By JANIE HAR, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Fans of the Grateful Dead are pouring into San Francisco for three days of concerts and festivities marking the 60th anniversary of the scruffy jam band that came to embody a city where people wore flowers in their hair and made love, not war.

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Dead & Company, featuring original Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, will play Golden Gate Park’s Polo Field starting Friday with an estimated 60,000 attendees each day. The last time the band played that part of the park was in 1991 — a free show following the death of concert promoter and longtime Deadhead Bill Graham.

Certainly, times have changed.

A general admissions ticket for all three days is $635 — a shock for many longtime fans who remember when a joint cost more than a Dead concert ticket.

But Deadhead David Aberdeen is thrilled anyway.

“This is the spiritual home of the Grateful Dead,” said Aberdeen, who works at Amoeba Music in the bohemian, flower-powered Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. “It seems very right to me that they celebrate it in this way.”

Formed in 1965, the Grateful Dead is synonymous with San Francisco and its counterculture. Members lived in a dirt-cheap Victorian in the Haight and later became a significant part of 1967’s Summer of Love.

That summer eventually soured into bad acid trips and police raids, and prompted the band’s move to Marin County on the other end of the Golden Gate Bridge. But new Deadheads kept cropping up — even after iconic guitarist and singer Jerry Garcia ’s 1995 death — aided by cover bands and offshoots like Dead & Company.

“There are 18-year-olds who were obviously not even a twinkle in somebody’s eyes when Jerry died, and these 18-year-olds get the values of Deadheads,” said former Grateful Dead publicist and author Dennis McNally.

Fitting in, feeling at home

Deadheads can reel off why and how, and the moment they fell in love with the music. Fans love that no two shows are the same; the band plays different songs each time. They also embrace the community that comes with a Dead show.

Sunshine Powers didn’t have friends until age 13, when she stepped off a city bus and into the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.

“I, all of a sudden, felt like I fit in. Or like I didn’t have to fit in,” says Powers, now 45 and the owner of tie-dye emporium Love on Haight. “I don’t know which one it was, but I know it was like, OK.”

Similarly, her friend Taylor Swope, 47, survived a tough freshman year at a new school with the help of a Grateful Dead mixtape. The owner of the Little Hippie gift shop is driving from Brooklyn, New York, to sell merchandise, reconnect with friends and see the shows.

“The sense of, ‘I found my people, I didn’t fit in anywhere else and then I found this, and I felt at home.’ So that’s a big part of it,” she said of the allure.

Magical live shows

Sometimes, becoming a Deadhead is a process.

Thor Cromer, 60, had attended several Dead shows, but was ambivalent about the hippies. That changed on March 15, 1990, in Landover, Maryland.

“That show, whatever it was, whatever magic hit,” he said, “it was injected right into my brain.”

Cromer, who worked for the U.S. Senate then, eventually took time off to follow the band on tour and saw an estimated 400 shows from spring 1990 until Garcia’s death.

Cromer now works in technology and is flying in from Boston to join scores of fellow “rail riders” who dance in the rows closest to the stage.

Aberdeen, 62, saw his first Dead show in 1984. As the only person in his college group with a driver’s license, he was tapped to drive a crowded VW Bug from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, to Syracuse, New York.

“I thought it was pretty weird,” he said. “But I liked it.”

He fell in love the following summer, when the Dead played a venue near his college.

Aberdeen remembers rain pouring down in the middle of the show and a giant rainbow appearing over the band when they returned for their second act. They played “Comes a Time,” a rarely played Garcia ballad.

“There is a lot of excitement, and there will be a lot of people here,” Aberdeen said. “Who knows when we’ll have an opportunity to get together like this again?”

Fans were able to see Dead & Company in Las Vegas earlier this year, but no new dates have been announced. Guitarist Bob Weir is 77, and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann are 81 and 79, respectively. Besides Garcia, founding members Ron “Pigpen” McKernan on keyboards died in 1973 and bassist Phil Lesh died last year at age 84.

Multiple events planned for Dead’s 60th

Mayor Daniel Lurie, who is not a Deadhead but counts “Sugar Magnolia” as his favorite Dead song, is overjoyed at the economic boost as San Francisco recovers from pandemic-related hits to its tech and tourism sectors.

“They are the reason why so many people know and love San Francisco,” he said.

The weekend features parties, shows and celebrations throughout the city. Grahame Lesh & Friends will perform three nights starting Thursday. Lesh is the son of Phil Lesh.

On Friday, which would have been Garcia’s 83rd birthday, officials will rename a street after the San Francisco native. On Saturday, visitors can celebrate the city’s annual Jerry Day at the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater located in a park near Garcia’s childhood home.

By Amanda Hernández, Stateline.org

Across the country, state and local crime labs are drowning in evidence.

From rape kits to drug samples to vials of blood, delays in forensic testing are stalling prosecutions, stretching court calendars and forcing impossible choices about what gets tested — and what doesn’t.

Now, as the need for forensic testing grows, state and local crime labs may face steep federal funding cuts that could further delay justice for victims, derail criminal investigations and overwhelm already backlogged systems.

Two key federal grant programs that support state and local forensic labs are at risk: One faces a major cut, while the other is funded below its authorized cap despite growing demand.

The proposed cuts have alarmed forensic experts and crime lab directors who say some labs rely heavily on these federal grants to keep up with mounting caseloads.

“That would have dire consequences on a lot of crime laboratories who depend on those funds for maintaining operations,” said Scott Hummel, the president of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors, a national nonprofit professional organization.

“If you limit those resources even further, there will be backlogs,” said Hummel, who also works as a quality assurance manager at the Kansas City Police Crime Laboratory in Missouri. “Those backlogs just keep growing and growing, and labs are forced to make difficult decisions on how they prioritize their casework.”

When labs fall behind

Crime labs are often invisible to the public but essential to criminal investigations. They test DNA, analyze drug samples, match ballistics and verify evidence in everything from rape cases to gun homicides. The evidence may lead to arrests, but it’s also critical in court, shaping outcomes for victims, defendants, prosecutors and defense attorneys alike.

But years of underinvestment have left many labs without enough scientists, equipment and funding to keep up. As forensic technology has advanced — particularly in digital evidence and DNA testing — demand also has risen sharply.

“As technology gets better, there’s an expectation, I think, that labs can do more than they have the capacity for,” Hummel said.

At the same time, new state laws and testing mandates are increasing pressure on already strained labs. In some states, changes in drug laws — such as renewed crackdowns on marijuana or stricter DUI thresholds — have led to a surge in requests for toxicology and drug analysis. Other states have expanded mandatory evidence testing requirements, often without providing additional funding.

Some lab directors who spoke with Stateline said that even well-intentioned policies can create bottlenecks when resources don’t keep pace with demand.

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“It’s important for policymakers to realize that the criminal justice system is demanding more from us, and so we need the resources to keep up with the increased demand,” said James Carroll, the crime laboratory director with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Low pay is also a challenge, with some analysts opting for private-sector jobs that offer higher salaries and better benefits. Training new analysts can take months or even years, making it difficult to quickly fill critical positions and retain experienced staff.

“We have to be absolutely perfect, and if you have something that isn’t perfect, that can be a career ruiner,” said Mike Lyttle, the assistant director of the forensic services division at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. “That is a lot of pressure.”

But that pressure can come at a cost — especially when analysts bear the brunt of it.

Lab directors and managers who spoke with Stateline said that overworking staff is not only inappropriate, but also risky. It can lead to quality issues, including “dry labbing,” or fabricated results, which could call hundreds or even thousands of cases into question.

As delays mount across the country, some state and local governments are rethinking how their crime labs are structured and funded.

In Colorado, officials are dealing with the aftermath of a major DNA testing scandal involving state-run labs, and several new laws have been enacted to establish a review board and address backlogs. Lawmakers in Rhode Island considered a bill earlier this year that would have shifted oversight of its state crime lab to the state attorney general’s office, but the bill was tabled for further study.

In Shelby County, Tennessee, a new $1.5 million investment will go toward the region’s first local lab focused on rapid DNA analysis, digital forensics and weapons ballistics. Memphis City Council officials also are working on funding at least two new positions at a state laboratory to prioritize cases from the Memphis area.

Hard choices

The national push to test sexual assault kits has helped bring attention to forensic evidence backlogs. But in some labs, it has also forced tough choices about what gets tested first.

In Oregon, for example, Brian Medlock, the director of the state police forensic science division, announced in January that the state lab had halted DNA analysis for all property crime evidence. Testing won’t resume until the sexual assault kit backlog is cleared — a goal the agency doesn’t expect to meet until the end of the year. As of June, 474 sexual assault kits were still awaiting testing, according to the state’s dashboard.

Like Oregon, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation also is deprioritizing nonviolent cases as it works through its rape kit backlog. The agency currently has six forensic biology analysts in training across the state, limiting how many cases it can process, according to Lyttle.

The goal is to eventually process lower-priority cases, he said, but the current focus remains on sexual assault kits. Still, Lyttle acknowledged that delaying the analysis of evidence in nonviolent cases can be a missed opportunity. Uploading DNA profiles from those cases to the national database, CODIS, could help identify offenders earlier — potentially before they go on to commit more serious crimes.

“You may be losing people early because you’re deprioritizing those nonviolent cases and not getting them identified as quickly as you could,” he said. “Every case is important.”

Looming cuts

Trump has proposed slashing one major forensic science grant program and holding funding flat for another — a combination that some officials fear could worsen evidence backlogs amid rising demand.

The Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grants Program, which aims to help labs replace aging equipment, train staff and reduce case backlogs, would be cut by 71% under President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget — from $35 million to $10 million.

Another, the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, would receive $120 million under the proposal — below the $151 million cap authorized by Congress in 2023. While Congress can approve up to that amount, it often allocates less: $130 million in fiscal year 2023, and $120 million in both fiscal years 2024 and 2025.

The program helps labs process backlogged evidence, including sexual assault kits, and supports the expansion of the national DNA database, CODIS.

These proposals are part of the administration’s annual discretionary budget request; Congress must finalize federal agency yearly spending by Sept. 30. Presidential budget proposals are often reshaped by Congress, but Trump’s spending plans have found strong backing among Republicans on Capitol Hill. With the GOP holding majorities in both chambers, proposals to cut or limit funding for forensic science programs may be more likely to advance.

A state in crisis and a model for change

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s crime labs are under intense scrutiny following a major DNA testing scandal and widespread staffing shortages that have slowed down forensic work across the board. The bureau is facing backlogs in every discipline or type of case, according to Lance Allen, a deputy director who oversees forensic services.

Much of the current crisis stems from the case of Yvonne “Missy” Woods, a former DNA scientist now facing more than 100 criminal charges for allegedly manipulating DNA results over her 30-year career. Her alleged misconduct, combined with long-standing understaffing issues, has led to severe delays.

As of June, the average turnaround time for processing sexual assault kits in Colorado was 570 days, or about 1 1/2 years, with more than 1,200 kits still awaiting testing, according to the state’s dashboard. The agency’s goal is to reduce that timeline to 90 days.

“We are not satisfied with this turnaround time either, and this backlog is also unacceptable to us, and we know we have to do better,” Allen told Stateline.

But the backlog isn’t limited to sexual assault cases. Blood alcohol testing has also slowed dramatically, according to defense attorney Matthew Haltzman, who said he has handled cases in which results took five to six months to come back.

In that time, he said, even clients who were ultimately found not to be intoxicated were forced to navigate the court system — attending hearings, undergoing weekly drug and alcohol testing and complying with pretrial supervision.

“It’s just a lose-lose for everybody in the legal process, but more so for the accused than anyone else,” Haltzman said. “It’s a massive deprivation of liberty.”

The current turnaround time for all toxicology tests is 99 days, or just over three months, according to Vanessa Beall, the Colorado bureau’s toxicology program manager. About 80% of cases are completed within that time frame or less, and all toxicology tests include blood alcohol and drug analysis.

With additional toxicologists, the bureau is already meeting its 2025 goal and aims to reduce that turnaround time to 70 days by the end of 2026.

This year, the bureau and state lawmakers have rolled out measures aimed at restoring trust in the system. Those efforts include sending more than 1,000 rape kits to private labs to reduce turnaround times, expanding staff training programs and establishing a review board within the state attorney general’s office to improve oversight.

Lawmakers also approved $3 million to support outsourcing and lab operations, along with a separate law requiring the reporting of misconduct within Colorado’s state-run forensic laboratories.

Meanwhile, Connecticut is drawing national attention for its consistent performance and growing capabilities.

Once plagued by serious issues — including a suspended accreditation in 2011 that disrupted criminal proceedings — Connecticut’s forensic lab has steadily strengthened its operations. This year, it earned a perfect accreditation score for the third year in a row.

Following its accreditation loss, the lab faced a backlog of 12,000 cases, and by 2013, turnaround times stretched up to 2 1/2 years. Today, the average turnaround is just 20 days across all disciplines.

DNA cases, including those involving sexual assault evidence, are typically processed in about 27 days. Firearms cases take about 35 days, and computer crimes about 60, according to Guy Vallaro, the director of the Connecticut Division of Scientific Services.

He credits much of the lab’s progress to its team of scientists and staff, who he says are deeply committed to both accuracy and improvement.

“When you have a good staff, you can do incredible things,” Vallaro said.

Stateline reporter Amanda Hernández can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By ILLIA NOVIKOV

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missiles hit a Ukrainian army training ground, killing three soldiers and wounding 18 others, authorities said, targeting Ukraine’s efforts to make up a severe manpower shortage in the nearly 3½-year war.

The Russian Defense Ministry asserted that the strike killed or wounded about 200 Ukrainian troops. The ministry said Ukraine’s 169th training center near Honcharivske in the Chernihiv region was hit with two Iskander missiles, one armed with multiple submunitions and another with high explosives.

Meanwhile, Russia continued its stepped-up aerial campaign against Ukrainian civilian targets, launching 78 attack drones overnight, including up to eight newly developed jet-powered drones, Ukraine’s air force said. At least five people were wounded.

In this photo, provided by the Kharkiv regional military administration, on Wednesday, July 30, 2025, a building burns after Russian strike on Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Kharkiv regional military administration via AP)

More civilians are being killed

The U.N. mission in Ukraine notes a worsening trend in civilian casualties from Russian attacks this year, with 6,754 civilians killed or injured in the first half of 2025 — a 54% increase from the same period in 2024.

Since Russia launched an all-out invasion of neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, at least 13,580 Ukrainian civilians, including 716 children, have been killed, according to the U.N.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’s giving Russian President Vladimir Putin a shorter deadline — until Aug. 8 — for peace efforts to make progress or Washington will impose punitive sanctions and tariffs. Western leaders have accused Putin of dragging his feet in U.S.-led peace efforts in an attempt to capture more Ukrainian land.

Attacks on Ukrainian military facilities

Ukrainian forces are mostly hanging on against a grinding summer push by Russia’s bigger army, though the Russian Defense Ministry has claimed recent small advances along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line.

Ukrainian ground forces acknowledged the Russian strike on a military training ground in the Chernihiv region of northern Ukraine, but its casualty report differed widely from Moscow’s.

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A Russian Defense Ministry video showed multiple small explosions apparently caused by a missile with a shrapnel warhead, followed by one big blast, apparently from the other one armed with a high-explosive warhead.

A similar Russian strike occurred last September, when two ballistic missiles blasted a Ukrainian military academy and nearby hospital, killing more than 50 people and wounding more than 200 others.

Ukrainian authorities said a commission led by the head of the Military Law Enforcement Service has been formed to determine whether negligence or misconduct by officials contributed to the casualties in Chernihiv.

The attack was the fourth deadly strike in five months on Ukrainian military facilities. The previous three killed at least 46 soldiers and wounded more than 160, according to official reports.

Russia also has been trying disrupt Ukrainian military recruitment by hitting regional buildings coordinating the call-up.

On Wednesday, Russian forces targeted a regional military administration building in the northern Sumy region, injuring a 75-year-old woman, the administration said. It said they struck the same building with drones last Friday and Saturday.

Ukraine badly needs more troops

Though Ukraine has more than 1 million people in uniform, including the National Guard and other units, it badly needs more.

There have been questions about how Kyiv is managing the war, from a flawed mobilization drive to the overstretching and hollowing-out of front-line units through soldiers going AWOL.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a bill Tuesday that allows Ukrainian men over the age of 60 to voluntarily sign contracts with the armed forces. The law allows those who want to contribute their experience and skills, particularly in noncombat or specialized roles.

In February, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry began offering new financial and other benefits that it hopes will attract men between the ages of 18 and 24 to military service. Men in that age group are exempt from the country’s draft, which covers men between 25 and 60 years old.

Ukraine has lowered its conscription age from 27 to 25, but that has failed to replenish ranks or replace battlefield losses.

By JENNIFER PELTZ, CEDAR ATTANASIO, DAVE COLLINS and JOHN SEEWER

NEW YORK (AP) — Investigators on Wednesday were looking into how a former high school football player who blamed the game for his mental health problems carried out a deadly attack on an office building that is home to the NFL.

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Shane Tamura, 27, killed four people on Monday before killing himself, spraying the skyscraper’s lobby with bullets and then continuing his rampage on the 33rd floor, authorities said.

In a handwritten note found in his wallet after the attack, Tamura claimed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known at CTE, and accused the NFL of hiding the dangers of brain injuries linked to contact sports, investigators said.

Detectives on Wednesday were digging into the Las Vegas casino worker’s background and motivations. They planned to question a man who supplied gun parts for the AR-15-style rifle used in the attack, including the weapon’s lower receiver, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a video statement.

Among the dead were a police officer, a security guard and two people who worked at companies in the building. An NFL employee was badly wounded but survived.

Tamura, a surveillance worker for the Horseshoe Las Vegas, had meant to target the NFL’s headquarters in the building but took the wrong elevator, authorities said.

It’s unclear whether he showed symptoms of CTE, which can be diagnosed only by examining a brain after death.

Tamura, who played high school football in California a decade ago but never played in the NFL, had a history of mental illness, police said without giving details. In the three-page note found on his body, he accused the NFL of concealing the dangers to players’ brains for profit. The degenerative brain disease has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports such as football.

At a Tuesday night vigil for those killed in the shooting, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and other faith leaders delivered prayers at a park about a dozen blocks from where the shooting took place.

Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul spoke of the need for stronger gun laws.

“We cannot respond to senseless gun laws through vigils,” Adams said.

NFL boss calls shooting ‘unspeakable’

Tamura’s note repeatedly said he was sorry and asked that his brain be studied for CTE.

The NFL long denied the link between football and CTE, but it acknowledged the connection in 2016 testimony before Congress and has paid more than $1.4 billion to retired players to settle concussion-related claims.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who works out of the offices, called the shooting “an unspeakable act of violence.”

The shooting happened at a skyscraper on Park Avenue, one of the nation’s most recognized streets, just blocks from Grand Central Terminal and Rockefeller Center. It is less than a 15-minute walk from where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed last December by a man who prosecutors say was angry over what he saw as corporate greed.

The map above highlights confirmed travels of the gunman who carried out a deadly shooting in a midtown Manhattan office building. (AP Graphic)

Video shows the gunman stroll into the building

Tamura drove across the country in the days before the attack and into New York City, Tisch said. Surveillance video showed him exit his BMW outside the building at about 6:30 p.m. Monday wearing a button-down shirt and jacket with the rifle at his side.

Once inside the lobby, he opened fire and killed Islam and Wesley LePatner, a real estate executive at the investment firm Blackstone, which occupies much of the building. Tamura then made his way toward the elevator bank, shooting the NFL employee and an unarmed security guard, Aland Etienne, who helped control access to the upper floors.

Tamura waited for the next elevator to arrive in the lobby, let a woman walk safely out of the elevator, then rode it up to the 33rd-floor offices of the company that owns the building, Rudin Management. He killed a worker for that company before killing himself, officials said.

Friends and family mourn killed officer

Officer Didarul Islam, 36, who was guarding the building on a paid security job when he was killed, had served as a police officer in New York City for over three years. He was an immigrant from Bangladesh and was working a department-approved building security job when he was shot.

Islam leaves a pregnant wife and two children. Friends and family stopped by their Bronx home on Tuesday to drop off food and pay their respects.

“He was a very friendly guy and a hardworking guy,” said Tanjim Talukdar, who knew him best from Friday prayers. “Whenever I see him or he sees me, he says, ’How are you, my brother?’”

Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut, and Seewer from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press reporters Michael Balsamo, Philip Marcelo and Julie Walker in New York; Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia, Rob Maaddi in Tampa, Florida; Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey; and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.