By JOSH FUNK, Associated Press

A fuel leak and several improperly installed parts were found inside the engine of an American Airlines plane that caught fire after the plane landed in Denver in March, according to a new report released Thursday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said one part inside the right engine of the Boeing 737-800 was loose and had been installed in an incorrect direction and that fuel was leaking from the fitting of another part that was incorrectly fastened.

The preliminary findings don’t identify the cause of the fire because the NTSB won’t reach that conclusion until after it completes its investigation sometime next year.

FILE – In this image taken from video provided by Justus Rainey, passengers move away from a plane as smoke surrounded the aircraft, in Denver, March 13, 2025. (Justus Rainey via AP, File)

But former NTSB and FAA investigator Jeff Guzzetti said the problems investigators found in the engine appear to be the source of the fuel that caught fire.

“To me, it looks like improper maintenance in the right engine leading to a fuel leak,” Guzzetti said after reading the NTSB report.

Photos and videos posted online showed billowing smoke and passengers standing on the plane’s wing after it taxied to a gate at Denver International Airport. Twelve people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

The plane carried 172 passengers and six crew. The NTSB said gate workers extinguished the fire within a minute even before firefighters arrived and doused lingering hot spots on the plane.

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Pictures included in the NTSB report show streaks on the outside of the engine from the leaking fuel, and airport video showed a trail of fluid leaking from under the right engine as the airplane taxied into the gate.

Guzzetti said he believes those streaks were probably made while the plane was flying. After it landed, he said, the fuel likely pooled inside the engine and caught fire.

The American Airlines flight had left Colorado Springs Airport and was bound for Dallas Fort Worth when it diverted to Denver on March 13 after the crew reported high engine vibrations. The plane’s right engine caught fire after it arrived at the gate.

Passengers started yelling “fire” and “smoke” shortly after the plane pulled up to the gate, and flight attendants saw smoke start to fill the cabin, according to the NTSB report.

The flight attendants tried calling the flight crew and knocking on the cockpit door, but didn’t get an answer. So the report said the flight attendants initiated the evacuation.

Passengers were able to use the jetway at the front left door and the escape slide at the right rear door as well as the left over-wing doors to evacuate. But the left rear door wouldn’t open, and maintenance personnel discovered afterward that the escape slide jammed in the door.

The faulty slide was sent to the manufacturer for further investigation.

The country has seen a recent spate of aviation disasters and close calls stoking fears about air travel, though flying remains a very safe mode of transportation.

By BERNARD CONDON, Associated Press

Shares of Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker fell sharply Thursday as investors feared his dispute with President Donald Trump will hurt the company.

Tesla closed down more than 14% as a disagreement over the U.S. president’s budget bill turned nasty. After Musk said that Trump wouldn’t haven’t gotten elected without his help, Trump implied that he may turn the federal government against his companies, including Tesla and SpaceX.

“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote on his social messaging service Truth Social. “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”

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The drop on Thursday wiped out nearly $150 billion from Tesla’s market value, partially reversing a big runup in the eight weeks since Musk confirmed that Tesla would testing an autonomous, driverless “robotaxi” service in Austin, Texas, this month.

Investors fear Trump might not be in such a rush to usher in a future of self-driving cars in the U.S., and that could slam Tesla because so much of its future business depends on that.

“There is a fear that Trump is not going to play Mr. Nice Guy when in come to autonomous,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. “The whole goal of robotaxis is to have them 20 or 25 cities next year. If you start to heighten the regulatory environment, that could delay that path.”

Trump’s threat to cut government contracts seem targeted more to another of Musk’s businesses, SpaceX, his privately held rocket company that received billions of dollars to send astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, provide launches and do other work for NASA. The company is currently racing to develop a mega rocket for the space agency to sent astronauts to moon next year.

A subsidiary of SpaceX, the satellite internet company Starlink, appears to also have benefited from Musk’s once-close relationship with the president.

On a trip with Trump to the Middle East last month, Musk announced that Saudi Arabia had approved his satellite service for aviation and maritime use. Though its not clear how much politics has played a role, a string of other recent deals for the company in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and elsewhere has come as Trump has threatened tariffs and sent diplomats scrambling to please the president.

One measure of SpaceX’s success: A private financing round followed by a private sale of shares recently reportedly valued it at $350 billion, up from an estimated $210 billion just a year ago. Tesla shares initially got a lift from his support of Trump. In the weeks after Trump was elected, Tesla shares soared, hitting an all-time high on Dec. 17. But they gave back those gains during Musk’s time as head of a government cost-cutting group as Tesla’s reputation took a hit. They’ve recently popped higher again after Musk vowed to focus much more on Tesla and its upcoming launch of driverless taxis.

Minnesota legislative leaders said earlier this week that they’re inching toward the finish line as they work to draft bills and secure enough votes to pass budget bills.

If lawmakers don’t finish their work by July 1, the state could go into a partial government shutdown. A first round of layoff notices was sent to state employees on June 1, warning of the shutdown possibility. Gov. Tim Walz said the second round, affecting 28,000 employees, go out June 9, but he’s hoping to finish work before then.

Gov. Tim Walz.

“That causes great uncertainty for folks. I think it adds unnecessary chaos,” he said. “It’s still my desire, and this is a negotiated issue … that that be a one-day (special) session. So it means once we come out of this room … we got a day to do it. So I would tell you, it’s my desire that this thing be buttoned up so I don’t have to send out those notes.”

Walz and DFL House Leader Melissa Hortman, DFL–Brooklyn Park, said a special session could happen soon — possibly Saturday. Speaker of the House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, did not commit to a specific date, but said a special session “should be called soon.”

House Speaker Lisa Demuth (Courtesy photo)

All leaders said significant work remains, and agreed that the budget bills for Health and Human Services, Transportation and Taxes are currently the biggest holdups. A bonding bill is still up in the air.

Concerns over budget agreement

The transportation bill is under scrutiny after the Dakota County Board of Commissioners wrote to lawmakers Wednesday, claiming the budget agreement — reached last month by state leaders — would divert $93 million in regional sales tax revenue for the Metropolitan Council.

The tax bill is up in the air after the chairs of the Tax Committees in the Senate and House, Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, and Rep. Greg Davids, R-Preston, spoke out on Monday against the tax bill agreement that leadership released over the weekend. Davids said he would have liked to see more relief for data centers, as well as some proposals that leadership left out, such as a sustainable aviation fuel tax credit.

House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman.

The Human Services budget bill comprises the second largest part of the state’s budget, at $24 billion, and also will be subject to the most net cuts out of any budget bill this year — $300 million. Hortman said the delay in the Health and Human Services bills is mostly due to the time-consuming process for the Office of Revisors of Statutes in drafting such a large and complex bill.

It’s still unclear whether the issue of repealing MinnesotaCare for undocumented adults — a contingency in the budget deal struck by Walz and leaders — will travel in the Health budget bill or as a stand-alone bill during the special session.

State leaders didn’t confirm whether they have the votes from their caucuses to pass all of the budget bills. Hortman said the process of caucusing and securing each vote takes time — especially when drafts are still in progress.

“I signed an agreement that committed my caucus to deliver votes to pass bills … But we’re not at the point where we have caucused every single bill,” she said. “You can’t ask people will you vote for a bill until the bill is done being drafted.”

Missed deadline

As lawmakers work to wrap up business, most of it is behind closed doors, as public meetings are few and far between.

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy.

Beyond the regular session May 19 deadline, leaders have missed several self-imposed deadlines for finishing their work: May 26, May 29 and June 4. Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said Wednesday that lawmakers are “making progress — it is as slow as molasses, but molasses is good.”

The budget is looking to be $66 billion to $67 billion, roughly $5 billion less than 2023’s budget. Cuts are coming in heavy for the 2026-2027 budget after a February forecast showed the state could be headed toward a $6 billion deficit in 2028-2029.

“We have the closest split in any Legislature maybe ever for the tie in the House and one vote of the Senate, which means the details matter, “ Walz said Wednesday. “We’ve been saying all along this needs to get done. We have already blown through some of the gates that needed to be accomplished, and those become much more serious as we move closer towards July 1.”

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By JUAN A. LOZANO

HOUSTON (AP) — Investigators are looking into whether the sexual orientation of “King of the Hill” voice actor Jonathan Joss played a role in his shooting death in Texas, authorities said Thursday, walking back a previous statement about the potential motive.

Joss’ husband has claimed the person who killed the actor yelled “violent homophobic slurs” before opening fire outside his home in San Antonio on Sunday night. A day after the shooting, San Antonio police issued a statement saying they had found “no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Mr. Joss’ murder was related to his sexual orientation.”

But during a news conference on Thursday, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said the statement was “premature” and that whether Joss’ sexual orientation played a role in the shooting “is part of the investigation.”

“I will own that and simply say again that we simply shouldn’t have done that. It was way too early in the process for any statement of that nature to be issued,” McManus said.

The police chief said many in the LGBTQ+ community “are feeling anxious and concerned” after Joss’ shooting and that “a lot of it has to do with that premature statement.”

“The loss of Jonathan Joss was tragic, most heavily felt by the LGBTQ+ community,” McManus said.

Texas does not have separate hate crimes charges. But if homophobia is found to have been a motive in the shooting, that could result in a harsher sentence at trial under the state’s hate crimes law.

“We gather the facts, and we give those facts to the district attorney’s office. And then that hate crime designation is determined at sentencing,” McManus said.

The actor’s home burned down in January. Joss’ husband, Tristan Kern de Gonzales, has said that they were checking mail there Sunday when a man approached them, pulled out a gun and opened fire.

In a statement, de Gonzales said he and Joss had previously faced harassment, much of it “openly homophobic.”

Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez, who is a neighbor of Joss, is charged with murder in the shooting. Ceja Alvarez has been released on a $200,000 bond.

Ceja Alvarez’s attorney, Alfonso Otero, did not immediately return an email seeking comment Thursday.

McManus said police had been called to Joss’ home and his neighborhood about 70 times over the past two years related to “neighborhood type disturbances.”

“Sometimes (Joss) was the caller. Other times, the neighbors were calling on him,” McManus said.

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The San Antonio Police Department’s mental health unit as well as a unit known as SAFFE that works with residents to help prevent crime “had extensive engagements with Mr. Joss, making repeated efforts to mediate conflicts and connect him with services that he may have needed,” McManus said.

The January fire at Joss’ home is still being reviewed by arson investigators, McManus said.

Joss lost all his belongings in the blaze and his three dogs were killed.

Actors who worked with Joss, along with friends and fans have honored Joss’ memory with tributes.

“His voice will be missed at King of the Hill, and we extend our deepest condolences to Jonathan’s friends and family,” the show’s creators and producers — Mike Judge, Greg Daniels and Saladin Patterson — said in a statement on the animated series’ Instagram page.