By JIM VERTUNO, NADIA LATHAN and JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Hope of finding survivors of the catastrophic flooding in Texas dimmed Tuesday, a day after the death toll surpassed 100, and crews kept up the search for people missing in the aftermath.

The search efforts benefited from improving weather. The storms that battered the Hill Country for the past four days began to lighten up, although isolated pockets of heavy rain were still possible.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott planned to make another visit Tuesday to Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died during the flash floods. Officials said Monday that 10 campers and one counselor have still not been found.

A wall of water slammed into camps and homes along the edge of the Guadalupe River before daybreak Friday, pulling people out of their cabins, tents and trailers and dragging them for miles past floating tree trunks and cars. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.

Questions are mounting about what, if any, actions local officials took to warn campers and residents who were spending the July Fourth holiday weekend in the scenic area long known to locals as “flash flood alley.”

At public briefings, officials in hard-hit Kerr County have deflected questions about what preparations and warnings were made as forecasters warned of life-threatening conditions.

“We definitely want to dive in and look at all those things,” Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said Monday. “We’re looking forward to doing that once we can get the search and rescue complete.”

Some camps were aware of the dangers and monitoring the weather. At least one moved several hundred campers to higher ground before the floods. But many were caught by surprise.

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Searchers have found the bodies of 84 people, including 28 children, in Kerr County, home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps near the river, officials said.

Nineteen deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, local officials said.

Among those confirmed dead were 8-year-old sisters from Dallas who were at Camp Mystic and a former soccer coach and his wife who were staying at a riverfront home. Their daughters were still missing.

Elizabeth Lester, a mother of children who were at Camp Mystic and nearby Camp La Junta during the flood, said her young son had to swim out a cabin window to escape. Her daughter fled up the hillside as floodwaters whipped against her legs. Both survived.

Search-and-rescue teams used heavy equipment to untangle trees and move large rocks as part of the massive search for missing people. Hundreds of volunteers have shown up to help with one of the largest rescue operations in Texas history.

Piles of twisted trees sprinkled with mattresses, refrigerators and coolers littered the riverbanks.

Vertuno reported from Austin, and Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Sophia Tareen in Chicago.

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN, Associated Press Business Writer

For the first time in almost 20 years, travelers may no longer be required to take off their shoes during security screenings at certain U.S. airports.

The Transportation Security Administration is looking to abandon the additional security step that has for years bedeviled anyone passing through U.S airports, according to media reports.

FILE – In this Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2007, file photo, a belt and shoes sit in a trays with advertising that is being used in the safety screening of travelers done by the Transportation Security Administration, at the Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ann Johansson, File)

If implemented, it would put an end to a security screening mandate put in place almost 20 years ago, several years after “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s failed attempt to take down a flight from Paris to Miami in late 2001.

The travel newsletter Gate Access was first to report that the security screening change is coming. ABC News reported on an internal memo sent to TSA officers last week that states the new policy lets travelers keep their shoes on during screenings at many U.S. airports beginning this Sunday.

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The plan is for the change to occur at all U.S. airports soon, the memo said.

Travelers were able to skirt extra security requirement if they were part of the TSA PreCheck program, which costs around $80 for five years. The program allows airline passengers to get through the screening process without removing shoes, belts or light jackets.

The TSA has not officially confirmed the reported security screening change yet.

“TSA and DHS are always exploring new and innovative ways to enhance passenger experience and our strong security posture,” a TSA spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday. “Any potential updates to our security process will be issued through official channels.”

The TSA began in 2001 when President George W. Bush signed legislation for its creation two months after the 9/11 attacks. The agency included federal airport screeners that replaced the private companies airlines had used to handle security.

Over the years the TSA has continued to look for ways to enhance its security measures, including testing facial recognition technology and implementing Real ID requirements.

By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on a Liberian-flagged cargo ship in the Red Sea killed three mariners and wounded two others, a European Union naval force said Tuesday.

The attack on the Greek-owned Eternity C follows the Houthis claiming they attacked another vessel on Sunday in the Red Sea, a vital maritime trade route. The twin assaults are the first Houthi attacks on shipping since November 2024 and potentially signal the start of a new campaign threatening the waterway, which had begun to see more ships pass through it in recent weeks.

The bulk carrier had been heading north toward the Suez Canal when it came under fire by men in small boats and by bomb-carrying drones Monday night. The security guards on board also fired their weapons. The European Union Operation Aspides and the private security firm Ambrey both reported those details.

While the Houthis haven’t claimed the attack, Yemen’s exiled government and the EU force blamed the rebels for the attack, as did the U.S. Embassy in Yemen.

“The Houthis are once again showing blatant disregard for human life, undermining freedom of navigation in the Red Sea,” said the embassy, which has operated out of Saudi Arabia for nearly a decade due to Yemen’s wider war.

“The intentional murder of innocent mariners shows us all the Houthis’ true colors and will only further the Houthis’ isolation.”

The EU force offered the casualty information, saying one of the wounded crew lost his leg in the attack. The crew remains stuck on board the vessel, which is now drifting in the Red Sea.

The Houthis separately attacked the Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier Magic Seas on Sunday with drones, missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, forcing its crew of 22 to abandon the vessel. The rebels later said it sank in the Red Sea with its cargo of fertilizer and steel billets for Turkey.

The Liberian-flagged bulk carrier Magic Seas is seen in Ambelakia Bay, Salamis Island, Greece, Aug. 9, 2022. (Nektarios Papadakis via AP)

“It is the first such attack against a commercial vessel in 2025, a serious escalation endangering maritime security in a vital waterway for the region and the world,” the EU warned. “These attacks directly threaten regional peace and stability, global commerce and freedom of navigation as a global public good. They can negatively impact the already dire humanitarian situation in Yemen. These attacks must stop.”

The two attacks and a round of Israeli airstrikes early Monday targeting the rebels raised fears of a renewed Houthi campaign against shipping that could again draw in U.S. and Western forces, particularly after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration targeted the rebels in a major airstrike campaign.

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The attacks come at a sensitive moment in the Middle East, as a possible ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war hangs in the balance, and as Iran weighs whether to restart negotiations over its nuclear program following American airstrikes targeting its most sensitive atomic sites during the Israel-Iran war in June.

The Houthis have been launching missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in the region in what the group’s leadership has described as an effort to end Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Between November 2023 and January 2025, the Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors. Their campaign has greatly reduced the flow of trade through the Red Sea corridor, which typically sees $1 trillion of goods move through it annually. Shipping through the Red Sea, while still lower than normal, has increased in recent weeks.

The Houthis paused attacks until the U.S. launched a broad assault against the rebels in mid-March. That ended weeks later and the Houthis hadn’t attacked a vessel until this past weekend, though they did continue occasional missile attacks targeting Israel.

By SCOTT BAUER, Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for the state to institute a ban on conversion therapy.

The court ruled that a Republican-controlled legislative committee’s rejection of a state agency rule that would ban the practice of conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people was unconstitutional.

The 4-3 ruling from the liberal-controlled court comes amid the national battle over LGBTQ+ rights. It is also part of a broader effort by the Democratic governor, who has vetoed Republican bills targeting transgender high school athletes, to rein in the power of the GOP-controlled Legislature.

What is conversion therapy?

What is known as conversion therapy is the scientifically discredited practice of using therapy to “convert” LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations.

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The practice has been banned in 23 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights think tank. It is also banned in more than a dozen communities across Wisconsin. Since April 2024, the Wisconsin professional licensing board for therapists, counselors and social workers has labeled conversion therapy as unprofessional conduct.

Advocates seeking to ban the practice want to forbid mental health professionals in the state from counseling clients with the goal of changing their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in March to hear a Colorado case about whether state and local governments can enforce laws banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ children.

What is happening in Wisconsin?

The provision barring conversion therapy in Wisconsin has been blocked twice by the Legislature’s powerful Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules — a Republican-controlled panel in charge of approving state agency regulations.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling means the conversion therapy ban can be enacted. The court ruled that the legislative committee has been overreaching its authority in blocking a variety of other state regulations during Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration.

The lawsuit brought by Evers targeted two votes by the joint committee. One deals with the Department of Safety and Professional Services’ conversion therapy ban. The other vote blocked an update to the state’s commercial building standards.

Republicans who supported suspending the conversion therapy ban have insisted the issue isn’t the policy itself, but whether the licensing board had the authority to take the action it did.

Evers has been trying since 2020 to get the ban enacted, but the Legislature has stopped it from going into effect.

Legislative power at stake

The Legislature’s attorney argued that decades of precedent backed up their argument, including a 1992 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling upholding the Legislature’s right to suspend state agency rules. Overturning that ruling would be deeply disruptive, attorney Misha Tseytlin argued.

Evers argued that by blocking the rule, the legislative committee is taking over powers that the state constitution assigns to the governor. The 1992 ruling conflicts with the constitution and has “proved unworkable,” Evers said.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed with Evers.

The issue goes beyond conversion therapy

The conversion therapy ban is one of several rules that have been blocked by the legislative committee. Others pertain to environmental regulations, vaccine requirements and public health protections.

Evers argued in the lawsuit that the panel has effectively been exercising an unconstitutional “legislative veto.”