By MARÍA VERZA, Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum denied her administration had an agreement with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Tuesday, hours after the U.S. agency announced “a major new initiative” to collaborate in the fight against drug cartels.

Sheinbaum was referring to “Project Portero,” an effort announced Monday by the DEA, calling it a “flagship operation” against smuggling routes that move drugs, guns and money across the border.

“The DEA put out a statement yesterday saying that there is an agreement with the Mexican government for an operation called Portero,” Sheinbaum said during her morning news briefing. “There is no agreement with the DEA. The DEA puts out this statement, based on what we don’t know. We have not reached any agreement, none of the security institutions (have) with the DEA.”

The U.S. embassy in Mexico and the DEA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Sheinbaum said the only thing happening was a workshop in Texas attended by four members of Mexico’s police force.

The DEA statement mentioned that workshop, saying it had brought Mexican investigators to one of its intelligence centers to train with U.S. prosecutors, law enforcement, defense officials and members of the intelligence community.

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The visibly annoyed president made her comments just days after generally positive exchanges between the two governments following another extension to ward off threatened U.S. tariffs and another shipment of 26 drug cartel figures to the U.S. from Mexico.

Mexico had seemed to be repairing the security relationship with the United States after six years of tension under Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had reined in DEA agents operating in Mexico and accused the agency of wholesale fabrication when it arrested Mexico’s former defense secretary.

Sheinbaum’s administration had taken a more aggressive stance toward pursuing Mexico’s drug cartels and sent dozens of cartel figures sought by U.S. prosecutors to the United States.

Sheinbaum did say that members of her administration had been working for months with U.S. counterparts on a broader security agreement that was practically finished. She said that agreement was based on four principles her administration has stressed for months: sovereignty, mutual trust, territorial respect and coordination without subordination.

The thing that seemed to have her bristling Tuesday was the DEA sending out a statement without proper coordination.

Sheinbaum said she asked the DEA to respect Mexico, to follow agreed-upon protocols for such announcements, and emphasized that Mexico only signs agreements with the U.S. government, not with individual agencies.

The DEA statement included a comment from agency administrator Terry Cole, who was recently tapped to lead the Trump administration takeover of the Washington D.C. police.

“Project Portero and this new training program show how we will fight — by planning and operating side by side with our Mexican partners, and by bringing the full strength of the U.S. government to bear,” Cole said in the Monday statement.

The 3M Open date remains unchanged, again scheduled for the second-to-last weekend in July in 2026.

Its spot within the PGA Tour schedule, however, was adjusted by a week.

There lies the problem.

The Tour’s schedule weas bumped back a week this year, which pushes next year’s Tour Championship to the last weekend in August. So how is the TPC Twin Cities stop still on the same spot on the calendar?

One event – the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Michigan – was moved to the last weekend in July and will be played the week following the 3M Open, with the Wyndham Championship still being the final event of the regular season.

That could cause fewer big-name players to make the transcontinental flight to the Twin Cities.

The 3M Open has long been in the disadvantageous spot of taking place the week after the final major of the year – The Open Championship.

But Minnesota’s PGA Tour stop had one thing going for it as the second-to-last event pre-playoffs – guys sometimes had no choice but to play in Blaine in the pursuit of points if they had goals on getting into the top 70 to reach the postseason or trying to secure a top-50 spot to clinch their position in the following year’s high-payout, no-cut signature events.

That’s one of the reasons the likes of Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott and Wyndham Clark were in the 2025 field.

Now, with two more point-earning possibilities between the 3M Open and the playoff, it will be easier for players to justify taking a week off following their overseas competition(s) to recharge for a potential playoff push.

Because anyone playing in the 3M Open in an attempt to qualify for the playoffs could be setting themselves up to play six or seven events in a row, which is uncommon for players.

The tournament has done a good job attracting relatively appealing fields with a deck stacked against it in recent years, the challenge did appear to just get a bit more difficult.

Other 2026 schedule notes

Trump National Doral is back on the PGA Tour schedule next year as a signature event that is sure to test how often the top golfers want to play during an extraordinary spring of five big tournaments in a six-week stretch.

Doral long was considered the start of the Florida swing, a can’t-miss event as the PGA Tour began attracting international stars.

Next year it will be a $20 million signature event the first weekend in May, part of a stretch that starts with the Masters, ends with the PGA Championship and has three signature events in the four weeks in between.

That also means players not eligible for those big events would have only two tournaments to play — one of them with a minimal purse — in that six-week stretch.

“We’re excited to showcase the game’s greatest players competing at golf’s most iconic venues,” said Brian Rolapp, the tour’s new CEO.

There’s virtually no change from the 2025 schedule except for a few tournaments changing dates, the Mexico Open moving to the fall and moving the opposite-field event in the Dominican Republic from March (against Bay Hill) to July (against the British Open).

The PGA Tour lost the Barracuda Championship in Truckee, Calif., that had been opposite the British Open. It was the only tournament that used the modified Stableford scoring system.

Still to be determined is a title sponsor for what now is called the Miami Championship.

Doral first became part of the PGA Tour schedule in 1962. It became a World Golf Championship event in 2007, and then the PGA Tour struggled to find a title sponsor when President Donald Trump bought the resort.

It moved away from Trump Doral to Mexico City after 2016, prompting Trump — the presumed Republican nominee at the time — to say, “I hope they have kidnapping insurance.”

The famed “Blue Monster” at Trump Doral then became a site for Saudi-funded LIV Golf each of the past four years. Miami is not part of the LIV schedule for 2026, although his Trump National outside Washington will be used.

The spring stretch isn’t the only busy part of the schedule.

The PGA Tour season begins a week later on Jan. 8 at Kapalua, giving players a little more time after the holidays to get ready.

That means the WM Phoenix Open, which prefers to end on Super Bowl Sunday, will be Feb. 5-8. The AT&T Pebble Beach moves back a week followed by the Genesis Invitational, both $20 million signature events.

Previously, the Mexico Open was after the West Coast Swing, a week before the start of the Florida Swing. Now the Cognizant Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., will follow two signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera, and precede two more big events in the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players Championship.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

After closing in January, Burnsville’s former Macy’s store has a new owner.

The Burnsville Center store recently sold for $4 million to Burnsville Commercial Partners LLC, according to July filings with the Minnesota Department of Revenue.

The former storefront, located at 14251 Burnhaven Drive, was closed as part of the retailer’s “Bold New Chapter” strategy that aimed to close underproductive stores over a three-year period while investing in other locations, according to a news release from the retailer.

More than 60 locations were closed earlier this year, including the Burnsville Macy’s and another at the Maplewood Mall.

What will come of the Burnsville facility is still unknown as representatives from Burnsville Commercial Partners LLC did not immediately return a Pioneer Press request for comment.

According to Dakota County property records, the roughly 17-acre lot includes the 222,000-square-foot department store building that was constructed in 1977.

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By FATIMA HUSSEIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The seasonably adjusted unemployment rate in Washington, D.C., was the highest in the nation for the third straight month, according to new data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

D.C.’s jobless rate reached 6% in July, a reflection of the mass layoffs of federal workers, ushered in by President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, earlier this year. An overall decline in international tourism — which is a main driver of D.C.’s income — is also expected to have an impact on the climbing unemployment rate in the District.

Neighboring states also saw an uptick in unemployment rates in July — with Maryland at 3.4% (up from 3.3%) and Virginia at 3.6% (up from 3.5%), according to the state-by-state jobless figures.

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Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, federal workers across government agencies have been either laid off or asked to voluntarily resign from their positions. Those actions have drawn litigation across the federal government by labor unions and advocacy groups.

In July, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump administration plans to downsize the federal workforce further, despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs.

The latest D.C. Office of Revenue Analysis figures show that payments made to unemployed federal workers have been climbing month-over-month. In April, unemployed workers received $2.01 million in unemployment payments. By June, that figure reached $2.57 million.

The DC Fiscal Policy Institute argues that the federal worker layoffs will exacerbate D.C.’s Black-white unemployment ratio. The latest nationwide unemployment rate according to the BLS is 4.2% — South Dakota had the lowest jobless rate in July at 1.9%.

In addition, international tourism, a major source of D.C., to the U.S. is declining. Angered by Trump’s tariffs and rhetoric, and alarmed by reports of tourists being arrested at the border, some citizens of other countries are staying away from the U.S. and choosing to travel elsewhere — notably British, German and South American tourists, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.

A May report from the organization states that international visitor spending to the U.S. is projected to fall to just under $169 billion this year, down from $181 billion in 2024 — which is a 22.5% decline compared to the previous peak.

The latest jobs numbers come after the Republican president and a group of GOP governors have deployed National Guard troops to D.C. in the hopes of reducing crime and boosting immigration enforcement.

City officials say crime is already falling in the nation’s capital.