By STEVE KARNOWSKI

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — There are “rays of hope” for a 12-year-old girl critically injured in last week’s deadly shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis, though her neurosurgeon cautioned Friday it is still hard to predict whether she will survive.

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Sophia Forchas was the most seriously wounded child among those who survived after a shooter opened fire at the Church of the Annunciation on Aug. 27. The church was full of students from the affiliated Annunciation Catholic School who had gathered for their first Mass of the academic year. Two students were killed, and 21 people were injured.

The shooter died by suicide, police said.

Sophia remains in intensive care at Hennepin Healthcare, a trauma hospital that has treated many of the victims. Her neurosurgeon, Dr. Walt Galicich, said at a news conference that a bullet, which remains lodged in her brain, caused severe damage, including to a major blood vessel. Surgeons had to remove the left half of her skull to relieve the pressure inside her head.

“If you had told me at this juncture, 10 days later, that we’d be standing here with any ray of hope, I would have said it would take a miracle,” Galicich told reporters. He said they are banking on the ability of young brains to heal and make up for the damage.

Sophia is still being kept in a medically induced coma most of the time to control the swelling, Galicich said. She is opening her eyes and showing some level of awareness of her surroundings, and has some slight movement in her right leg, but she’s still not responding to commands, he said.

“It’s day by day, and I can’t tell you how this is going to end,” the doctor said. “I know she’s had a stroke from that injury to that blood vessel. I don’t know what her permanent deficits are going to be. But we’re a little bit more optimistic that she’s going to survive.”

The girl’s father, Tom Forchas, called her “my precious angel.”

This undated photo provided by Tom Forchas in September 2025 shows his daughter, Sophia Forchas, who was wounded in the Church of Annunciation shooting in Minneapolis, on Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025. (Tom Forchas via AP)

“Sophia is kind. She is brilliant. She is full of life,” Forchas said. “She’s an innocent child who was attacked while in prayer. Words cannot begin to describe the terror and heartbreak that come with learning such devastating details.”

Forchas said Sophia’s 9-year-old brother was also in the church but wasn’t hit. He paid tribute to his wife, Amy Forchas, a pediatric critical care nurse on the hospital staff who has not left their daughter’s side. He also expressed deep gratitude to Sophia’s care team and to the support his family has received from around the world.

“Sophia has received prayers from across the globe,” he said. “It is nothing short of miraculous to know that millions of people have lifted her name in hundreds of millions of prayers. We have heard of prayers from Oslo to Johannesburg, from Sydney to Santiago, from Vietnam to Canada, from Mount Athos, Greece, to Minneapolis, Minnesota.”

And Forchas said the courage, compassion and love of “everyone who has helped us through this nightmare” is helping to carry them through.

“Sophia is strong. Sophia is fighting. And Sophia is going to win this fight for all of humanity,” he said.

Also Friday, students across Minnesota and several other cities across the country staged walkouts to demand that state and federal lawmakers ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Many gathered at the state Capitol in St. Paul. The protests were organized by Students Demand Action, an arm of Everytown for Gun Safety.

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Department prosecutors are dropping their federal case against a woman who was charged with threatening to kill President Donald Trump — the latest in a string of self-inflicted setbacks for prosecutors during President Donald Trump’s law-enforcement surge in the nation’s capital.

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A grand jury refused to indict Nathalie Rose Jones before U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office asked a judge on Friday to dismiss her case in district court. A one-page court filing by Pirro’s office says dismissing the case against Jones “is in the interests of justice,” but it doesn’t elaborate.

Jones was due back in court Monday for a preliminary hearing. Her attorney, Mary Petras, asked the court to dismiss the case “with prejudice,” which would prevent prosecutors from reviving the case.

“Given the grand jury’s decision, Ms. Jones should not be forced to live under the threat of later charges and rearrest,” Petras wrote.

Petras said a prosecutor notified her Friday that “no additional presentations were made to the grand jury.”

“The charges against Ms. Jones were based on interpretations of statements the government presented to the grand jury,” she wrote. “The grand jury rejected that interpretation of the statements and apparently agreed that Ms. Jones’s statements were consistent with her First Amendment rights.”

It is extraordinarily rare for a grand jury to balk at returning an indictment, but it has happened at least seven times in five cases since Trump’s surge started nearly a month ago.

One of the instances involved the case against a man charged with hurling a sandwich at a federal agent, a confrontation captured on a viral video. A grand jury also declined to indict Edward Alexander Dana, who was charged with making a death threat against Trump while in police custody on Aug. 17.

Prosecutors on Thursday asked a magistrate judge to dismiss the federal case against Dana, but they charged him with misdemeanors in D.C. Superior Court.

A spokesperson for Pirro’s office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Jones’ case.

Jones, 50, of Lafayette, Indiana, was arrested Aug. 16 in Washington on charges that she made death threats against Trump on social media and during an interview with Secret Service agents.

Prosecutors said Jones posted an Aug. 6 message on Facebook that she was “willing to sacrificially kill this POTUS by disemboweling him and cutting out his trachea.” When Secret Service agents questioned her on Aug. 15, Jones said she hoped to peacefully remove Trump from office but “will kill him out at the compound if I have to,” according to prosecutors. Jones was arrested a day later in Washington, where she joined a protest near the White House.

Jones repeatedly told Secret Service agents that she had no intent to harm anyone, didn’t own any weapons and went to Washington to peacefully protest, according to her attorney.

What to know when the Vikings travel to play the Chicago Bears on Monday night:

Vikings at Bears
When: 7:15 p.m. Monday
Where: Soldier Field
TV: ABC/ESPN
Radio: KFAN
Line: Vikings -1.5
Over/Under: 43.5

Keys for the Vikings

— It’s important that head coach Kevin O’Connell doesn’t put too much on young quarterback J.J. McCarthy. Though he might already carry himself like a face of the franchise, McCarthy shouldn’t be asked to be a superhero in the first start of his career. If the Vikings want to win the game, they have to limit the amount of times McCarthy feels like he has to win the game by himself. The rushing attack will be McCarthy’s best friend, with veteran running back Aaron Jones and fellow running back Jordan Mason shouldering the load in the backfield.

— The pass rush must get home on a consistent basis. That’s going to be the most effective way for the Vikings to get the Bears and their dynamic quarterback Caleb Williams out of rhythm. It’s likely that defensive coordinator Brian Flores will continue send pressure with reckless abandon; he has proven content to live by the blitz and die by the blitz as a play caller. It would help if the revamped defensive line could occasionally apply pressure without Flores having to constantly send extra pass rushers.

Keys for the Bears

— It’s on new head coach Ben Johnson to make life easy for Williams in the early stages of their relationship. He has shown a tendency to hold to the ball for too long when asked to drop back and read the defense. That was evidenced by the fact that he took 68 sacks as a rookie. A way to remedy that issue would be Johnson dialing up some simple reads designed for Williams get the ball out as quickly as possible. That could help the Bears keep the Vikings off balance.

— There was a viral moment from training camp when new defensive coordinator Dennis Allen told his players that it was a privilege to play in his defense. There’s an intensity about Allen that is mirrored in his aggressive approach to play calling. He’s going to put his players in position to make a game-changing play a number of times throughout the game. It’s on them to rise to the occasion when the opportunity presents itself.

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By JONEL ALECCIA

Contaminated metal at an industrial site in Indonesia may be the source of radioactive material that led to massive recalls of imported frozen shrimp, international nuclear safety officials say, as efforts are underway to halt more U.S.-bound shipments.

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The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday that officials are in “constant contact” with Indonesian nuclear regulators who have detected Cesium-137, a radioactive isotope, at a processing plant that sent millions of pounds of shrimp to the U.S.

“Preliminary information suggests that it may have originated from activities at a metal melting facility at the same industrial site or from the disposal of scrap metal junk to other areas of the site,” IAEA spokesperson Fredrik Dahl said in an email.

No U.S. investigators have been sent to the site in Serang, west of Jakarta, federal officials said.

Meanwhile, the company that exported the shrimp, PT Bahari Makmur Sejati, also known as BMS Foods, has recalled more than 300 shipping containers that were already on their way to the U.S., Dahl said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned last month that Cesium-137 was detected in shipping containers sent to four U.S. ports, and in a sample of imported frozen shrimp. That spurred multiple recalls of shrimp sold at Walmart, Kroger and other stores.

This week, additional recalls were issued by Tampa Maid Foods LLC, of Florida, for breaded butterfly shrimp sold under Admiral of the Fleet, Portico Seafood Classic and other labels.

None of the shrimp that triggered alerts or tested positive for Cesium-137 was released for sale, the FDA said. But other shipments sent to stores may have been manufactured under conditions that allowed the products to become contaminated, the agency said.

The risk appears to be small, but the shrimp could pose a “potential health concern” for people exposed to low levels of Cesium-137 over time, FDA officials said.

The FDA issued an import alert for shrimp from BMS Foods to stop the products from coming into the U.S.

The company sent about 12 million pounds of shrimp to U.S. ports in Los Angeles, Houston, Miami and Savannah, Georgia, in July and August, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection records obtained by Import Genius, a trade data analysis company.

CPB officials alerted the FDA to potential radioactive contamination of multiple shipping containers. The National Nuclear Security Administration has sent emergency teams on “multiple deployments” to “isolate and characterize the extent of Cesium-137 contamination,” a U.S. Energy Department spokesperson said.

The level of Cesium-137 detected in the frozen shrimp was about 68 becquerels per kilogram, a measure of radioactivity. That is far below the FDA’s level of 1,200 becquerels per kilogram that could trigger the need for health protections.

Still, it is unusual to see that concentration of Cesium-137 in shrimp, said Steve Biegalski, a nuclear medicine expert at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

It’s possible that the contamination could have come from recycling old medical equipment that contained Cesium-137, Biegalski said. The material has been used in medical devices to reduce blood contamination and to treat cancer, for instance.

When such equipment is no longer useful, it can be recycled. But if the Cesium-137 isn’t properly removed, radioactive material can be released into the environment.

“If they get broken up in some sort of crushing mechanism, then all of a sudden, it’s basically a salt,” Biegalski said. “It would be like you taking a giant salt shaker and spreading it all over the kitchen floor.”

Containing the contamination is key, and it requires experts who have the training and expertise to respond, he said.

“It needs to be tracked down, isolated and cleaned up,” Biegalski said.

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.