By MARCIA DUNN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Saturn’s giant moon Titan may not have a vast underground ocean after all.

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Titan instead may hold deep layers of ice and slush more akin to Earth’s polar seas, with pockets of melted water where life could possibly survive and even thrive, scientists reported Wednesday.

The team led by researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory challenged the decade-long assumption of a buried global ocean at Titan after taking a fresh look at observations made years ago by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft around Saturn.

They stress that no one has found any signs of life at Titan, the solar system’s second largest moon spanning 3,200 miles and brimming with lakes of liquid methane on its frosty surface.

But with the latest findings suggesting a slushy, near-melting environment, “there is strong justification for continued optimism regarding the potential for extraterrestrial life,” said the University of Washington’s Baptiste Journaux, who took part in the study published in the journal Nature.

As to what form of life that might be, possibly strictly microscopic, “nature has repeatedly demonstrated far greater creativity than the most imaginative scientists,” he said in an email.

JPL’s Flavio Petricca, the lead author, said Titan’s ocean may have frozen in the past and is currently melting, or its hydrosphere might be evolving toward complete freezing.

Computer models suggest these layers of ice, slush and water extend to a depth of more than 340 miles. The outer ice shell is thought to be about 100 miles deep, covering layers of slush and pools of water that could go down another 250 miles. This water could be as warm as 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

Because Titan is tidally locked, the same side of the moon faces Saturn all the time, just like our own moon and Earth. Saturn’s gravitational pull is so intense that it deforms the moon’s surface, creating bulges as high as 30 feet when the two bodies are closest.

FILE – This image provided by NASA shows bright methane clouds drifting in the summer skies of Saturn’s moon Titan, along with dark hydrocarbon lakes and seas clustered around the north pole, as seen from the Cassini spacecraft, June 9, 2017. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via AP, File)

Through improved data processing, Petricca and his team managed to measure the timing between the peak gravitational tug and the rising of Titan’s surface. If the moon held a wet ocean, the effect would be immediate, Petricca said, but a 15-hour gap was detected, indicating an interior of slushy ice with pockets of liquid water. Computer modeling of Titan’s orientation in space supported their theory.

Sapienza University of Rome’s Luciano Iess, whose previous studies using Cassini data indicated a hidden ocean at Titan, is not convinced by the latest findings.

While “certainly intriguing and will stimulate renewed discussion … at present, the available evidence looks certainly not sufficient to exclude Titan from the family of ocean worlds,” Iess said in an email.

NASA’s planned Dragonfly mission — featuring a helicopter-type craft due to launch to Titan later this decade — is expected to provide more clarity on the moon’s innards. Journaux is part of that team.

Saturn leads the solar system’s moon inventory with 274. Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is just a little larger than Titan, with a possible underground ocean. Other suspected water worlds include Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa, both of which are believed to have geysers of water erupting from their frozen crusts.

Launched in 1997, Cassini reached Saturn in 2004, orbiting the ringed planet and flying past its moons until deliberately plunging through Saturn’s atmosphere in 2017.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By MICHAEL MELIA, Associated Press

It was one of the year’s biggest stories — the selection of the first American pope — and an Associated Press journalist was interviewing the pope’s brother at his home in suburban Chicago. Suddenly, they heard a ringing coming from the basement. “That might be the pope,” the new pontiff’s brother said.

Indeed, the man who had emerged hours earlier on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as Pope Leo XIV was calling to catch up with his older brother. Obed Lamy, a video journalist, listened and recorded as the conversation played out on speaker.

“I was shaking because I didn’t know what the pope would say,” Lamy said. “Am I supposed to say something or not say anything?”

In a year marked by political strife, natural disasters and other calamities around the world, 2025 also had its share of uplifting moments. AP journalists were in the middle of many of them.

Some found stories of joy amid disaster, including a wedding in a typhoon-flooded church in the Philippines and a youth theater group that staged a production weeks after a devastating wildfire in California. Some became part of the stories they were covering, simply by being there. In Seattle, an AP photographer broke the news to a scientist that she had won a Nobel Prize.

Here are their stories.

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The pope was on the line

Lamy, a video journalist, was among many reporters who went to the home of John Prevost in New Lenox, Illinois, after his brother became the pope.

I had arrived at Prevost’s home in the early evening after driving three hours from Indianapolis, where I am based. After walking by other media outside, I knocked on the door. Prevost let me in.

As we talked, a ringing came from the basement. Prevost hurried to a tablet downstairs and I followed, my camera on. He found he had a few missed calls from his brother. He called the pope back, using a speaker to play the audio out loud. The pope picked up.

I got the shot — the new pontiff’s voice speaking to his older brother, asking him why he hadn’t been answering his calls.

“Well, first you need to know you’re on the air right now,” the older brother responded. “This is the first time I’m hearing that this thing rang.”

The conversation went on for just a few minutes. They talked like any other pair of siblings. He told the pope, “Oh, we’re coming to Rome.” And the pope said, “Oh, where are you going to sleep?” It was interesting the pope himself did not know what the accommodations for his family would look like.

Breaking the news to a Nobel winner

When the Nobel Prize in medicine was announced, photographer Lindsey Wasson was dispatched before dawn to the home of Mary E. Brunkow, a scientist in North Seattle. Wasson broke word of the honor before the Nobel committee could reach Brunkow.

When I arrived, I wasn’t completely sure I was at the right house because my GPS had taken me to the back. After walking through a neighbor’s pitch-black driveway, I arrived at the front door. It was clear nobody was awake.

Thankfully, when I knocked, their dog barked and woke Mary’s husband, Ross, who spoke to me through the glass door. I identified myself and asked if a Mary lived there and if he knew why I was there. Not wanting to spoil it but seeing no other way in, I told him, “Sir, your wife just won the Nobel Prize.”

FILE – Mary E. Brunkow speaks on the phone during an interview after winning a Nobel Prize in medicine for part of her work on peripheral immune tolerance, in Seattle, Oct. 6, 2025, next to her is her dog Zelda. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)

Thankfully, he let me in, and I took a quick frame as he brought Mary to the kitchen while telling her the news. They were still in disbelief, so I handed my phone to Ross with our initial AP story, which he read aloud in part to Mary.

The initial mood, very understandably, was a mix of tension, annoyance and disbelief at being woken up at 3:45 a.m. Ross told me that when he first went into their bedroom with the news, she said, “Don’t be ridiculous.” As soon as Mary and Ross began to process the news and realized all those missed calls from Sweden overnight weren’t spam, the mood shifted to one of joy.

I was able to follow along with my camera as Mary sifted through an avalanche of emails, text messages and phone calls from family, friends and other journalists hoping to speak with her.

Capturing a wedding that went on despite typhoon flooding

Photographer Aaron Favila has covered floods for years in the Philippines, which sees at least 20 typhoons a year. He raced to cover a wedding at a flooded church just north of Manila after getting a tip from a photographer colleague.

I had an hour window to make it to the venue and had to drive out of town and cross several flooded roads during a heavy downpour. The flooding in the area was too deep for our vehicle, so we had to stop. Luckily, a rescue truck passed by, and I rode that.

I got there right before they opened the door for the bride.

FILE – Newlyweds Jade Rick Verdillo, right, and Jamaica kiss during their wedding inside a flooded Barasoain church in Malolos, Philippines, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

The groom, Jade Rick Verdillo, told me they were eager to go ahead with the ceremony despite the floodwaters. “We’ve been through a lot. This is just one of the struggles that we’ve overcome,” he said.

If I was shooting for a deadline story, I would have run out after the first kiss. But for this one, I stuck till the end to make sure I captured every moment … just like a wedding photographer.

A youth theater production rises from wildfire ashes

Reporter Jocelyn Gecker covered opening night of a Southern California youth theater group after the Palisades wildfire destroyed their theater and many cast members’ homes.

Rehearsals for the group’s upcoming musical, “Crazy for You,” had started on Jan. 6. The next day, the Palisades Fire ripped through their community. But the show would go on, said director Lara Ganz, whose family also lost their home. It was about restoring togetherness, hope and routine and showing the kids who had lost so much that life was not over.

Witnessing opening night was a gift. It was an evening of such intense emotions jumbled together: joy and pain, heartbreak and happiness, grief and pride. It was a light in the darkness, as one father told me.

FILE – Callum Ganz, 17, center, gives a pre-show pep talk to castmates in Crazy for You on opening night as the Theatre Palisades Youth group returns to the stage after losing their theater in the Palisades fire, in Los Angeles, Feb. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jocelyn Gecker, File)

One teen said when he sang and danced to the music of George and Ira Gershwin, the weight of his loss lifted. He only felt happiness.

After the article was published, Ganz relayed that members of the Gershwin family trust had read the story and attended a later performance. They delivered a letter to the cast and crew.

“On behalf of the families of George and Ira Gershwin, we applaud your resilience,” the letter said. It praised their “amazing dedication” in the face of hardship and said they hoped the cast was immensely proud of their production. “We know that George and Ira would be too.”

By ANDREW DALTON and CHRISTOPHER WEBER, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rob Reiner’s son Nick Reiner is expected to make his first court appearance Wednesday on two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents.

Nick Reiner, 32, was charged Tuesday with killing the 78-year-old actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced at a news conference with LA Police Chief Jim McDonnell.

“Their loss is beyond tragic and we will commit ourselves to bringing their murderer to justice,” Hochman said.

Along with the two counts of first-degree murder, prosecutors added special circumstances of multiple murders and a special allegation that the defendant used a dangerous weapon, a knife. The additions could mean a greater sentence.

Nick Reiner arrives at the premiere of “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Hochman said his office has not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty in the case.

“This case is heartbreaking and deeply personal, not only for the Reiner family and their loved ones but for our entire city,” McDonnell said.

The announcement came two days after the couple was found dead from apparent stab wounds in their home in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles. Nick Reiner did not resist when he was arrested hours later in the Exposition Park area near the University of Southern California, about 14 miles from the crime scene, police said.

Rob Reiner was the Emmy-winning star of the sitcom “All in the Family” who went on to direct films including “When Harry Met Sally…” and “The Princess Bride.” He was an outspoken liberal activist for decades. Michele Singer Reiner was a photographer, movie producer and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. They had been married for 36 years.

FILE – Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner arrive on the red carpet at the State Department for the Kennedy Center Honors gala dinner, Dec. 2, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)

Several of those closest to them, including actors Billy Crystal, Albert Brooks, Martin Short and Larry David, released a statement mourning and celebrating the couple on Tuesday night.

“They were a special force together — dynamic, unselfish and inspiring,” the statement said. “We were their friends, and we will miss them forever.”

Nick Reiner had been scheduled to make an initial court appearance earlier Tuesday, but his attorney Alan Jackson said he was not brought from the jail to the courthouse for medical reasons and the appearance was postponed.

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At Wednesday’s hearing, Reiner may enter a plea, a judge may schedule an arraignment for later or the same issue that prevented him from coming to court Tuesday could cause further postponement. He is being held without bail.

Jackson is a high-profile defense attorney and former LA County prosecutor who represented Harvey Weinstein at his Los Angeles trial and Karen Read at her intensely followed trials in Massachusetts. He was a central figure in the HBO documentary on the Read case.

On the other side will be Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian, whose recent cases included the Menendez brothers’ attempt at resentencing and the trial of Robert Durst.

Authorities haven’t said anything about a motive for the killings and would give few details when asked at the news conference.

By STAN CHOE

NEW YORK (AP) — More drops for AI stocks are dragging the U.S. market lower Wednesday, and Wall Street is heading toward a fourth straight loss.

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The S&P 500 fell 0.8% in midday trading, though it’s still not far from its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 120 points, or 0.3%, as of 11:55 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.3% lower.

The majority of stocks within the S&P 500 were rising, but they’re getting drowned out by drops from the artificial-intelligence industry.

Questions continue to dog the former superstars about whether their yearslong dominance of Wall Street meant their prices shot too high, as well as whether all the investment in AI will produce enough profit and productivity to prove worth the cost. Worries are also rising about the debt that some companies are taking on to pay for it all.

Broadcom dropped 5.1%, Oracle fell 4.6% and CoreWeave sank 6.5%. Nvidia, the chip company that’s become Wall Street’s most influential stock because of its tremendous size, fell 3.8% and was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500.

Only 17% of respondents in a survey of relatively big businesses by UBS said they’re in production at scale with their AI projects. That could be “a reminder for tech investors to remain sober about the likely 2026 revenue growth uplift from AI products,” according to UBS analysts, though the rate continues to rise.

Also on the losing end of Wall Street was Lennar, which sank 5.3% following a mixed profit report. The homebuilder delivered a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its revenue topped expectations.

Executive Chairman Stuart Miller said that conditions remain challenging, with customers feeling less confident while looking for discounts and more affordable options. As a result, the company gave limited forecasts for its upcoming financial performance.

Progressive, meanwhile, fell 2.4% after the insurer based in Mayfield Village, Ohio, said that its net income for November fell 5% from its year-ago level.

On the winning side of Wall Street were oil companies, after President Donald Trump ordered a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela. It’s Trump’s latest escalation in pressure on Venezuela, which may be sitting on more oil than any other country.

That sent the price of a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude higher by 1.7% to $56.06, just a day after it sank to its lowest level since 2021. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 1.7% to $59.90 per barrel.

That in turn helped ConocoPhillips rise 3.3% and cut into its loss for the year so far, which came into the day at 8.5%. Devon Energy rallied 3.8%, and Halliburton added 0.9%. Oil prices had dropped through most of this year on expectations that companies are pumping more than enough crude to meet the world’s demand.

Netflix climbed 1.1% after Warner Bros. Discovery’s board said it still recommends shareholders approve a buyout offer for its Warner Bros. business from the streaming giant, rather than a competing hostile bid from Paramount Skydance for the entire company.

Warner Bros. Discovery slipped 1.7%, while Paramount Skydance fell 4.8%.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady ahead of a report coming on Thursday that will show how bad inflation has been for U.S. consumers.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 4.15%, where it was late Tuesday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi leaped 1.4% for one of the world’s bigger gains and shaved its loss for the week so far down to 2.7%.

AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.