By SAM MEDNICK

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear program because its archenemy’s furtive efforts to build an atomic weapon are a threat to its existence.

What’s not-so-secret is that for decades Israel has been believed to be the Middle East’s only nation with nuclear weapons, even though its leaders have refused to confirm or deny their existence.

Israel’s ambiguity has enabled it to bolster its deterrence against Iran and other enemies, experts say, without triggering a regional nuclear arms race or inviting preemptive attacks.

Israel is one of just five countries that aren’t party to a global nuclear nonproliferation treaty. That relieves it of international pressure to disarm, or even to allow inspectors to scrutinize its facilities.

Critics in Iran and elsewhere have accused Western countries of hypocrisy for keeping strict tabs on Iran’s nuclear program — which its leaders insist is only for peaceful purposes — while effectively giving Israel’s suspected arsenal a free pass.

On Sunday, the U.S. military struck three nuclear sites in Iran, inserting itself into Israel’s effort to destroy Iran’s program.

Here’s a closer look at Israel’s nuclear program:

A history of nuclear ambiguity

Israel opened its Negev Nuclear Research Center in the remote desert city of Dimona in 1958, under the country’s first leader, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. He believed the tiny fledgling country surrounded by hostile neighbors needed nuclear deterrence as an extra measure of security. Some historians say they were meant to be used only in case of emergency, as a last resort.

After it opened, Israel kept the work at Dimona hidden for a decade, telling United States’ officials it was a textile factory, according to a 2022 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an academic journal.

Relying on plutonium produced at Dimona, Israel has had the ability to fire nuclear warheads since the early 1970s, according to that article, co-authored by Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, and Matt Korda, a researcher at the same organization.

Israel’s policy of ambiguity suffered a major setback in 1986, when Dimona’s activities were exposed by a former technician at the site, Mordechai Vanunu. He provided photographs and descriptions of the reactor to The Sunday Times of London.

Vanunu served 18 years in prison for treason, and is not allowed to meet with foreigners or leave the country.

Israel possesses dozens of nuclear warheads, experts say

Experts estimate Israel has between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, although they say the lower end of that range is more likely.

Israel also has stockpiled as much as 1,110 kilograms (2,425 pounds) of plutonium, potentially enough to make 277 nuclear weapons, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security organization. It has six submarines believed to be capable of launching nuclear cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles believed to be capable of launching a nuclear warhead up to 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles), the organization says.

Germany has supplied all of the submarines to Israel, which are docked in the northern city of Haifa, according to the article by Kristensen and Korda.

Nuclear weapons in the Middle East pose risks

In the Middle East, where conflicts abound, governments are often unstable, and regional alliances are often shifting, nuclear proliferation is particularly dangerous, said Or Rabinowitz, a scholar at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and a visiting associate professor at Stanford University.

“When nuclear armed states are at war, the world always takes notice because we don’t like it when nuclear arsenals … are available for decision makers,” she said.

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Rabinowitz says Israel’s military leaders could consider deploying a nuclear weapon if they found themselves facing an extreme threat, such as a weapon of mass destruction being used against them.

Three countries other than Israel have refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: India, Pakistan and South Sudan. North Korea has withdrawn. Iran has signed the treaty, but it was censured earlier this month, shortly before Israel launched its operation, by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog — a day before Israel attacked — for violating its obligations.

Israel’s policy of ambiguity has helped it evade greater scrutiny, said Susie Snyder at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group that works to promote adherence to the U.N. treaty.

Its policy has also shined a light on the failure of Western countries to rein in nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, she said.

They “prefer not to be reminded of their own complicity,” she said.

By JEFF McMURRAY

Maria Weston Kuhn had one lingering question about the car crash that forced her to have emergency surgery during a vacation in Ireland: Why did she and her mother sustain serious injuries while her father and brother, who sat in the front, emerge unscathed?

“It was a head-on crash and they were closest to the point of contact,” said Kuhn, now 25, who missed a semester of college to recover from the 2019 collision that caused her seat belt to slide off her hips and rupture her intestines by pinning them against her spine. “That was an early clue that something else was going on.”

When Kuhn returned home to Maine, she found an article her grandma had clipped from Consumer Reports and left on her bed. Women are 73% more likely to be injured in a frontal crash, she learned, yet the dummy used in vehicle tests by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration dates back to the 1970s and is still modeled almost entirely off the body of a man.

A survivor becomes an activist

Kuhn, who is starting law school at New York University this fall, took action and founded the nonprofit Drive US Forward. Its aim was to raise public awareness and eventually encourage members of Congress to sign onto a bill that would require NHTSA to incorporate a more advanced female dummy into its testing.

The agency has the final word on whether cars get pulled from the market, and the kind of dummy used in its safety tests could impact which ones receive coveted five-star ratings.

“It seems like we have an easy solution here where we can have crash test dummies that reflect an average woman as well as a man,” Sen. Deb Fischer, a Nebraska Republican who has introduced the legislation the past two sessions, told The Associated Press.

Senators from both parties have signed onto Fischer’s “She Drives Act,” and the transportation secretaries from the past two presidential administrations have expressed support for updating the rules.

But for various reasons, the push for new safety requirements has been moving at a sluggish pace. That’s particularly true in the U.S., where much of the research is happening and where around 40,000 people are killed each year in car crashes.

Evolution of a crash test dummy

The crash test dummy currently used in NHTSA five-star testing is called the Hybrid III, which was developed in 1978 and modeled after a 5-foot-9, 171-pound man (the average size in the 1970s but about 29 pounds lighter than today’s average). What’s known as the female dummy is essentially a much smaller version of the male model with a rubber jacket to represent breasts. It’s routinely tested in the passenger seat or the back seat but seldom in the driver’s seat, even though the majority of licensed drivers are women.

“What they didn’t do is design a crash test dummy that has all the sensors in the areas where a woman would be injured differently than a man,” said Christopher O’Connor, president and CEO of the Farmington Hills, Michigan-based Humanetics Group, which has spent more than a decade developing and refining one.

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A female dummy from Humanetics equipped with all of the available sensors costs around $1 million, about twice the cost of the Hybrid used now.

But, O’Connor says, the more expensive dummy far more accurately reflects the anatomical differences between the sexes — including in the shape of the neck, collarbone, pelvis, and legs, which one NHTSA study found account for about 80% more injuries by women in a car crash compared to men.

Such physical dummies will always be needed for vehicle safety tests, and to verify the accuracy of virtual tests, O’Connor said.

Europe incorporated the more advanced male dummy developed by Humanetics’ engineers, the THOR 50M (based on a 50th percentile man), into its testing procedures soon after Kuhn’s 2019 crash in Ireland. Several other countries, including China and Japan, have adopted it as well.

But that model and the female version the company uses for comparison, the THOR 5F (based on a 5th percentile woman), have been met with skepticism from some American automakers who argue the more sophisticated devices may exaggerate injury risks and undercut the value of some safety features such as seat belts and airbags.

A debate over whether more sensors mean more safety

Bridget Walchesky, 19, had to be flown to a hospital, where she required eight surgeries over a month, after a 2022 crash near her home in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, that killed her friend, who was driving. While acknowledging the seat belt likely saved her life, Walchesky said some of the injuries — including her broken collarbone — were the result of it pinning her too tightly, which she views as something better safety testing focused on women could improve.

“Seat belts aren’t really built for bodies on females,” Walchesky said. “Some of my injuries, the way the force hit me, they were probably worsened.”

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry trade group, said in a statement to the AP that the better way to ensure safety — which it called its top priority — is through upgrades to the existing Hybrid dummy rather than mandating a new one.

“This can happen on a faster timeline and lead to quicker safety improvements than requiring NHTSA to adopt unproven crash test dummy technology,” the alliance said.

Humanetics’ THOR dummies received high marks in the vehicle safety agency’s early tests. Using cadavers from actual crashes to compare the results, NHTSA found they outperformed the existing Hybrid in predicting almost all injuries — including to the head, neck, shoulders, abdomen and legs.

A separate review by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research arm funded by auto insurers, was far more critical of the dummy’s ability to predict chest injuries in a frontal crash. Despite the vast expansion in the number of sensors, the insurance institute’s testing found, the male THOR dummy was less accurate than the current Hybrid dummies, which also had limitations.

“More isn’t necessarily better,” said Jessica Jermakian, senior vice president for vehicle research at IIHS. “You also have to be confident that the data is telling you the right things about how a real person would fare in that crash.”

The slow pace of changing the rules

NHTSA’s budget plan commits to developing the female THOR 5F version with the ultimate goal of incorporating it into the testing. But there could be a long wait considering the THOR’s male version adopted by other countries is still awaiting final approval in the U.S.

A 2023 report by the Government Accountability Office, which conducts research for Congress, cited numerous “missed milestones” in NHTSA’s development of various crash dummy enhancements — including in the THOR models.

Kuhn acknowledges being frustrated by the slow process of trying to change the regulations. She says she understands why there’s reluctance from auto companies if they fear being forced to make widespread design changes with more consideration for women’s safety.

“Fortunately, they have very skilled engineers and they’ll figure it out,” she said.

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s media company plans to buy back up to $400 million of its stock, which have lost 46% of their value this year.

Trump Media and Technology Group, which operates the Truth Social media platform, said Monday that the acquisition will improve its financial flexibility. It will retire the shares after they are purchased, meaning these particular shares can’t be reissued.

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Companies can drive their stock higher by acquiring or removing the number of company shares outstanding. Trump is the largest stakeholder in Trump Media, with about 114 million shares.

Shares of Donald Trump Media rose just over 2% Monday. But the shares appeared to peak about a month after the company went public in late March. Shares have been on a steady, downward trajectory since.

The company said early this year that it lost $400.9 million in 2024 and its annual revenue declined 12% to $3.6 million.

After winning the U.S. presidential election in November, Trump transferred all of his shares in the company — worth around $4 billion on paper — as a gift to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. Trump’s shares amounted to more than half of the company’s stock.

The company said Monday that it will fund the buyback separately from its Bitcoin treasury strategy. Under that plan, institutional investors will buy $2.5 billion in the company’s stock with the proceeds going to build up a bitcoin reserve.

Trump Media joins other companies with similar cryptocurrency strategies, including cloud and mobile software developer MicroStrategy, which is building a reserve containing billions worth of bitcoin.

By PAUL SANCYA and HOLLY RAMER

WAYNE, Mich. (AP) — The man who opened fire outside a Michigan church filled with worshippers before he was struck by a vehicle and then fatally shot by security staff had attended services there a couple of times in the last year and his mother is a member, police said.

Several people can be seen carrying or directing children to duck down and move away in a livestream video of the Sunday morning service at CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne.

“C’mon, everybody to the back,” a woman calls out. The woman, who was initially crouching between two rows of seats, stands and waves an arm. “Please, everyone come to the back!”

People, some of them ducking their heads, rush out as others can be heard yelling “Go!” and “Come on!”

A loud crack is heard and people can be heard crying out as those remaining run and walk quickly out of sight.

The gunman, identified as Brian Anthony Browning, 31, did not have any previous contacts with local police or a criminal history, but may have been suffering a mental health crisis, the Wayne Police Department said in a news release.

Churchgoers spotted the gunman driving recklessly and then saw him exit his car wearing a tactical vest and carrying a rifle and a handgun, police Chief Ryan Strong said at an evening news conference.

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The man began firing as he approached the church, striking one person in the leg. A parishioner driving a pickup truck hit the man and the church security team locked the front doors and exchanged gunfire with the man, police said. At least two staff members shot him, Strong said. About 150 people were inside the church at the time.

“We are grateful for the heroic actions of the church’s staff members, who undoubtedly saved many lives and prevented a large-scale mass shooting,” the chief said.

One member of the security team was shot in the leg and was listed in stable condition at a hospital after undergoing surgery, the news release said. No one else was hurt.

Wayne is a city of about 17,000 people located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Detroit. Police executing a search warrant at Browning’s home in Romulus, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) south of Wayne, found additional rifles, several more handguns and a large amount of ammunition, the news release said.

Browning’s mother did not respond to a Facebook message sent Sunday by The Associated Press.

Worshipper Wendy Bodin said she heard a loud “boom” and when she looked outside, she saw a man sprawled out on the grass in front of the church. “I thought he got hit or crashed his car or was hurt,” Bodin told WXYZ-TV. “And another lady saw and pointed to me and said, ‘Oh my, call 911!’”

Wayne Police Deputy Chief Finley Carter III said hours later that it was too early to know a motive. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said on X that bureau “leadership and support teams” were at the church and helping with the investigation.

Messages left by the AP on Sunday on voicemail and a Facebook page for the church were not immediately returned.

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press journalists Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.