By COLLIN BINKLEY and BEN FINLEY Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The charges against the man who authorities say shot two National Guard members have been upgraded to first-degree murder after one of the soldiers died, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia announced Friday.

Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, were hospitalized in critical condition after Wednesday afternoon’s shooting in the nation’s capital. President Donald Trump announced Thursday evening that Beckstrom had died.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office said the charges against Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, now include one count of first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.

In an interview on Fox News, Pirro said there are “many charges to come” beyond the upgraded murder charge. She said her heart goes out to the family of Beckstrom, who volunteered to serve and “ended up being shot ambush-style on the cold streets of Washington, D.C., by an individual who will now be charged with murder in the first degree.”

Pirro declined to discuss the suspect’s motive, saying officials have been working around the clock on that question. Investigators are continuing to execute warrants in the state of Washington, where the suspect lived, and other parts of the country, she said.

Wolfe remains in “very critical condition,” West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Friday. He ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in recognition of Beckstrom’s death.

This photo provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025, shows National Guard member Specialist Sarah Beckstrom. (U.S. Attorney’s Office via AP)

“These two West Virginia heroes were serving our country and protecting our nation’s capital when they were maliciously attacked,” Morrisey said. “Their courage and commitment to duty represent the very best of our state.”

People who knew the Lakanwal say he served in a CIA-backed Afghan Army unit before immigrating to the United States. Lakanwal worked in one of the special Zero Units in the southern province of Kandahar, according to a resident of the eastern Afghan province of Khost who identified himself as Lakanwal’s cousin. He said Lakanwal was originally from the province and that his brother had worked in the unit as well.

The cousin spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He said Lakanwal had started out working as a security guard for the unit in 2012 and was later promoted to become a team leader and a GPS specialist. A former official from the unit, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said Lakanwal’s brother was a platoon leader.

Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal from the country, officials said. Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration, #AfghanEvac said in a statement.

Lakanwal has been living in Bellingham, Washington, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Seattle, with his wife and five children, said his former landlord, Kristina Widman.

In his address to the troops Thursday, Trump said that Lakanwal “went cuckoo. I mean, he went nuts.”

The president called Beckstrom an “incredible person, outstanding in every single way.” The White House said he spoke to her parents after his remarks.

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Beckstrom had enlisted in 2023, the same year she graduated high school, and served with distinction as a military police officer with the 863rd Military Police Company, the West Virginia National Guard said in a statement.

“She exemplified leadership, dedication, and professionalism,” the statement said, adding that Beckstrom “volunteered to serve as part of Operation D.C. Safe and Beautiful, helping to ensure the safety and security of our nation’s capital.”

Trump used the announcement to say the shooting was a “terrorist attack” and criticized the Biden administration for enabling Afghans who worked with U.S. forces during the Afghanistan War to enter the U.S.

The initiative brought roughly 76,000 people to the country, many of whom had worked alongside U.S. troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators. It has since faced intense scrutiny from Trump and others over allegations of gaps in the vetting process, even as advocates say there was extensive vetting and the program offered a lifeline to people at risk of Taliban reprisals.

On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration. The director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Joseph Edlow said in a statement that the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible.”

Edlow didn’t name the countries. But in June, the administration banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries and restricted access from seven others, citing national security concerns.

Associated Press journalists Sarah Brumfield, Siddiqullah Alizai and Elena Becatoros contributed to this report.

By Linda Gassenheimer, Tribune News Service

Here’s a warm and comforting vegetable stew made easy with the help of your freezer. Keep the ingredients on hand, and you’ll have a hearty meal ready in minutes with almost no effort.

Use the vegetables called for in the recipe or substitute any others you have on hand using the recipe as a blueprint for quantities.

HELPFUL HINTS:

Any type of shredded cheese can be used.

The heat is up to you, add more hot pepper flakes if you like it hot.

COUNTDOWN:

Assemble ingredients.

Start stew.

While stew cooks, prepare avocado slices.

SHOPPING LIST?

To buy: 1 container frozen diced onion, 1 container frozen corn kernels, 1 container frozen lima beans, 1 can no-salt-added diced tomatoes, 1 bottle ground cumin, 1 bottle hot pepper flakes, 1 small avocado, 1 lemon, 1 bunch fresh cilantro and one package shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese.

Staples: olive oil, salt and black peppercorns.

Easy Colorful Vegetable Stew

Recipe by Linda Gassenheimer. Yield 2 servings.

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 cup frozen diced onion

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 cups canned no-salt-added diced tomatoes with the juice

1 cup frozen corn kernels

1 cup frozen lima beans

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

1/4 teaspoon hot pepper flakes

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 small avocado cut into wedges

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons reduced fat shredded Cheddar cheese

Heat oil in large skillet over medium high heat. Add onion and cook 1 minute. Stir in cumin. Add tomatoes and their juice. Stir in the corn and lima beans. Cover with a lid and cook 5 minutes or until lima beans are tender. Add the cilantro, hot pepper flakes and salt and pepper to taste. Meanwhile, toss the avocado wedges with the lemon juice in a small bowl and set aside.
Divide the stew in half and serve in two bowls. Top with the avocado wedges and sprinkle cheese over the stew.

Per serving: 425 calories (39 percent from fat), 18.6 g fat (3.2 g saturated, 9.7 g monounsaturated), 5 mg cholesterol, 14.6 g protein, 58.3 g carbohydrates, 17.2 g fiber, 124 mg sodium.

©2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

U.S. stocks opened with gains on the final trading day of November.

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The S&P 500 rose 0.2% and needs a slightly larger gain to avoid its first down month since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 138 points, and the Nasdaq gained 0.3%.

Coinbase Global added 3.6% as bitcoin rose above $92,000 after dropping to around $81,000 last week. The world’s most popular cryptocurrency is still well below its all-time high of around $125,000 set in early October.

Most tech stocks posted gains, with Meta Platforms rising 1.4% and Micron Technology adding 2.8%. But Nvidia, the market’s most valuable stock, fell 1% and is headed for a double-digit loss for the month. Oracle another high-flyer that struggled this month, fell 2.3%.

Wall Street is operating on an abbreviated schedule Friday after being closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. Stock trading closes at 1 p.m. ET.

Earlier, futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were halted for hours due to a technical issue at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. CME said the problem was tied to an outage at a CyrusOne data center.

After slumping earlier this month as investors worried that many of the tech stocks that were propelled higher by the frenzy over artificial intelligence, stocks have risen for four straight trading sessions on hopes the Federal Reserve will again cut interest rates at its meeting next month.

Recent comments from Federal Reserve officials have given traders more confidence the central bank will again cut interest rates at its meeting that ends Dec. 10. Traders are betting on a nearly 87% probability that the Fed will cut next month, according to data from CME Group.

The central bank, which has already cut rates twice this year in hopes of shoring up the slowing job market, is facing an increasingly difficult decision on interest rates as inflation rises and the job market slows. Cutting interest rates further could help support the economy as employment weakens, but it could also fuel inflation. The latest round of corporate earnings reports was mostly positive, but economic data has been mixed.

The minutes of the Fed’s most recent meeting in October indicate there are likely to be strong divisions among policymakers about the Fed’s next step.

Treasury yields held mostly steady, with the 10-year yield at 4.01%.

In European trading, Germany’s DAX rose 0.3% as traders awaited inflation data set to be released later in the day.

Britain’s FTSE 100 edged up 0.3% on gains in energy and mining stocks. The CAC 40 in France also rose 0.2%.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed 0.2% higher to 50,253.91, rebounding from losses earlier in the day. Data showed Japan’s housing starts rose 3.2% in October from the same period a year ago, the first annual increase since March. The number defied market expectations of 5.2% decline and reversed a 7.3% drop in September.

South Korea’s Kospi dropped 1.5% after the country’s industrial production fell 4% month-on-month in October, more than the 1.1% decline in September.

By LAURA UNGAR

Dr. Smita Das often hears the same myth: You can’t get hooked on pot.

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They relied on marijuana to get through the day. But then days felt impossible without it

And the misconception has become more widespread as a growing number of states legalize marijuana. Around half now allow recreational use for adults and 40 states allow medical use.

But “cannabis is definitely something that someone can develop an addiction to,” said Das, an addiction psychiatrist at Stanford University.

It’s called cannabis use disorder and it’s on the rise, affecting about 3 in 10 people who use pot, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how to know whether you or a loved one are addicted to marijuana — and what kinds of treatment exist.

How to identify signs of cannabis use disorder

If pot interferes with your daily life, health or relationships, those are red flags.

“The more that somebody uses and the higher potency that somebody uses, the higher the risk of that,” Das said.

It’s become more common as cannabis has gotten stronger in recent years. In the 1960s, most pot that people smoked contained less than 5% THC, the ingredient that gets you high. Today, the THC potency in cannabis flower and concentrates in dispensaries can reach 40% or more, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Cannabis use disorder is diagnosed the same way as any other substance use disorder — by looking at whether someone meets certain criteria laid out in the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the main guide for mental health providers.

These include needing more of the drug to get the same effect, having withdrawal symptoms and spending a lot of time trying to get or use it.

“When we break it down into these criteria that have to do with the impacts of their use, it’s a lot more relatable,” Das said.

What the different levels of addiction are

If you’ve met just two of the criteria for cannabis use disorder in the last year, doctors say you have a mild form of the condition. If you meet six or more, you have a more severe form.

According to the latest version of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 7% of all people 12 or older had cannabis use disorder in 2024 and most had a mild form. About 1 in 5 had a severe form.

People can be dependent on and addicted to substances. Dependence is physical, while addiction involves behavior changes.

Marijuana doesn’t affect everyone the same way, though. The same amount can have “major impacts” on one person’s daily life but have no impact on another person’s, Das said. “It really comes down to: How much is that substance impacting someone’s functioning and life day-to-day?”

Where people can get help for cannabis use disorder

Many marijuana users first come to Das for help coping with something else, like alcohol use disorder. Later, she said, they’ll often come back and mention a struggle with cannabis.

She assures them that there are effective treatments for the disorder.

One is called motivational interviewing, a goal-oriented counseling style that helps people find internal motivation to change their behavior. Another is cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT, a form of talk therapy that helps people to challenge negative thought patterns and reduce unhelpful behaviors.

Twelve-step programs like Marijuana Anonymous can also be helpful, Das said. But whether someone chooses to join a group or not, even being able to lean on a community of people who aren’t using pot is an important part for recovery.

Dave Bushnell, a retired digital executive creative director, started a Reddit group 14 years ago for people who, like him, had developed an addiction or dependency to cannabis and wanted help recovering. Its discussion forum has 350,000 members and continues to grow.

Bushnell, 60, said peer support is essential to recovery and some people feel more comfortable chatting online than in person. “This is potheads taking care of potheads,” he said.

Doctors urged people who need help to get it, whether it’s with a professional or in a peer group.

As with alcohol, “just because something’s legal doesn’t mean that it’s safe,” Das said.

Associated Press reporter Leah Willingham in Boston contributed to this story.

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.