By CLAIRE RUSH and GENE JOHNSON

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge in Oregon has ordered narrow changes to hydropower dam operations on the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Pacific Northwest in order to help salmon, saying the Trump administration’s plans for the massive structures would harm salmon runs that are “disappearing from the landscape.”

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The ruling late Wednesday came in a decades-long legal effort by the states of Oregon and Washington, Native American tribes, and conservation and fishing groups to ensure better protections for migrating salmon, which are killed in large numbers by the dams.

In a landmark 2023 deal that paused the litigation in favor of finding long-term solutions, the Biden administration promised to spend $1 billion over a decade to help restore salmon while also boosting tribal clean energy projects.

But the Trump administration torpedoed that agreement last year, calling it “radical environmentalism” that could have resulted in the breaching of four controversial dams on the Snake River, and the plaintiffs went back to court. The deal had been opposed by Republicans who said it would jeopardize the region’s power supply, irrigation and the ability to export grain to Asia.

U.S. District Judge Michael Simon in his ruling Wednesday lamented what he described as the “disappointing history of government avoidance and manipulation instead of sincere efforts at solving the problem.”

“One of the foundational symbols of the West, a critical recreational, cultural, and economic driver for Western states, and the beating heart and guaranteed resource protected by treaties with several Native American tribes is disappearing from the landscape,” Simon wrote. “And yet the litigation continues in much the same way as it has for 30 years.”

A dispute over water and spill levels

Oregon and the other plaintiffs had asked Simon to lower the levels of reservoirs behind the dams, which they argued can help fish travel through them faster, and increase the amount of water spilled past them, which can help fish pass over the dams instead of through turbines. The federal government sought higher reservoir levels.

Simon ordered that reservoirs remain at the same level as last year and wrote that the changes in his order were “narrowly tailored” and essentially maintained the status quo.

“The Federal Defendants have, for years, maintained a safe and reliable power system and dam operations with the nearly the same spill levels as ordered here, and with the same reservoir levels from 2025,” he wrote.

Amanda Goodin, an attorney with the environmental law firm Earthjustice, said she was “incredibly relieved and happy that he ordered the levels of spill that he did.”

“If the government had been allowed to implement their proposal, it would have had really, really devastating consequences for salmon,” Goodin said.

The Bonneville Power Administration, which markets the electricity from the dams, referred a message seeking comment to the Justice Department, which said in an email Thursday that it had no comment.

In court filings, the federal government called the request a “sweeping scheme to wrest control” of the dams that would compromise the ability to operate them safely and efficiently for power generation, navigation and irrigation. Any such court order could also raise rates for utility customers, the government said.

FILE – Water moves through a spillway of the Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River near Almota, Wash., April 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Nicholas K. Geranios, File)

The dams have altered life in a wide area

The Columbia River Basin, spanning an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world’s greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are endangered or threatened. Another iconic but endangered Northwestern species, a population of killer whales, also depend on the salmon.

The construction of the first dams on the Columbia River, including the Grand Coulee and Bonneville in the 1930s, provided jobs during the Great Depression as well as hydropower and navigation. They made Lewiston, Idaho, the most inland seaport on the West Coast, and many farmers continue to rely on barges to ship their crops.

But the dams hurt salmon in a number of ways, including by forcing them through turbines, warming the slow-moving water in reservoirs to inhospitable temperatures, and greatly slowing the migration of juvenile fish to the sea. Juvenile salmon once reached the ocean from the upper Snake River in two or three days as swift currents pushed them along. Now, the journey past eight dams can take weeks, during which time they are exposed to more predators.

FILE – Water spills over the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, which runs along the Washington and Oregon state line, June 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski, File)

The plaintiffs, which include the state of Oregon and a coalition of conservation and fishing groups such as the National Wildlife Federation, filed the motion for a preliminary injunction, with Washington state, the Nez Perce Tribe and Yakama Nation supporting it as “friends of the court.”

Opponents of the injunction include the Inland Ports and Navigation Group, which says increasing spill to benefit fish can hinder navigation, disrupting the flow of commerce and hurt the economy.

“The order increases the risk of harm to infrastructure, listed species, and public safety while failing to demonstrate that there will be benefits to listed salmon and steelhead,” the organization said in a written statement.

The dams at issue are the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite on the Snake River, and the Bonneville, The Dalles, John Day and McNary on the Columbia.

Johnson reported from Seattle.

By SAM METZ

JERUSALEM (AP) — As U.S. forces mass in the Middle East, Iran faces the threat of major strikes by the world’s most powerful military, potentially targeting its leaders, military, nuclear sites and critical infrastructure.

Iran has nowhere near the same capabilities, and is even more vulnerable after last year’s war launched by Israel and recent anti-government protests. But it could still inflict pain on American forces and allies, and may feel it has to if the Islamic Republic’s survival is at stake.

While Iran suffered major losses last June, it still has hundreds of missiles capable of hitting Israel, according to Israel’s estimates. Iran boasts a much larger arsenal of shorter-range missiles capable of hitting U.S. bases in Gulf countries and offshore American forces, soon to be joined by a second aircraft carrier.

Iran has previously threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for the global oil trade, and claimed to have done so partially during military drills last week.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Iran could sink American warships, and top officials have said a U.S. attack would spark regional war. Iran’s U.N. ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said “all bases, facilities and assets of the hostile force in the region” would be legitimate targets.

Lingering capabilities

Israel carried out heavy strikes on Iran’s longer range missile arsenals — as well as its military leadership and nuclear program — during the 12-day war in June. The U.S. struck Iran’s main nuclear sites, and President Donald Trump said at the time that they had been “obliterated.”

But the extent of the damage — and how much has been rebuilt — is still unknown. Iran continued to strike Israel with missiles and drones until the fighting stopped, increasingly eluding its vaunted air defenses.

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Iran’s shorter-range missile arsenal was largely untouched, said Danny Citrinowicz, an Iran expert at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. That could make Iran more inclined to retaliate against tens of thousands of U.S. forces based in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.

“Iran may be weak. But it still has ways to inflict real pain on the United States — and much more incentive to try than it did before,” Nate Swanson, head of the Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project, wrote in Foreign Affairs. “Iranian officials feel they need to give Trump a bloody nose or they will perpetually be at risk.”

Iran launched missiles at a U.S. base in Iraq after the killing of its top general in 2020 and targeted a U.S. base in Qatar near the end of last year’s war. Those strikes, which appeared to have been telegraphed in advance, caused damage but no fatalities, as early warning systems and missile defenses swung into action.

Iran could also carry out attacks farther afield. The country has been accused of using criminal gangs and armed groups to plan or carry out attacks around the world, including on dissidents, Israelis and Jewish targets.

Learning curve

Last year’s Israeli strikes killed several top generals and nuclear scientists, revealing major vulnerabilities. At one point, Trump said the U.S. knew where Khamenei was hiding, calling him an ” easy target.”

Fresh off the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Trump may consider decapitation strikes aimed at bringing down Iran’s decades-old Shiite theocracy, which he recently said “would be the best thing that could happen.”

The Iranians have had eight months to learn from their mistakes and firm up internal security. Citrinowicz said there are likely contingency plans if Khamenei were to be killed. Rather than naming a single successor, power would probably shift to a small committee until hostilities subsided.

Experts say the death of the 86-year-old Khamenei, who has ruled Iran for over three decades, would not in itself spell the end of the Islamic Republic. Power might eventually pass to a member of his inner circle, as it did in Venezuela, or to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

US allies could be targets

American allies are clearly concerned about a regional war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned of a heavy response to any Iranian attack on Israel.

Arab Gulf states have long viewed Iran with concern and leaned on the U.S. for defense, but do not want to be drawn into war. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which host thousands of American troops, have said they would not allow their airspace to be used.

An Arab Gulf diplomat said regional leaders were talking to Iran and the United States to avert war, warning that it could have severe consequences, including a spike in oil prices. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive, closed-door talks.

Iran has its own allies, including Houthi rebels in Yemen, armed groups in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. But its self-described Axis of Resistance suffered major losses in the fighting that rippled across the region after Hamas’ October 2023 attack from Gaza.

A global pressure point

Another close-in target could allow Iran to inflict wider pain.

Around one-fifth of all traded oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, just off Iran’s shore. The U.S. Navy is committed to keeping it open, but Iranian attacks could disrupt trade, as the far-weaker Houthis managed to do in the Red Sea for much of the past two years.

Iranian officials have not explicitly threatened to target the strait in the current standoff, but Iranian forces partially closed it last week during military drills, signaling it could be vulnerable if war breaks out.

Other critical oil assets would also be within range. In 2019, strikes on oil infrastructure temporarily halved Saudi Arabia’s production. Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility, but U.S. officials later blamed Iran.

The nuclear question

After initially threatening military action over Iran’s killing of protesters, Trump shifted attention to its nuclear program, warning that “bad things” would happen if Iran doesn’t agree to a deal. The two sides are set to hold another round of indirect talks in Geneva on Thursday.

Iran has always said its nuclear program is peaceful, while the U.S. and others have long suspected that Tehran intends to eventually develop weapons. After Trump scrapped a 2015 nuclear agreement, Iran ramped up its enrichment of uranium, building up a stockpile of near-weapons grade material.

Iran’s biggest sites were hit by U.S. and Israeli strikes, causing significant damage above ground. But it’s unclear whether enriched uranium was spirited away before they were hit or buried underground. Iran says it has been unable to enrich since then, but it has also barred inspections.

Iran is still believed to be a long ways from developing a usable nuclear weapon, but radioactive material could pose a risk in the event of widespread strikes.

Associated Press writer Samy Magdy contributed reporting from Cairo.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — When roadblocks, explosions and gunshots broke out after the killing of Mexico’s most powerful drug lord, people who rushed to their cellphones for information found social media posts depicting a country in chaos.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel responded to the massive Mexican army operation to capture Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” on Sunday with an even bigger wave of retaliatory violence in some 20 states. More than 70 people were killed.

But in addition to real accounts of death and destruction and the warnings from governments for their citizens to shelter in place, the internet was flooded with disinformation — fake videos and images generated by artificial intelligence. They were designed to stoke fear, Mexican officials said.

“We didn’t know what was true and what was false,” said Victoria Elizabeth Peceril, 31, who was walking with her three children in the now-calm streets of Guadalajara on Wednesday. “We were really scared.”

Some posts falsely claimed the president hid and an airport was seized

Fruit vendors walk along a street in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

One fake post purported to show a commercial plane on fire at Guadalajara’s international airport. Messages spread that gunmen had seized the airport and tourists had been taken hostage.

The government said there were between 200 and 500 troublesome and inaccurate posts — including up to 30 that have received more than 100,000 views — since Sunday’s army operation.

Stillwater couple sheltered in place at their hotel in Puerta Vallarta on Sunday

Officials presented data compiled by Tecnologico de Monterrey, a private university, during President Claudia Sheinbaum’s daily news briefing Wednesday. It said 35% to 40% of those posts lacked context, at least 25% were misleading, and nearly 25% were manipulated by AI or fabricated.

One post claimed a U.S. agent had strangled Oseguera Cervantes. Another said Sheinbaum was hiding on a naval vessel off Mexico’s Pacific coast. Others speculated that Mexico killed Oseguera Cervantes rather than turn him over to the U.S., or tried to tie his killing to the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, according to the university’s report.

The university did not suggest who, or what, was producing the content.

“There was a lot of badly intentioned news Sunday, looking to generate terror,” Sheinbaum said a day earlier.

The Jalisco cartel is known for extraordinary violence

People mill about in the plaza of the Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady in the center of Guadalajara, Mexico, Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026. (Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Many people in Mexico learn about what is happening in their communities via chat groups on messaging apps or from accounts on the social platform X. In the northern border cities that live in the grip of organized crime, these sometimes read like traffic reports, telling drivers the location of convoys of criminals so they can stay away.

The Jalisco cartel has built a reputation for spectacular acts of violence, including downing a military helicopter and attempting to assassinate Mexico City’s police chief, so social media posts proclaiming extraordinary cartel brutality are difficult to doubt.

“At first, we believed everything,” said 28-year-old Nicolás Martín, who lives in Mexico City but had been staying at a resort near Puerto Vallarta when the violence began. He said the images posted online resembled “what you see in movies.”

Martín said he was surprised by the quality of posts that circulated early Sunday — including what appeared to be drone footage — supposedly showing explosions and fires in Puerto Vallarta. In the initial moments of chaos, you would expect the images to be less steady, more haphazard, he said.

Organized criminals are becoming tech-savvy

Newspapers hang on display for sale in Mexico City, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, a day after the Mexican army killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.” (AP Photo/Jon Orbach)

Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert in organized crime at the Brookings Institution — a Washington-based public policy think tank — it’s possible that people tied to the Jalisco cartel were behind at least some of the disinformation.

Among Mexico’s organized crime groups, the Jalisco cartel in particular has invested in its online presence.

“The criminals are becoming very tech-savvy,” Felbab-Brown said.

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“It was impressive to see the level of misinformation,” she said, citing the images purporting to show the cartel had taken over the airport in Guadalajara. She said those “impressive and sophisticated” posts are likely generated by AI from chatbots controlled by Jalisco Nueva Generación.

They “certainly added to the aura of chaos and meltdown in Mexico,” Felbab-Brown said.

Even though Mexican authorities and the U.S. Embassy tried to knock down some of the false information circulating Sunday, Sarai Olguín, a 22-year-old college student in Guadalajara, said it was difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction.

Friends sent her videos and photos they found online as she and other residents hid inside their homes. She credits the posts in part with keeping people off the streets.

One post warned that “after a certain hour they were going to kill everyone,” she said. “In a way it’s good, because all of this false news helped take care of people even though they sowed immense fear.”

Verza reported from Mexico City. Associated Press fact checker Abril Mulato in Mexico City contributed.

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NEW YORK (AP) — The trial began this week of a Pakistani man who U.S. prosecutors say had ties to the Iranian government and traveled to New York to meet with men he thought he was recruiting to carry out political assassinations on American soil, including potentially of President Donald Trump.

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Asif Merchant, 47, faces a life sentence if he’s convicted of terrorism charges. His trial got underway Wednesday in a federal court in Brooklyn.

Prosecutors said in court filings that a man who Merchant initially met when he arrived in New York in April 2024 later notified authorities about the plot and became a confidential informant, The New York Times reported. Merchant later paid a $5,000 advance to two would-be assassins who were actually undercover FBI agents, prosecutors said.

At the time, Merchant did not specify who the target would be, but court filings show the potential targets included high-level officials such as Trump.

Merchant, who has maintained his innocence, is a deeply religious man who frequently traveled to Iran and Pakistan, where he has separate families, which his lawyers noted is legal in both countries he calls home. They told jurors Wednesday that there was simply not enough evidence to show their client was involved in some type of plot.

Prosecutors told jurors that Merchant sketched out his plans by putting objects on a hotel napkin to represent people and places in a potential assassination plot, including the target, crowd and buildings. The killing would have occurred during the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.

FILE – This image provided by the Justice Department, contained in the complaint supporting the arrest warrant, shows Asif Merchant. (Justice Department via AP, File)

The FBI has foiled several alleged attacks through sting operations in which agents posed as terror supporters, supplying advice or equipment. Critics say the strategy can amount to entrapment of mentally vulnerable people who wouldn’t have the wherewithal to act alone.