By MARK THIESSEN, Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska man who was pinned facedown in an icy creek by a 700-pound (318-kilogram) boulder for three hours survived the ordeal with only minor injuries, thanks in part to his wife’s quick thinking and lots of luck.

Kell Morris’ wife held his head above water to prevent him from drowning while waiting for rescuers to arrive after Morris was pinned by the boulder, which crashed onto him during a hike near a remote glacier south of Anchorage.

His second stroke of luck came when a sled dog tourism company that operates on the glacier overheard the 911 dispatch and offered up its helicopter to ferry rescuers to the scene, which was inaccessible to all-terrain vehicles.

Once rescuers arrived, it took seven men and inflatable air bags to lift the boulder off as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

Morris, 61, said he realizes he is probably the luckiest man alive. “And luckier that I have such a great wife,” he said Thursday.

This May 24, 2025, photo shows Kell Morris, upper right in a brown hat, trapped under a 700 pound rock near Seward, Alaska. (Jason Harrington/Seward Fire Department via AP)

His wife, Jo Roop, is a retired Alaska State Trooper. They moved to Seward, about 120 miles south of Anchorage, from Idaho last fall when she took a job with the local police department.

Last Saturday, they wanted to avoid the big crowds that converge on the Kenai Peninsula community during holidays and decided to hike near Godwin Glacier on an isolated and undeveloped trail behind a state prison, Seward Fire Chief Clinton Crites said.

Their trail was actually a rocky creek bed lined with large boulders deposited by the glacier.

Morris said he noticed dangerous boulders, some weighing up to 1,000 pounds, along the banks of the creek and avoided them the best he could, until he ran into an area he couldn’t pass.

“I was coming back and everything, the whole side slid out from under me,” he said.

This May 24, 2025, photo shows the creek near Seward, Alaska, where Kell Morris was trapped under a 700 pound rock. (Jason Harrington/Seward Fire Department via AP)

He said things became a blur as he tumbled down the embankment about 20 feet, landing face down in the water.

Then he immediately felt the boulder hit his back in what Crites described as “basically an avalanche of boulders.”

The way Morris landed, there were rocks under him, in between his legs and around him that caught the weight of the boulder, preventing him from being crushed, Crites said. But the massive rock still had him pinned, and Morris felt intense pain in his left leg and waited for his femur to snap.

“When it first happened, I was doubtful that there was going to be a good outcome,” Morris said.

His wife tried to free him for about 30 minutes, putting rocks under the boulder and trying to roll it off him, before she left to find a cell signal.

Amazingly, she only had to walk about 300 yards to connect with 911 and relied on her law enforcement experience to send exact GPS coordinates to dispatch.

A volunteer at the neighboring Bear Creek Fire Department heard the call while working at the sled dog tourism operation and diverted the helicopter used to ferry tourists to the scene. Ultimately, firefighters who couldn’t navigate their all-terrain vehicles over the boulder field jumped out of the helicopter.

By this time, Morris was hypothermic from the cold water running off the glacier, Crites said, and his wife was holding his head out of the water.

“I think if we hadn’t had that private helicopter assist us, it would have taken us at least another 45 minutes to get to him, and I’m not sure he had that much time,” Crites said.

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The firefighters used two air bags normally reserved to extract people from wrecked vehicles to slightly lift the boulder.

“But then it just became an all-hands brute force of ‘one, two, three, push,’ ” Crites said. “And seven guys were able to lift it enough to pull the victim out.”

An Alaska National Guard helicopter lifted them out of the creek bed with a rescue basket.

Morris spent two nights at the local hospital for observation but walked away unscathed.

“I fully anticipated a body recovery, not him walking away without a scratch on him,” Crites said.

Morris, who is now reflecting on his ordeal at home, acknowledged it might have been a little wake-up call to stop doing things like this at his age.

“I was very lucky. God was looking out for me,” he said.

When he and his wife go hiking this weekend, they are going to stick to established trails.

“We’re going to stop the trailblazing,” he said.

By MIKE BALSAMO, SCOTT BAUER and ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON, Associated Press

A claim by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that an immigrant threatened the life of President Donald Trump has begun to unravel.

Noem announced an arrest of a 54-year-old man who was living in the U.S. illegally, saying he had written a letter threatening to kill Trump and would then return to Mexico. The story received a flood of media attention and was highlighted by the White House and Trump’s allies.

But investigators actually believe the man may have been framed so that he would get arrested and be deported from the U.S. before he got a chance to testify in a trial as a victim of assault, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The person could not publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Law enforcement officials believe the man, Ramon Morales Reyes, never wrote a letter that Noem and her department shared with a message written in light blue ink expressing anger over Trump’s deportations and threatening to shoot him in the head with a rifle at a rally. Noem also shared the letter on X along with a photo of Morales Reyes, and the White House also shared it on its social media accounts. The letter was mailed to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office along with the FBI and other agencies, the person said.

Cain Oulahan, Ramon Morales Reyes’ immigration attorney addresses the media Friday, May 30, 2025 in Milwaukee about the detention of his client Ramon Morales Reyes. (AP Photo/Andy Manis)

As part of the investigation, officials had contacted Morales Reyes and asked for a handwriting sample and concluded his handwriting and the threatening letter didn’t match and that the threat was not credible, the person said. It’s not clear why Homeland Security officials still decided to send a release making that claim.

In an emailed statement asking for information about the letter and the new information about Morales Reyes, the Department of Homeland Security said “the investigation into the threat is ongoing. Over the course of the investigation, this individual was determined to be in the country illegally and that he had a criminal record. He will remain in custody.”

His attorneys said he was not facing current charges and they did not have any information about convictions in his record.

Kime Abduli, Ramon Morales Reyes’ attorney addresses the media Friday, May 30, 2025 in Milwaukee about the detention of her client Ramon Morales Reyes. (AP Photo/Andy Manis)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s records show Morales Reyes is being held at a county jail in Juneau, Wisconsin, northwest of Milwaukee. The Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, which is advocating for his release, said he was arrested May 21. Attorney Cain Oulahan, who was hired to fight against his deportation, said he has a hearing in a Chicago immigration court next week and is hoping he is released on bond.

Morales Reyes had been a victim in a case of another man who is awaiting trial on assault charges in Wisconsin, the person familiar with the matter said. The trial is scheduled for July.

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Morales Reyes works as a dishwasher in Milwaukee, where he lives with his wife and three children. He had recently applied for a U visa, which is carved out for people in the country illegally who become victims of serious crimes, said attorney Kime Abduli, who filed that application.

The Milwaukee Police Department said it is investigating an identity theft and victim intimidation incident related to this matter and the county district attorney’s office said the investigation was ongoing. Milwaukee police said no one has been criminally charged at this time.

Abduli, Morales Reyes’ attorney, says he could not have written the letter, saying he did not receive formal education and can’t write in Spanish and doesn’t know how to speak English. She said it was not clear whether he was arrested because of the letters.

“There is really no way that it could be even remotely true,” Abduli said. “We’re asking for a clarification and a correction from DHS to clear Ramon’s name of anything having to do with this.”

NEW CASTLE, Del. (AP) — Former President Joe Biden delivered the first remarks since he announced he had an aggressive form of prostate cancer Friday, speaking in a steady voice during a somber Memorial Day gathering and later smiling and saying he’s “feeling good.”

Biden spoke at an annual gathering marking Memorial Day at Veterans Memorial Park in his home state of Delaware, not far from his home in Wilmington. The event coincided with the 10th anniversary of his son Beau’s death. It also comes amid renewed questions about Biden’s mental and physical health after the recent publication of a book about his fitness for office.

Speaking to reporters after the Memorial Day event, he said he was already undergoing treatment for cancer, which entailed taking a pill, he said.

“The expectation is we’re gonna be able to beat this,” he said. “I’m feeling good.”

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Biden dropped his reelection bid in July 2024 after a disastrous debate against Donald Trump, after which those in his party questioned whether he could continue as the party’s nominee. Questions about his decline and how the White House staff reacted to it are at the center of a recent book by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, which has renewed the debate.

Asked Friday if he had a response to recent questions about his mental and physical health, he smiled and engaged with the reporter.

“You can see I’m mentally incompetent and I can walk and I can beat the hell out of both of them,” he said.

In response to Democrats who question whether he should have initially run for reelection at all, he said: “Why didn’t they run against me then? Because I’d have beaten them.”

During his formal remarks, he called upon the group to remember the sacrifices of those lost in battle, whose echoes he said can still be heard.

He also spoke of his son, Beau, who died at 46 of brain cancer. A twice-elected state attorney general, Beau Biden was considering a run for governor, and his death deeply affected the elder Biden.

“This day is the 10th anniversary of the loss of my son Beau, who spent a year in Iraq, and, to be honest, it’s a hard day,” the former president said. “Being with all of you, quite frankly, makes things a little bit easier, it really does. So, thank you for allowing me to grieve with you.”

By JOSH BOAK and DIDI TANG, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he will no longer be “Mr. NICE GUY” with China on trade, declaring in a social media post that the country had broken an agreement with the United States.

Hours later, Trump said in the Oval Office that he will speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping and “hopefully we’ll work that out,” while still insisting China had violated the agreement.

What deal Trump was referring to was not clear. But the rhetoric was a sharp break from recent optimism when he lowered his 145% tariffs on Chinese goods to 30% for 90 days to allow for talks. China also reduced its taxes on U.S. goods from 125% to 10%.

“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US,” Trump posted. “So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”

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Trump said the tariff reduction had “quickly stabilized” the Chinese economy, though the decrease also brought a degree of relief to U.S. companies that said the previous rates had essentially blocked their ability to bring in Chinese goods and imperiled their businesses.

The comments reflect the tensions between the world’s two largest economies, as Trump is eager to show that his tariffs can deliver meaningful results in the form of U.S. factory jobs and increased domestic investment. The Trump administration also stepped up the clash with China in other ways this week, announcing that it would start revoking visas for Chinese students studying in the U.S.

Trump’s negotiating style has often toggled between extreme threats and grand claims of progress. His mercurial approach has taken the financial markets on a wild ride of sell-offs and rallies that have produced a general sense of uncertainty.

That has been compounded by a court ruling this week that Trump had overstepped his legal authority with broad “Liberation Day” tariffs in April as well as import taxes on China, Canada and Mexico tied to fentanyl smuggling earlier this year. A federal appeals court on Thursday allowed Trump to temporarily keep collecting the tariffs under an emergency powers law while he appeals the earlier decision.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said Friday that the two sides “have maintained communication over their respective concerns in the economic and trade fields” since officials met in Geneva nearly three weeks ago.

But the embassy also said the Chinese government had “repeatedly raised concerns with the U.S. regarding its abuse of export control measures in the computer chip sector and other related practices.”

Both countries are in a race to develop advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, with Washington seeking to curb China’s access to the most advanced computer chips.

“China once again urges the U.S. to immediately correct its erroneous actions, cease discriminatory restrictions against China and jointly uphold the consensus reached at the high-level talks in Geneva,” the embassy said.

Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center, said, “I think the Chinese are playing hard to get with the trade talks.”

Lin Jian, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, on Friday accused the U.S. of overstretching the concept of national security by politicizing trade issues. He called the acts by the U.S. “malicious attempts to block and suppress China.”

“We firmly oppose that and will resolutely defend our legitimate rights and interests,” Lin said.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a Thursday interview on Fox News’ “Special Report” that talks with China had stalled.

Given the complexity and magnitude of the negotiations, “this is going to require both leaders to weigh in with each other,” Bessent said. “They have a very good relationship. And I am confident that the Chinese will come to the table when President Trump makes his preferences known.”

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Friday on CNBC that China has not removed non-tariff barriers as agreed.

“We haven’t seen the flow of some of those critical minerals as they were supposed to be doing,” Greer said.

China in December announced export bans to the U.S. of critical minerals including gallium, germanium and antimony. It announced more export controls on rare earth minerals in April, in response to Trump’s tariffs.