By LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) — Houthi rebels in Yemen have shot down seven U.S. Reaper drones in less than six weeks, a loss of aircraft worth more than $200 million in what is becoming the most dramatic cost to the Pentagon of the military campaign against the Iran-backed militants.

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According to defense officials, three of the drones were shot down in the past week — suggesting the militants’ targeting of the unmanned aircraft flying over Yemen has improved. The drones were doing attack runs or conducting surveillance, and they crashed both into the water and onto land, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.

The U.S. has increased its attacks on the Houthis, launching daily strikes since March 15, when President Donald Trump ordered a new, expanded campaign. He promised to use “overwhelming lethal force” until the Houthis cease their attacks on shipping along a vital maritime corridor. The U.S. has done more than 750 strikes on the Houthis since that new effort began.

Another defense official said that although hostile fire is likely the cause of the drone losses, the incidents are still under investigation. The official noted that the increase in U.S. strikes can add to the risk to aircraft, but said the U.S. will take every measure possible to protect troops, equipment and interests in the region. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to comment on sensitive military issues.

The sophisticated drones, built by General Atomics, cost about $30 million each, and generally fly at altitudes of more than 40,000 feet (12,100 meters). Houthis leaders have consistently touted the strikes in public statements. One of the defense officials said the U.S. lost Reaper drones on March 31 and on April 3, 9, 13, 18, 19 and 22.

U.S. senators, meanwhile, are raising concerns about civilian casualties caused by the American strikes in Yemen. Democratic Sens. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tim Kaine of Virginia wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday questioning whether the Trump administration is “abandoning the measures necessary to meet its obligations to reducing civilian harm.”

Specifically, they questioned reports that U.S. strikes at the Ras Isa fuel terminal in Yemen last week potentially killed more than 70 civilians.

“Military leaders agree that ingraining civilian harm mitigation practices within U.S operations leads to better outcomes and that civilian casualties actually undermine the mission that the military has been sent in to do,” their letter said.

In addition to downing the drones, the Houthis have been persistently firing missiles and one-way attack drones at U.S. military ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. They haven’t hit any.

The U.S. has been using an array of warships, fighter jets, bombers and drones to strike the Houthis, and aircraft can now launch from two Navy carriers in the region.

Hegseth decided in March to beef up the Navy warship presence in the Middle East, ordering the USS Harry S. Truman to extend its deployment there, as the USS Carl Vinson steamed toward the area.

The Truman, along with two of the destroyers and a cruiser in its strike group, is now in the Red Sea. And the Vinson, along with two destroyers and a cruiser, is in the Gulf of Aden.

In this photo taken from video released by Al Masirah TV channel shows a burning oil tanker after U.S. airstrikes targeted the Ras Isa oil port held by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in Hodeida, Yemen, Friday, April 18, 2025.( Al Masirah TV via AP)

The third destroyer assigned to the Truman is in the Mediterranean Sea. And two other U.S. Navy destroyers are in the Red Sea, but aren’t part of the Truman’s group.

Hegseth is weighing whether to grant a request by U.S. Central Command to once again extend the Truman’s deployment. A decision to do that could keep the Truman and at least some of its strike group in the region for several more weeks.

It has been rare in recent years for the U.S. to have two aircraft carriers in the Middle East at the same time. Navy leaders have generally been opposed to the idea because it disrupts ship maintenance schedules and delays time at home for sailors strained by the unusually high combat tempo.

Last year, the Biden administration ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier to remain in the Red Sea for an extended time, as U.S. warships waged the most intense running sea battle since World War II.

Prior to that it had been years since the U.S. had committed that much warship power to the Middle East.

The Houthis have been waging persistent missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in the region in what the group’s leadership has described as an effort to end the Israeli war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

From November 2023 until this January, the Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors. That has greatly reduced the flow of trade through the Red Sea corridor, which typically sees $1 trillion of goods move through it annually.

By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN

NEW YORK (AP) — Female bonobos find strength in numbers, teaming up to fend off males in the wild, a new study finds.

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Along with chimpanzees, bonobos are among humans’ closest relatives. Scientists have long wondered why bonobos live in generally female-dominated societies since the males are physically bigger and stronger.

Three decades of observations in Congo — the only place the endangered bonobos are found in the wild — lend support to the idea of a sisterhood where female bonobos band together to assert their power.

These girl groups chased male bonobos out of trees, securing food for themselves, and females that grouped more ranked higher in their community’s social ladder, researchers found.

This image provided by Martin Surbeck shows bonobos lounging on a fallen tree in the Congo in 2020. (Martin Surbeck/Kokolopori Bonobo Research Project via AP)

“It’s very clear that you don’t want to overstep as a male bonobo,” said study author Martin Surbeck from Harvard University.

Findings were published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology.

Female bonobos’ combined numbers seem to turn the tide against a male’s physical strength, Surbeck said. It’s one of the rare times such a strategy has allowed females to come out on top in the animal kingdom. Spotted hyenas similarly find power in groups.

Female bonobos linked up even when they didn’t have close ties, supporting one another against the males and cementing their social standing. The observations show how female bonobos work together to protect themselves from male violence, said biological anthropologist Laura Lewis with the University of California, Berkeley.

This image provided by Martin Surbeck shows bonobos resting and socializing on a fallen tree in the Congo in 2020. (Martin Surbeck/Kokolopori Bonobo Research Project via AP)

The findings support “the idea that humans and our ancestors have likely used coalitions to build and maintain power for millions of years,” Lewis, who was not involved with the research, said in an email.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

DETROIT (AP) — A former executive at a major Detroit nonprofit was sentenced Thursday to 19 years in prison for stealing more than $40 million meant to help beautify the city’s riverfront.

Investigators said William Smith routinely used Detroit Riverfront Conservancy money for travel, hotels, limousines, household goods, clothing and jewelry. He had side gigs in real estate, a nightclub and amateur basketball.

Smith, 52, was fired as chief financial officer last May and arrested the following month. He pleaded guilty in November to wire fraud and money laundering. A federal judge in Detroit also ordered Smith to pay back the $44.3 million he stole.

Funding for the conservancy comes from private donors and public grants, and the nonprofit says Smith’s theft forced the delay of portions of a popular riverwalk project.

Smith on Thursday called his actions “wrong, plain and simple.”

“I recognize I allowed selfishness, pride and poor judgment to lead me down a destructive path,” he told the court prior to sentencing.

The conservancy is transforming miles of shoreline along the Detroit River into recreation space, with plazas, pavilions and parks. It has been the driving force behind the city’s Riverwalk.

“Every dollar that Smith spent on luxury goods for himself is a dollar that the conservancy could not spend beautifying and improving our city’s riverfront,” acting United States Attorney Julie Beck said in a release.

Smith controlled the money for waterfront projects as chief financial officer from 2011 to May 2024.

After the theft was uncovered, then-conservancy chief executive Mark Wallace resigned and the nonprofit’s auditing firm was replaced, according to The Detroit News.

The Riverfront Conservancy said he stole the money “through a complex web of deception” and is grateful he’s being punished.

“The U.S. government accurately described him as a man of ‘corrupt and depraved character,’” the conservancy said in a statement following the sentencing.

Conservancy attorney Matthew Schneider said in a victim-impact statement that Smith chose greed over Detroit’s prosperity.

“As much as Smith may wish to mask himself as a professional, upstanding Dr. Jekyll, the reality is he was embezzling in the shadows as a cunning and calculating Mr. Hyde,” Schneider wrote.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A judge ruled Thursday that prosecutors can pursue the death penalty against Bryan Kohberger if he is convicted of murdering four University of Idaho students in 2022, despite the defendant’s recent autism diagnosis.

Kohberger, 30, is charged in the stabbing deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves at a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022.

Prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty if Kohberger is convicted at his trial, which is set to begin in August.

But his attorneys asked Judge Steven Hippler to remove the death penalty as a possible punishment, citing Kohberger’s diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. They have also filed several other motions challenging the death penalty, including one based on purported violations by the state in providing evidence.

“Mr. Kohberger’s autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reduces his culpability, negates the retributive and deterrent purposes of capital punishment, and exposes him to the unacceptable risk that he will be wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death,” defense attorneys wrote in court papers.

They argued that executing someone with autism would constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Prosecutors argued that under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the only mental disability that precludes imposition of the death penalty is an intellectual disability — and Kohberger’s diagnosis was of mild autism “without accompanying intellectual . . . impairment.”

Kohberger was a criminal justice graduate student at Washington State University, in Pullman, about 10 miles (16.1 kilometers) from Moscow, at the time of the killings in November 2022. He was arrested in Pennsylvania weeks later. Investigators said they matched his DNA to genetic material recovered from a knife sheath found at the crime scene.

Autopsies showed the four were all likely asleep when they were attacked, some had defensive wounds and each was stabbed multiple times.