MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Milwaukee’s election leader has been ousted by the mayor in a surprise move that comes just six months before Wisconsin’s largest city will be in the spotlight in the presidential swing state.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson announced Monday that he would be replacing Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall with her deputy, Paulina Gutierrez.

Milwaukee has been at the center of attention in Wisconsin, a state known for close elections and where four of the past six presidential contests have been decided by less than a percentage point.

In 2020, former President Donald Trump and others were quick to cry fraud after late-arriving results from Democratic-dominated Milwaukee helped Joe Biden narrowly carry the state by just under 21,000 votes. Recounts demanded by Trump confirmed Biden’s victory.

The change has nothing to do with how Woodall ran elections, but instead had to do with “other issues internal to the election commission office and to city government that raised concern,” said the mayor’s spokesperson Jeff Fleming. He declined to say what those issues were.

“People see one side on this side of the camera, but there are other things on the other side of the camera that I also have to deal with and that’s exactly what I did with my decision,” Johnson told WISN-TV. He declined to elaborate.

Woodall did not return messages seeking comment. Her replacement, Gutierrez, also did not return messages.

Woodall has been outspoken about the challenges she and other election officials have felt in recent years.

She has described being harassed and threatened after the 2020 election via email, phone calls and letters to her home — threats serious enough that she has an assigned FBI agent to forward them to.

The change came a week after Woodall’s former deputy, Kimberly Zapata, was sentenced to probation and fined $3,000 after being convicted of misconduct in office and fraud for obtaining fake absentee ballots. Zapata argued that she was acting as a whistleblower, exposing vulnerabilities in the state’s election system.

Johnson and others who work in elections stressed that the change would not affect how elections are run in Milwaukee.

“Paulina’s integrity and capabilities are ideally suited to this position,” Johnson said in a statement announcing the change. “She will lead the office at an important juncture when public scrutiny of the work of the department will be extremely high. I have confidence in her, and I will make certain the department has the resources it needs to fulfill its duties.”

Gutierrez has only been a staff member at the city election commission for a little over a year. Neil Albrecht, who led the office for 15 years before retiring in May 2020, has offered his assistance as a volunteer, Fleming said. Woodall took over for Albrecht in 2020 and had been leading the office until now.

Following his reelection in April, Johnson had to renominate all of his Cabinet-level positions for city council approval. That is why he decided to make the change at this time, Fleming said.

None of the city’s three election commissioners returned messages seeking comment. But Ann Jacobs, a Democratic member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission from Milwaukee, said she was surprised by the move.

“Changes like this are always challenging, but given how many elections Wisconsin has there’s no ‘good time’ for these sort of changes to happen,” Jacobs said. “I expect the office to be professional and to continue their work and that the election will be run smoothly and properly.”

Jacobs stressed that elections are run by teams of people.

“The administration of elections isn’t something that is dependent on one person,” she said. “It is dependent on the workflow, the task flows and the operations of an entire office.”

Eighty-two-year-old liberal U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont announced Monday that he is running for re-election, saying American democracy is in question during difficult times for the country and the world.

Sanders, seeking a fourth Senate term, is an independent. He was a Democratic congressman for 16 years and still caucuses with the Democrats.

In an announcement video, he said that in many ways the 2024 election “is the most consequential election in our lifetimes.”

“Will the United States continue to even function as a democracy, or will we move to an authoritarian form of government?” he said. He questioned whether the country will reverse what he called “the unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality” and if it can create a government that works for all, and not a political system not dominated by wealthy campaign contributors.

“I have been, and will be if re-elected, in a strong position to provide the kind of help that Vermonters need in these difficult times,” Sanders said in a review of his positions as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and a member of the Senate Democratic leadership team, as well as a senior member of various other committees.

Sanders sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. He said a year ago that he would forgo another presidential bid and endorse Joe Biden’s reelection this year.

On a current controversial topic, Sanders, who has been critical of the war in Gaza, said Israel has the right to defend itself against the Oct. 7, “horrific” attack and hostage taking by the terrorist organization Hamas “but it did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, which is exactly what it is doing.”

“In my view, U.S. taxpayers should not be providing billions more to the extremist Netanyahu government to continue its devastating war against the Palestinian people,” he said.

Millions of people in the central United States could see powerful storms Monday including long-track tornadoes, hurricane-force winds and baseball-sized hail, forecasters said.

Much of Oklahoma and parts of Kansas are at the greatest risk of bad weather — including areas in Oklahoma, such as Sulphur and Holdenville, still recovering from a tornado that killed 4 and left thousands without power last week.

In all, nearly 10 million people live in areas under threat of severe weather, the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center said. Forecasters there issued a rare high risk for central Oklahoma and southern Kansas. The last time a high risk was issued was March 31, 2023, when a massive storm system tore through parts of the South and Midwest including Arkansas, Illinois and rural Indiana.

Bill Bunting, the center’s deputy director, said a high risk from the Storm Prediction Center is not something seen every day or every spring. “It’s the highest level of threat we can assign. And it’s a day to take very, very seriously,” he said.

Other cities that could see stormy weather include Kansas City, Missouri and Lincoln, Nebraska.

Bunting said the number of storms and their intensity should increase quickly in the evening hours across western parts of Oklahoma and up into south central Kansas.

Bunting advises people in the affected areas to develop a severe weather plan early in the day.

“Make sure that you have ways to communicate with your family members,” he said. “Make sure everyone knows where their shelters are,,” and how they can continue to receive warnings.

The entire week is looking stormy across the U.S. Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis and Cincinnati could see severe thunderstorms later in the week, where more than 21 million people live.

Meanwhile, early Monday heavy rains hit southwestern Texas, especially the Houston area, leaving neighborhoods flooded and leading to hundreds of high-water rescues.

___

Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Monday morning a White House official said, as Israel appeared closer to launching an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah — a move staunchly opposed by the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.

A National Security Council spokesperson said Biden reiterated U.S. concerns about an invasion of Rafah — where more than 1 million civilians from other parts of Gaza are sheltering after 7 months of war sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel — and said he believes reaching a cease-fire with Hamas is the best way to protect the lives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the call before an official White House statement was released.

The call comes hours before Biden is to host King Abdullah II of Jordan for a private lunch meeting at the White House on Monday.

On Sunday, Netanyahu rejected international pressure to halt the war in Gaza in a fiery speech marking the country’s annual Holocaust memorial day, declaring: “If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”

“I say to the leaders of the world: No amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself,” he said, speaking in English. “Never again is now.”

By Will Dunham

(Reuters) – An exquisitely preserved fossil of the earliest-known bird Archaeopteryx, a pigeon-sized specimen revealing new anatomical details of a creature whose 19th century discovery lent support to Charles Darwin’s ideas about evolution, has been acquired by the Field Museum in Chicago and will go on public display.

The museum announced on Monday the acquisition of the fossil, which it said had been in the hands of a series of private collectors since being unearthed in southern Germany sometime before 1990. It has the best-preserved skull, vertebral column and soft tissues of the 13 known Archaeopteryx specimens, the museum said.

“No single specimen tells us the whole story of this animal. Most previous specimens are incomplete, crudely prepared, and/or crushed, limiting the data they can provide,” Field Museum paleontologist Jingmai O’Connor said. “The Chicago specimen preserves soft tissues never before seen in any other specimen and new information about the skeleton that help us better understand how this bird lived and its precise relationship with non-avian dinosaurs.”

Archaeopteryx lived about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic Period. Birds evolved from small feathered dinosaurs, and are part of the dinosaur lineage – indeed, the sole survivors from that lineage of a mass extinction 66 million years ago caused by an asteroid striking Earth. Archaeopteryx boasted reptilian traits like teeth, a long, bony tail, and claws on its hands, alongside bird-like traits like wings formed by large, asymmetrical feathers.

The fossil is nearly complete, missing only the tip of one finger, O’Connor said. The fossilized impressions of feathers are extensive, revealing a tract of wing feathers not preserved in the other specimens, O’Connor added.

The fossil possesses the only complete Archaeopteryx vertebral column – including two tiny vertebrae at the tip of the tail showing it had 24 vertebrae, one more than previously thought, O’Connor said. Another unique feature is the scales on the bottom of Archaeopteryx’s feet, O’Connor added.

It remains in a limestone slab because of the fragility of the bones and other features. After being delivered to Chicago in August 2022, museum fossil preparators Akiko Shinya and Connie Van Beek spent more than 1,400 hours using tiny drills to remove rock and expose the bones and other features.

The largest Archaeopteryx specimen is about the size of a raven. This one is tied for the smallest.

“Archaeopteryx lived on an arid, fairly sparsely vegetated archipelago visited by seasonal storms. It seems to have been adapted for life on the ground, like many living birds, and we hypothesize it was capable of only bursts of flight and perhaps gliding down from trees,” O’Connor said.

    Darwin in 1859 published his theory of evolution by natural selection. Building on the notion that organisms can change over time, the British naturalist proposed that new species arise from earlier ones and that species best adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on the genes underpinning their success.

The “gravest objection” to his theory, Darwin noted, was the lack at the time of fossils of transitional forms. The 1861 discovery in Bavaria of Archaeopteryx, combining reptile-like and bird-like features, provided support for Darwin’s theory.

“I think it’s amazing how one fossil can teach us so much. This one fossil taxon showed us birds are dinosaurs, helped to prove natural selection as a mechanism for evolution, and still remains after 160-plus years one of the most researched and important fossil species of all time,” O’Connor said.

The museum – already home to the skeleton of Sue, perhaps the biggest and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex – did not disclose the price paid for the Archaeopteryx fossil. From Tuesday it will go on display for about a month, then return later in a permanent exhibit.

A 2015 German law requires newly discovered Archaeopteryx fossils to stay in Germany. This specimen was sold outside of Germany in 1990, meaning it was already out of the country before that statute was passed, the museum said.

(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

BALTIMORE (AP) — Growing up in the streets of east Baltimore surrounded by poverty and gun violence, two kids named Antonio became fast friends. Both called “Tone,” they were similarly charismatic and ambitious, dreaming of the day they would finally leave behind the struggles that defined their childhoods.

One has. The other never will.

Antonio Lee was shot and killed last summer. In the weeks that followed, his friend Antonio Moore warned their peers about the consequences of retaliation, trying to prevent more needless bloodshed and stolen futures in a city that consistently ranks among the nation’s most violent.

“This s— will keep going for the next 20 years, or it’ll stop,” Moore said at Lee’s funeral service in August. “Y’all gotta make a choice.”

Moore, 24, is a successful real estate investor and entrepreneur. He founded a consulting company that helps brands and nonprofits connect with urban youth. His accomplishments serve as a reminder of what’s possible.

Moore said Lee was committed to forging a similar path; he just didn’t have enough time to see it through.

How was Moore able to break the negative cycles of his youth while Lee fell victim to them?

It’s a question with no simple answers, but their disparate fates highlight the sometimes insurmountable challenges facing young Black men from Baltimore’s poorest neighborhoods and similar communities across the country. They live in a world where rampant gun violence often draws an arbitrary line between life and death, where the fight for survival is constant and trauma is passed down through generations.

And the hurdles don’t stop there: underperforming schools, limited job opportunities, inadequate public transportation, inaccessible health care, housing insecurity and an embattled criminal justice system that disproportionately locks up people of color. Guns and drugs are readily available. Hope is hard to come by.

Beating the odds is possible, but it requires an extraordinary combination of hard work and good luck.

Above all, it requires time.

——

On the afternoon of his death, Lee was washing windshields at a busy northeast Baltimore intersection when gunfire broke out. His loved ones believe he was killed over a dispute between rival groups from different sections of east Baltimore. No arrests have been made in the case.

Lee died about four months before his 20th birthday. A second victim survived his injuries.

Stories like this are painfully common in Baltimore even as the city’s homicide rate overall trends downward.

Lee’s life unfolded in forgotten communities suffering from decades of population loss and unchecked drug activity. He attended Baltimore’s underfunded public schools. Money was tight at home.

He came from a loving family, but his childhood was punctuated by tragedy. A brother was shot to death in North Carolina and a sister died from brain cancer. As the youngest child, Lee clung to his mother and surviving sister for support.

Several of his close friends were killed as teenagers, including a Baltimore high school football player whose death rocked the city two years ago when he was gunned down in his school’s parking lot less than an hour before a scheduled home game.

Lee mourned them all, and he was acutely aware of the danger he faced simply operating in his environment, according to friends and family. That’s one reason he was fighting to get out.

Statistically, he was fighting a losing battle. Black children grow up in some of the country’s poorest households. Compared to their white counterparts, research shows they’re significantly less likely to achieve upward economic mobility: About three-quarters of Black children born in the lowest income bracket will remain there for the rest of their lives. They’re also about five times more likely to die in gunfire.

Lee talked about moving to Atlanta or maybe Florida, somewhere he would feel safer. He just needed to save up enough money to make it happen.

He was constantly brainstorming potential business opportunities — everything from music production and real estate investment to trash collection.

He started working at McDonald’s and considered taking culinary classes. He loved to cook and bake. His funeral program listed some of his favorite dishes: pasta, chicken wings, banana pudding.

Lee was enrolled in one of Baltimore’s flagship anti-violence programs through the nonprofit Roca, which provides mentoring, job training, GED classes and other services. He was meeting with his mentor regularly; they last spoke just hours before the shooting while Lee was brushing his teeth. Despite having a mouthful of toothpaste, he answered the phone with his signature greeting, an enthusiastic “Hey baby!”

Wherever he went, Lee would show up well-dressed and smiling, usually sporting a spotless pair of Air Jordan 5s, his favorite sneaker. As an aspiring rapper, he kept his finger on the pulse of music and fashion trends.

“A lot of these kids, their souls are like vacant buildings,” said Terry “Uncle T” Williams, who founded a youth mentorship program in east Baltimore after his son was killed. “Antonio was really ambitious. He had a big heart. He stood out like a sore thumb for this reason.”

Lee’s optimism was contagious. He was curious and open-minded. He wanted to make his community proud.

“He was just so young,” said Brandon Taylor, a Baltimore attorney who represented Lee. “I feel like Mr. Lee was a damn baby.”

At the same time, he was forced to grow up fast, especially after his older brother was killed in 2019. Lee was grappling with a question facing many of Taylor’s clients: Was it worth carrying a gun for protection despite the risk of getting stopped by police?

“But fighting and violence, that’s not what Mr. Lee was all about,” Taylor said. “So when I heard about him dying, that kind of crushed this whole firm.”

Just weeks before his death, Lee met with Taylor about a recent arrest for fleeing police and traffic violations. Taylor shook his head, recalling how Lee sped home and climbed through a window instead of complying with the traffic stop.

After the shooting, loved ones were similarly left wondering what was going through Lee’s mind when he decided to wash windshields in northeast Baltimore, an area he normally avoided because of ongoing neighborhood beef. He was squeegeeing with a friend that afternoon.

Baltimore’s squeegee workers have long been a fixture at some of the city’s busiest intersections. Mostly young Black men from east and west Baltimore, they’re typically desperate for cash. But their numbers have been dwindling since a 2022 initiative from the mayor’s office sought to discourage the practice and banned panhandling in certain locations.

Lee must have needed supplemental income and decided to take a chance, loved ones said. It was a mistake he couldn’t afford to make.

——

While Lee’s death added to already devastating statistics, Moore is living proof of what happens when the pendulum swings the other way.

Moore grew up in the same forgotten neighborhood and struggling school system. He basically stopped going to class junior year, but he still graduated from high school thanks to a grade-changing scheme that was later detailed in a state inspector general’s report and led to districtwide policy changes.

As a teen, he spent most days gambling and selling weed, occasionally dodging gunfire. He was making decent money in the streets. And despite the near constant threat of getting shot or arrested, it was a familiar environment, a known quantity, a source of instant gratification.

But ultimately, the risks seemed to outweigh the rewards. Moore tried to envision a positive future for himself and started hanging around people who seemed like good role models.

He got a job at Chipotle, where he learned how to operate in a corporate setting and talk to customers. One day, he struck up a conversation with a man who worked in Baltimore’s wholesale real estate market.

“Hit me up when you’re ready to make real money,” Moore remembers the man telling him. So he did.

Moore quit Chipotle after about a year. By then, he was supporting himself as a property wholesaler, coordinating deals between buyers and sellers. It was a lucrative trade that required no professional license or college degree. Moore said his most important asset was his knowledge of Baltimore’s neighborhoods, crime trends, local politics and other factors that could inform investment decisions. The city’s glut of vacant rowhouses provided ample opportunities.

Meanwhile, Moore also began developing relationships with advocates and business leaders focused on improving conditions for teens and young adults living in poverty.

Moore said those interactions made him realize the value of his perspective — not in spite of where he came from, but because of it. He launched a consulting firm in 2021.

As a marketing consultant, he advises businesses and nonprofits on how to connect with a Gen Z audience. His current client list includes YouTube and the national anti-violence organization Everytown for Gun Safety.

Last year, Moore organized a collaboration between Everytown and three local Baltimore streetwear designers. During a recent visit to his childhood neighborhood, he caught up with old friends and handed out shirts emblazoned with the organization’s message: “STOP GUN VIOLENCE”

Moore was able to make it out of the streets, but he can’t escape the social media posts perpetuating Baltimore’s intractable cycles of youth violence. Some nights, he lies awake wondering how to stop them, grappling with complex questions that criminologists, public health experts and politicians have repeatedly failed to answer.

“It’s so easy to self-sabotage yourself in the city. It’s easy to stunt your own growth because that’s what the environment breeds,” he said. “You have to see a future and want it more — really want it.”

It was an uphill battle as Moore pushed himself to embrace the unknown. Aside from a few lucky breaks, he attributes his success to an inquisitive mind, strong social skills, discipline and drive. Those qualities may have served him well, but they’re not particularly unique.

“The thing is, there are so many more kids like me,” he said.

One of them was Lee, who considered Moore a role model of sorts. The pair developed a close friendship based on shared experiences and similar goals. In between watching sports, listening to music and going shopping, they talked about Lee’s future: how he dreamed of finding a lucrative career and buying his mom a house. Moore offered advice and support. He thought Lee was next in line for success.

Moore was visiting Chicago when he heard about the shooting. He rushed back to Baltimore, unable to shake the feeling that somehow he’d failed his little brother.

“I’m so mad he got killed because kids younger than him would have been influenced and inspired by him, too,” Moore said. “It possibly could have helped change a whole generation.”

——

A week after Lee’s death, family members organized an evening vigil in the heart of east Baltimore. Against a backdrop of abandoned brick rowhouses, they constructed a makeshift memorial with photographs from his childhood. They decorated nearby stoops with bunches of blue balloons and spelled “TONE” with cardboard letters fastened to a boarded-up window.

The crowd grew to around 100 people, filling the sidewalks and spilling into the street as Baltimore police officers watched from a distance. Mourners sipped from liquor bottles and lit candles while hip-hop music blasted in the background. They laughed and cried together, carrying out a series of rituals that have become all too familiar in Baltimore’s most underserved communities.

Moore walked to a corner store and bought candy for some of the younger kids. He visited with a friend who had recently come home from jail. He hugged Lee’s mom while she sobbed for several minutes.

Instead of inspiring others, Lee’s story had become a cautionary tale.

“Right now, this city is known for its pain,” said John Young, a local pastor who mentored Lee and officiated his funeral service. “The future leaders of this world are being eliminated.”

During the funeral, Young asked how many people in attendance had experienced similar tragedies before. Dozens raised their hands.

He used the moment to send a clear message to Lee’s peers, other young men on the brink of adulthood, caught somewhere between forgiveness and revenge, ambition and resignation.

“I want y’all to make a decision. Think about Tone and how you’re gonna remember him,” Young said. “How many of y’all don’t want to look in a casket and see yourself in it? Aren’t you tired of watching other people’s mothers cry?

“Tone wanted to change and he had the courage to admit it. … Now it’s your turn to do something for him — live.”

Moore, for his part, tries to live by example.

He remains immersed in the community that raised him, even when it feels like he’s straddling two worlds. He understands both sides of the equation, the challenges and the possibilities.

“Where we come from, we’re so lost, we’re not thinking our life matters,” he said. “But there’s a place for us out there. We don’t have to stay outcasts just because we were born into this.”

His insight comes from personal experience, but to many other young people growing up under similar circumstances, his accomplishments seem like an impossible pipe dream. Moore searches desperately for the words that will finally make them realize their untapped potential.

In a world where the future is anything but guaranteed, how do you inspire hope?

It’s a piece of advice he gave Lee countless times: “You are valuable,” he tells anyone who will listen. “You really gotta stay alive long enough to catch on.”

NEW YORK (AP) — The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s New York Trial fined him $1,000 on Monday for violating his gag order once again and warned the former president that additional violations could result in jail time.

The fine marks the second time since the trial began last month that Trump has been sanctioned for violating the gag order, which bars him from making incendiary comments about jurors, witnesses and other people closely connected to the case. He was fined $9,000 last week, $1,000 for each of nine violations.

The violation in this case stems from an April 22 interview in which he criticized the speed at which the jury was picked and claimed it was stacked with Democrats.

“It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent. Therefore going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction,” Judge Juan Merchan said. Trump’s statements, the judge continued, “threaten to interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue.”

But he also expressed reservations about the idea of putting Trump in jail, calling it “the last thing I want to do.”

“You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well. There are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last resort for me. To take that step would be disruptive to these proceedings,” Merchan said.

Meanwhile, testimony resumed Monday with prosecutors moving deeper into Trump’s orbit following an inside-the-room account about the former president’s reaction to a politically damaging recording that surfaced in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with alleged payments made to stifle potentially embarrassing stories.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied sexual encounters with any of the women, as well as any wrongdoing.

So far, jurors have heard from witnesses including a tabloid magazine publisher and Trump friend who bought the rights to several sordid tales about Trump to prevent them from coming out and a Los Angeles lawyer who negotiated hush money deals on behalf of both Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Trump’s lawyers have tried to chip away at the prosecution’s theory of the case and the credibility of some witnesses. They’ve raised questions during cross-examinations about whether Trump was possibly a target of extortion, forced to arrange payouts to suppress harmful stories and spare his family embarrassment and pain. Prosecutors maintain the payments were about preserving his political viability as he sought the presidency.

HOUSTON (AP) — Floodwaters closed some Texas schools on Monday after days of heavy rains pummeled the Houston area and led to hundreds of rescues including people who were stranded on rooftops.

A 5-year-old boy died after riding in a car that was swept away in fast waters, authorities said.

Although forecasters expected storms to begin tapering off in southeastern Texas, high waters continued to close some roads and left residents facing lengthy cleanups in neighborhoods where rising river levels led to weekend evacuation orders.

Houston is one of the most flood-prone metro areas in the country. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 dumped historic rainfall that flooded thousands of homes and resulted in more than 60,000 rescues.

In one soggy area of Houston, school officials in Channelview canceled classes and said a survey of their employees found many of them had experienced circumstances that would prevent them from coming to work.

“These folks have suffered much, people,” Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace said Sunday during a Facebook livestream as he rode a boat through a rural flooded neighborhood. Partially submerged cars and street signs peeked above the water around him.

Areas near Lake Livingston, located northeast of Houston, received upwards of 23 inches (58 centimeters) of rain over the past week, National Weather Service meteorologist Jimmy Fowler said.

In Johnson County, south of Fort Worth, a 5-year-old boy died when he was swept away after the vehicle he was riding in became stuck in swift-moving water near the community of Lillian just before 2 a.m. Sunday, an official said.

The child and two adults were trying to reach dry ground when they were swept away. The adults were rescued around 5 a.m. and taken to a hospital, while the child was found dead around 7:20 a.m. in the water, Johnson County Emergency Management Director Jamie Moore wrote in a social media post.

Storms brought 9 inches (23 centimeters) of rain in a span of six to eight hours in some areas from central Texas to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Stalley said.

Since last week, storms have forced numerous high-water rescues in the Houston area, including some from the rooftops of flooded homes.

Greg Moss, 68, stayed put in his recreational vehicle on Sunday after leaving his home in the community of Channelview in eastern Harris County near the San Jacinto River. A day earlier, he had packed up many of his belongings and left before the road to his home flooded.

“I would be stuck for four days,” Moss said. “So now at least I can go get something to eat.”

Moss moved his belongings and vehicle to a neighbor’s home, where he planned to stay until the waters recede. The floodwaters had already gone down by a couple of feet and he wasn’t worried his home would flood because it’s located on higher ground, Moss said Sunday.

NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia University canceled its large university-wide commencement ceremony Monday following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests that have roiled its campus and others across the U.S., but said students will still be able to celebrate at a series of smaller, school-based ceremonies this week and next.

The decision comes as universities around the country are wrangling with how to handle commencements. Another campus shaken by protests, Emory University, announced Monday that it would move its commencement from its campus quadrangle in Atlanta to a suburban arena. But others, including the University of Michigan, Indiana University and Northeastern, have pulled off ceremonies with few disruptions.

Columbia’s decision to cancel its main ceremonies scheduled for May 15 saves its president, Nemat Shafik, from having to deliver a commencement address in the same part of campus where police dismantled a protest encampment last week.

Noting that the past few weeks have been “incredibly difficult” for the community, the Ivy League school in upper Manhattan said in its announcement that it made the decision after discussions with students.

“Our students emphasized that these smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families,” officials said. “They are eager to cross the stage to applause and family pride and hear from their school’s invited guest speakers.”

Most of the ceremonies that had been scheduled for the south lawn of the main campus, where encampments were taken down last week, will take place about 5 miles (8 kilometers) north at Columbia’s sports complex, officials said.

Speakers at some of Columbia’s still-scheduled graduation ceremonies include Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames, former CNN anchor Poppy Harlow, political scientist Ian Bremmer and Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, director of the National Institutes of Health. Also, actor Michael J. Fox is scheduled to receive a medal for distinguished service from Columbia’s Teachers College.

Columbia had already canceled in-person classes. More than 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia’s green or occupied an academic building were arrested in recent weeks, and similar encampments sprouted up at universities around the country as schools struggled with where to draw the line between allowing free expression while maintaining safe and inclusive campuses.

The University of Southern California earlier canceled its main graduation ceremony while allowing other commencement activities to continue. Students abandoned their camp at USC early Sunday after being surrounded by police and threatened with arrest.

Other universities have held their graduation ceremonies with beefed-up security. The University of Michigan’s ceremony was interrupted by chanting a few times Saturday, while in Boston on Sunday, some students waved small Palestinian or Israeli flags as Northeastern University held its commencement in Fenway Park.

The protests stem from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. The student protesters are calling on their schools to divest from companies that do business with Israel or otherwise contribute to the war effort.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.

Emory’s 16,000-student university is one of many that has seen repeated protests over the war.

Ceremonies scheduled for May 13 will now be held at the GasSouth Arena and Convocation Center in Duluth, almost 20 miles (30 kilometers) northeast of the university’s Atlanta campus, President Gregory Fenves said in an open letter.

“Please know that this decision was not taken lightly,” Fenves wrote. “It was made in close consultation with the Emory Police Department, security advisors and other agencies — each of which advised against holding commencement events on our campuses.”

The university called outside police agencies to arrest 28 people after an encampment was erected on the quad on April 25. After initially claiming the protesters were outsiders, the university later said 20 were Emory students and three were faculty members. Police used pepper balls and electric stun guns to subdue some of the people who were arrested. Fenves later apologized.

Protests have continued on the campus since then, including some additional arrests.

___

Associated Press writer Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.