By JAMEY KEATEN and JILL LAWLESS

GENEVA (AP) — Spain and the Netherlands announced Thursday they are pulling out of next year’s Eurovision Song Contest after organizers decided to allow Israel to compete.

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The announcements came after the body that runs Eurovision met to discuss concerns about Israel’s participation, which is opposed by some countries due to its conduct of the war in Gaza.

Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS said that the participation of Israel “is no longer compatible with the responsibility we bear as a public broadcaster.”

Spain’s state broadcaster RTVE said Thursday that the country is pulling out of Eurovision after the body that runs the contest voted to let Israel participate in 2026.

“We would like to express our serious doubts about the participation of Israeli broadcaster KAN in Eurovision 2026,” said RTVE’s Secretary General Alfonso Morales during the European Broadcasting Union’s general assembly.

The pullouts came after members of the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes Eurovision, voted to adopt tougher voting rules in response to allegations that Israel manipulated the vote in favor of their contestant.

The feel-good pop music gala that draws more than 100 million viewers every year has been roiled by the war in Gaza for the past two years.

The EBU European Broadcasting Union, a group of public broadcasters from 56 countries that runs Eurovision, held twice-yearly general assembly, with some countries calling for Israel to be excluded over alleged interference in contest voting and its conduct in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The EBU said the new rules would strengthen “transparency and trust” and allow all countries, including Israel, to participate.

But Spain and the Netherlands walked out, followed by Ireland.

“Eurovision is becoming a bit of a fractured event,” said Paul Jordan, an expert on the contest known as Dr. Eurovision. “The slogan is ‘United by Music’ … unfortunately it’s disunited through politics.”

“It’s become quite a messy and toxic situation,” he said.

Divided over politics

The contest, whose 70th edition is scheduled for Vienna in May, pits acts from dozens of nations against one another for the continent’s musical crown.

It strives to put pop before politics, but has repeatedly been embroiled in world events. Russia was expelled in 2022 after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The war in Gaza has been its biggest challenge, with pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrating against Israel outside the last two Eurovision contests in Basel, Switzerland, in May and Malmo, Sweden, in 2024.

The war in Gaza has also exposed rifts in the European broadcasting world. Austria, which is set to host the competition after Viennese singer JJ won this year with “Wasted Love,” supports Israel’s participation. Germany, too, is said to back Israel.

Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain are among the countries that have threatened to sit out the contest, if Israel is allowed to take part.

Opponents of Israel’s participation criticize the conduct of the war in Gaza, which has left more than 70,000 people dead, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government and whose detailed records are viewed as generally reliable by the international community. A number of experts, including those commissioned by a U.N. body, have said that Israel’s offensive amounts to genocide.

Israel’s government has repeatedly defended its campaign as a response to the attack by Hamas-led militants that started the war on Oct. 7, 2023. The militants killed around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — in the attack and took 251 hostage.

FILE – Israeli fans cheer for Yuval Raphael, from Israel, after she performed during the semi-final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)

Complex voting process

Israel also has faced allegations of interference in the voting process in Eurovision.

It’s not clear whether a decrease in violence in Gaza, where a U.S.-brokered ceasefire is holding, or EBU plans to change voting processes to guard against political interference will be enough to placate some broadcasters, which are on the fence over the issue.

EBU said that officials at Thursday’s meeting will be asked to consider that package of new measures, including reducing the number of votes per payment method, and a return of “professional juries” to the semifinals.

A vote on participation will only take place if member broadcasters decide those steps aren’t sufficient to protect the “neutrality and impartiality” of the contest, the broadcasting union said in an email on Wednesday.

Members have until mid-December to confirm their participation next year, and a final list will be announced by Christmas, it said.

Possible scenarios

Eurovision expert Dean Vuletic said that a boycott by any EU member country would be significant, because they are “not dictatorships” and are meant, like Israel, to share values of democracy, human rights and diversity.

“It would be the biggest boycott of Eurovision ever. There have been boycotts in the past, but they have been usually bilateral,” said Vuletic, author of “Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest.”

The fallout of a boycott could have implications for viewership and money at a time when many broadcasters are under financial pressure from government funding cuts and the advent of social media.

The countries walking away include some big names in the Eurovision world.

Spain is one of the “Big Five” large-market countries that contribute the most to the contest. Ireland has won seven times, a record it shares with Sweden.

The controversy over Israel’s 2026 participation threatens to overshadow the return next year of three countries — Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania — after periods of absence because of financial and artistic reasons.

“There are no winners here. Regardless of what happens — whether Israel is in or out, whether countries stay or go — it’s not what Eurovision should be. It’s meant to be joyous and about bringing people together despite our politics,” Jordan said. “Unfortunately it’s become, I think, a bit of a political football.”

Jill Lawless reported from London.

TRONA, Calif. (AP) — A fighter jet with the Air Force’s elite Thunderbirds demonstration squadron crashed in the Southern California desert Wednesday, but the pilot managed to eject safely, the military said.

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The pilot was being treated at a hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening, according to the San Bernardino County Fire Department.

The F-16C Fighting Falcon crashed around 10:45 a.m. during a training mission “over controlled airspace in California,” according to a statement from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

The fire department said it had responded to an “aircraft emergency” near Trona, an unincorporated community in the Mojave Desert about 180 miles north of Los Angeles.

In 2022, a Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet crashed near Trona, killing the pilot.

Wednesday’s crash is under investigation and further information will be released from the 57th Wing Public Affairs Office, the Air Force statement said.

Like the Navy’s Blue Angels, the Air Force Thunderbirds perform their famous tight formations at air shows, and train to fly within inches of each other. The brief statement from the Air Force did not give details on the circumstances of the crash.

The Blue Angels and Thunderbirds have had dozens of crashes in their long histories.

Formed in 1953, the Thunderbirds practice seasonally out of Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas. Aircraft based there include F-16 Falcon and F-22 Raptor fighter jets as well as A-10 Warthog ground-attack jets.

Minnesota’s projected budget surplus has grown to nearly $2.5 billion in the current two-year budget cycle, though an expected shortfall of almost $3 billion remains for the following two years.

The new budget forecast released Thursday by the Minnesota Department of Management and Budget shows a slight improvement over its March forecast, when state officials projected a $456 million surplus in the 2026-2027 biennium and a $6 billion shortfall in 2028-2029.

Growth in the projected surplus is the result of a “better-than-expected fiscal year close and higher near-term revenue collections, partially offset by increased spending estimates,” MMB said in a summary of its November forecast.

“Minnesota’s budget and economic outlook remains stable in the current biennium; however, structural budget challenges remain,” the agency said.

Higher health care costs and slow economic growth remain a challenge for the state later in the decade, according to MMB.

Meanwhile, the state’s general fund reserves remain “strong” and at their statutory target of $3.8 billion.

The updated numbers are a significant improvement over the last major update from state budget officials in March. Then, they warned that “significant near-term economic and fiscal uncertainty” from tariffs and other policy changes under President Trump could hurt the state’s fiscal position.

It’s yet to be seen how federal program cuts might affect Minnesota’s budget in the coming years.

The state was in a much better fiscal position more than two years ago, when MMB projected a nearly $18 billion surplus.

That year, Democratic-Farmer-Labor-controlled state government passed a more than $70 billion state budget that grew spending by nearly 40% — with a lot of the increase coming from one-time spending.

In June, a Legislature divided closely between the DFL and Republicans passed a $66 billion two-year budget, close to $5 billion less than the 2023 budget.

Special education transportation aid is one of the biggest areas for cuts. State leaders said that they’d have to curb spending this year to address shortfalls looming later this decade.

MMB will give a more detailed presentation to the press on its budget forecast at a noon news conference. Gov. Tim Walz and legislative leaders of both parties are also set to deliver remarks on the updated numbers.

The November forecast, typically released in the first week of December, gives Minnesota lawmakers insights on the state’s fiscal picture as they prepare to return to the Capitol for the legislative session early in the following year.

An updated forecast MMB releases in early March is generally when the Legislature begins deciding how it will spend money. Though the state will not have to pass a two-year budget in 2026, as this happens in odd-numbered years.

Past state budgets

Here’s a listing of past state two-year budgets:

• 2023 — $72 billion.

• 2021 — $52 billion.

• 2019 — $48 billion.

• 2017 — $46 billion.

• 2015 — $41.5 billion.

• 2013 — $38 billion.

• 2011 — $35.7 billion.

Check back for updates on this developing story.

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