a year, with the first batch of 20 expected on Thursday, Liberia’s Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah told reporters. The 1,200 deportees will include Africans as well as nationals from North America, South America and the Caribbean, Piah said.

Under a series of often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that are not their own, advocates say, with about 10 of them in Africa.

A key issue in the agreements is that they can involve migrants with protection orders from a U.S. immigration judge not to be returned to their home countries because of concerns for their safety. The Liberian minister did not say if the deportees expected in Liberia had such protection orders.

Liberia’s Justice Minister Natu Oswald Tweh said at Tuesday’s briefing that the country has screened the list of migrants ahead of their arrival.

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US Navy destroyer with 300 sailors aboard broke down for four days in the Pacific

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. Navy destroyer with about 300 sailors aboard suffered a major breakdown in the Pacific Ocean last month that left it without power for four days, the Navy confirmed in a statement.

The USS Benfold “reported an engineering casualty involving its generators, causing a loss of power” on July 24, Navy spokesman Cmdr. Matthew Comer said in the statement. The breakdown meant the crew went without drinking water, meals, functioning toilets and air conditioning for days aboard the ship, Comer said.

The incident, which only became public on Friday when it was first reported by USNI News, comes as the Pentagon grapples with serious questions about the quality of life aboard naval vessels and the military’s ability to supply ships during the conflict with Iran.

Democratic lawmakers are calling for investigations into conditions aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Reports last week revealed that the ship, which has spent a record-setting 250 uninterrupted days at sea, has experienced shortages of supplies, including food and hygiene products, while crew members have suffered from stress and poor mental health.

Comer stressed that there were no injuries to the crew of the Benfold, “who demonstrated resilience, grit, professionalism, and unwavering steadiness in their response,” but that the ship needed assistance from the George Washington carrier strike group.

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Before-and-after NASA images show crater carved by a SpaceX rocket that slammed into the moon

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft circling the moon is providing the sharpest views yet of the crater carved by a crashing SpaceX rocket.

The space agency released before-and-after photos of the impact area on Tuesday.

The Falcon rocket’s upper stage plowed into the moon at 5,400 mph (8,700 kph) on Aug. 5 after drifting through space for more than a year. It launched a pair of private moon landers with experiments and even a tiny rover in 2025 as part of NASA’s push to commercialize lunar exploration.

Based on these new photos by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the fresh crater appears to be 60 feet (18 meters) across and less than 10 feet (3 meters) deep, according to scientists.

Dark and bright streaks are clearly visible emanating like butterfly wings from the crater. The darker lines represent excavated material that was close to the surface and shaped by eons of solar wind, cosmic rays and micrometeorite strikes. The brighter rays indicate fresh rocks and dirt that were hurled from farther down.

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Frank Beard, drummer of boogie-rock trio ZZ Top, dies at 77

NEW YORK (AP) — Frank Beard, the drummer for the Texas boogie-rock trio ZZ Top who kept the tempo for the band’s biggest hits like “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’” and “Legs,” has died. He was 77.

Beard was in hospice care when he died Tuesday at his ranch in Richmond, Texas, with family members at his side, according to publicist Bob Merlis. Band co-founder and guitarist Billy Gibbons, on tour with bassist Elwood Francis, hailed Beard in a statement.

“Today, Elwood and I lost a great friend and collaborator, and the world lost one of the most naturally innovative drummers and a great and true son of Texas. His signature backbeat was key to keeping ZZ on top. The band of which he was part for six decades is going to keep on keeping on as he had wished,” Gibbons said.

ZZ Top sold more than 50 million records and had six singles that reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. Seven of their albums have been in the Billboard 200’s Top 10 and they earned three Grammy Award nominations.

“I’ve found the people I was meant to play with,” Beard says in the 2019 documentary “ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas.” “I never wanted to quit, and never wanted to get fired.”