The North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services requested the investigation in May of this year, after finding irregularities.

According to a press release, Elizabeth Gayle Heath, 40, is charged with Felony obtaining property by false pretenses. Her husband, Brandon Lee Heath, 43, has been charged with Felony conspiracy to obtain property by false pretenses.

Both have been processed and have appeared for their first appearances. The court will set a date for both cases.

No other details were provided.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah is calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate whether Donald Trump Jr. used his proximity to the presidency for financial benefit, after his recent wedding party was partially bankrolled by a Russian oligarch.

In a letter sent Tuesday, Curtis called on the committee to subpoena Trump Jr. over his business dealings, relationships with foreign individuals and entities, gifts or other benefits he has received and any instances in which his relationship to President Donald Trump, a Republican, “was invoked or understood to provide value.” Curtis called for the same scrutiny of Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

“The country should not have to accept one standard for the family of a Republican president and another for the family of a Democratic president,” Curtis wrote in the letter addressed to GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the committee, and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the committee.

The letter comes as a few Republicans have shown a growing willingness to criticize Trump after largely avoiding public breaks with the president during much of his second term. The unpopular war in Iran, high gas prices and mounting concerns about the GOP’s prospects in November’s midterm elections have brought increased scrutiny of the president from within his own party.

The Trumps say it was a generous gift from a dear friend

ProPublica first reported last week that Umar Kremlev, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, helped pay to rent a private island and for a fireworks show when Trump Jr. and socialite Bettina Anderson were married in the Bahamas in May.

In a subsequent post on her Instagram page signed by the couple, Bettina Trump wrote that Kremlev, head of the International Boxing Association, was a “dear friend” who “very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us AFTER our wedding.”

The president, who did not attend his son’s wedding, defended Kremlev’s involvement but said the money would be paid back.

Curtis calls the funding ‘corruption’

Curtis, first elected to the Senate in 2024, vowed upon taking office not to shy away from disagreeing with Trump. He has publicly broken with the president several times since, including rejecting Trump’s calls to eliminate the Senate filibuster. In a July Wall Street Journal op-ed, Curtis wrote that “under no circumstance” would he support efforts to end or alter the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to advance most legislation in the 100-member chamber.

Curtis’ criticism involving Trump’s son goes beyond those policy disagreements. Curtis last Friday called the gift “corruption” and vowed to say more in the coming days.

“A Russian oligarch paid for a lavish wedding after-party for Donald Trump Jr., which to me just stinks. It’s corruption. I don’t like it,” Curtis said in a video posted on social media.

On Tuesday, Curtis wrote on social media that Republicans “nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships” and that they “should not unplug it now.”

Any congressional committee can launch an investigation at any time. In 2017, Grassley led a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, including a meeting that Trump Jr. held with Russians in 2016. The panel has also conducted multiple investigations of Hunter Biden.

Clare Slattery, a spokesperson for the Senate Judiciary Committee, confirmed that the committee had received Curtis’ letter but indicated that a hearing before the end of the year would be difficult, citing the limited Senate schedule and the amount of time it takes to prepare for an investigative hearing. She did not say whether the committee will investigate.

Durbin said in a statement that Curtis had made a “good faith request” and that while Hunter Biden has given a sworn deposition in the past, Trump Jr. has not.

“For the Committee to ignore this matter is to run the risk of being complicit in a coverup. I will join in supporting Senator Curtis’ request,” Durbin said.

Republicans investigated the Bidens

Grassley worked alongside House Republicans in 2023 and 2024 to investigate whether Hunter Biden used his father’s name and political position to benefit his business dealings with foreign interests. The Biden family dismissed the investigations as politically motivated and denied any wrongdoing.

The GOP effort culminated in a report accusing Joe Biden of participating in a conspiracy to use his public office to enrich his family. But the House never voted on articles of impeachment against him.

“‘Trust us’ was not enough then, and it is not enough now,” Curtis wrote.

Democrats have foreshadowed plans to investigate Trump and his family if they win control of Congress in November, with particular scrutiny on the family’s financial interests. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement that the revelations surrounding Trump Jr.’s wedding “may be the most serious allegation against you to date.”

Online voting began Tuesday for Fat Bear Week, the annual contest that pits the rotund residents of Katmai National Park and Preserve against each other for the title of most oversized ursine.

Last year’s winner, Chunk — known officially as Bear 32 — is hungry for a repeat. Chunk’s weight in 2025 was estimated at 1,200 pounds, which gave him a narrow victory. This year he’s back and facing corpulent competition like Gully — aka Bear 903 — the offspring of two-time champion Grazer.

The contest, which is in its 12th year, celebrates the resilience of the 2,200 brown bears that live in the preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, which extends from the state’s southwest corner toward the Aleutian Islands. Fat Bear Week was started in 2014 as an interactive way to inform the public about brown bears, the coastal cousins of grizzlies.

The event this year features 16 bears facing off in a single-elimination, bracket-style tournament. All voting is done online at www.fatbearweek.org, with the winner declared Sept. 29. The public can watch the bears on explore.org’s livestream cameras before deciding on their favorite.

“Fat bears are successful bears,” the nonprofit’s website says. They gorge on the abundant salmon that return to the Brooks River starting in late June in order to accumulate fat reserves, sometimes chomping the fish in midair as they make their way upstream to spawn.

Adult male brown bears typically weigh 600 to 900 pounds (about 270 to 410 kilograms) in midsummer. By the time they are ready to hibernate after feasting on migrating and spawning salmon — each eats as many as 30 fish per day — large males can weigh well over 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms). Females are about one-third smaller. During winter hibernation, the bears do not eat or drink and lose one-third of their body weight.

Voters in the online contest can review before-and-after photos of the bears, lean at the start of summer and fattened at the end. The bears are not actually weighed — imagine that process — and some fans choose their favorite based on their looks or backstory.

To be featured in the contest, the bears must frequent the area around the river.

The live cameras at Brooks Falls captured the moments in 2024 when mother bear 128 Grazer’s cub slipped over the waterfall and floated into the fishing spot occupied by Chunk, who attacked and injured the cub. Grazer fought Chunk, but the cub ultimately died. After the dramatic fight, voting fans handed Grazer a victory over Chunk. Then Chunk returned in 2025 to take the title.

Actor Hayden Panettiere died from an accidental overdose of several drugs, including fentanyl, a coroner in South Carolina said Tuesday.

Panettiere, 36, was found unresponsive in an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, on Aug. 16. Her on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother Zach Hickerson were at the home.

According to a statement from the Greenville County Coroner’s Office, a combination of fentanyl and its chemical byproduct, as well as the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam, a muscle relaxer and a drug used to treat major depression and other serious mental health disorders, was found in Panettiere’s system.

The office did not include further details from the autopsy report in its initial release.

Asked for comment on the coroner’s report, Kasey Kitchen, a publicist for the family, told The Associated Press that “the investigation is still ongoing and the case is complex.”

Greenville Police confirmed Tuesday that their investigation into Panettiere’s death is continuing.

Paramedics responded to Panettiere’s apartment last month after a 911 call and performed CPR and other advanced resuscitation efforts for more than 40 minutes before she was declared dead. An autopsy found no signs of trauma that could have contributed to her death, Greenville County Coroner Mike Ellis said in a statement.

The police report released after her death listed medications Panettiere was taking, but the drug names were redacted.

Panettiere’s early fame brought success and struggle

Panettiere soared to fame in the TV shows “Heroes” and “Nashville.” In her memoir “This Is Me,” released in May, Panettiere described lifelong scars from her early fame and acknowledged being addicted to alcohol and enduring postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter, Kaya, with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014.

She also endured family struggles and tragedy. Her parents’ marriage was strained and eventually ended. Her younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, who was also an actor, died of a heart condition in 2023, at age 28.

Panettiere also talked about her long relationship with Brian Hickerson and allegations that the aspiring actor physically abused her.

He was charged in 2020 with multiple counts of felony abuse, and he pleaded no contest to two counts of injuring a spouse or partner and served a short time in jail due to the case. He was sentenced to four years of probation and anger management and Alcoholics Anonymous sessions.

Hickerson completed the terms and recently asked a judge to reduce his conviction to misdemeanors; that request was denied.

Panettiere was one of two children born to Skip Panettiere, a former New York City fire captain, and Lesley Vogel, a former soap opera star. She acted in commercials and soap operas, including as the ever-troubled Lizzie Spaulding on “Guiding Light.” In “This Is Me,” she wrote that the traumas her character endured, from being kidnapped to killing her mother’s boyfriend, led her to associate “catastrophe with adoration.”

She then played a cheerleader with supernatural powers in “Heroes,” which propelled her to fame in 2006.

By 2015, Panettiere was playing a brash country upstart opposite Connie Britton on “Nashville,” which aired on ABC for four seasons before being canceled and revived on CMT. She did her own singing in the show, which scored some hits on country charts, spawned U.S. tours and earned Panettiere two supporting actress Golden Globe nominations.

But she also said she was in a horrible cycle of using alcohol and drugs to battle depression and anxiety and had to find a way out of the darkness. She entered rehab while filming the show.

“I was the one who put myself in the first treatment center. I was drowning,” she said in a 2023 interview with Women’s Health magazine.

The S&P 500 dipped 0.1% and is sitting 0.5% below its all-time high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 295 points, or 0.5%, as of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was adding 0.3% to its own record.

Stocks had been higher in the morning, when the price for a barrel of Brent crude briefly fell below $98. But oil prices later trimmed their losses, and Brent was most recently at $100.23 per barrel.

That’s down from the nearly $110 that it touched last week, but it’s still much more expensive than the $72 it was fetching before the war with Iran began. It’s been swinging with uncertainty about when the war will allow crude to freely flow again from the Middle East to customers worldwide.

On Wall Street, AutoZone rose 6% after the retailer reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its revenue fell short. CEO Phil Daniele said the auto parts seller faced “a difficult selling environment” in the first two months of the quarter, but it improved afterward and “we feel we are well positioned for sales growth” in its upcoming fiscal year.

At Thor Industries, which sells recreational vehicles, the mood was more muted. CEO Bob Martin said expensive fuel, high interest rates and still-high inflation are stretching its customers’ budgets, and business “never reached the inflection point many in the industry expected” in its latest fiscal year.

Its stock rose 3.7%, though, after it delivered a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

Such strong profit reports are one of the main reasons the U.S. stock market has reached the brink of its all-time high despite high oil prices and jitters about whether stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry shot too high.

Many companies are close to closing the books on their third quarter of the year, which ends with September. And analysts are forecasting companies in the S&P 500 will report overall growth of nearly 29% for the quarter from a year earlier, according to FactSet.

If they’re right, it would be the third straight quarter of growth better than 25% for the index. And stock prices tend to follow the track of corporate profits over the long term.

On Holding’s stock that trades in the United States jumped 10.7% after the Swiss sneaker and sportswear company unveiled its financial goals for upcoming years. It also approved a plan to buy back up to $1 billion of its stock through 2029. Such purchases send cash directly to investors and boost the company’s per-share performance.

On the losing end of Wall Street were several stocks of companies in the oil and gas industry, which were hurt by the drop in crude prices. ConocoPhillips slipped 0.5%.

Banks also dropped, continuing their weak run since last week, when the Federal Reserve raised the overnight interest rate that it controls for the first time in three years. When the spread narrows between short-term interest rates and longer ones, banks come under pressure because they make profit off the difference.

JPMorgan Chase fell 3.8% and was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500.

The gap between short- and long-term yields in the bond market did not move much, as the 10-year Treasury yield inched up to 4.97% from 4.96% late Monday. Like oil prices, it also remains far above where it was before the war with Iran began, when it was at 3.97%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes ticked higher across much of Europe and Asia. London’s FTSE 100 was an outlier and dipped 0.3%.

Stocks rose 0.2% in Hong Kong and 0.1% in Shanghai after Alibaba unveiled new artificial intelligence chip technologies, including what it said was China’s most powerful AI chip. That comes just days ahead of a meeting between Chinese and U.S. leaders at which competition to lead on AI technology is expected to be a major theme.

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AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Donald Trump has signed an agreement with Denmark and Greenland aimed at strengthening Arctic and North Atlantic security, easing tensions over his repeated calls for Greenland to become part of the United States.

The signing Tuesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York comes days after Trump announced the deal to bolster U.S. military presence on the vast, icy island but keep it under Danish control. The governments provided few details of the agreement before the signing.

“This is tremendous for Europe and for the United States and for everybody,” Trump said just before the agreement was signed. “And for Greenland, it’s going to be incredible.”

For months, Trump has expressed his desire for Greenland to become part of the United States and issued threats to seize the semiautonomous territory from Denmark, a NATO ally. On Tuesday, he did not respond to questions about whether a U.S. acquisition of Greenland was off the table.

The US has had a presence in Greenland for many years

Officials from the U.S., Greenland and Denmark negotiated for months behind the scenes, searching for solutions to address some of Trump’s security concerns about the mineral-rich island.

Trump’s designs on Greenland strained relations within NATO, with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warning a U.S. takeover would amount to the end of the Atlantic alliance.

The standoff unsettled many of Greenland’s roughly 56,000 people and drove a wedge between the U.S. and Denmark and its European Union partners, who stepped up security exercises on and monetary support for the island.

Trade and hopes for a resource grab have all factored into concerns about Greenland’s future: About two-thirds of its territory sits inside the Arctic Circle, where melting sea ice has opened additional shipping routes

The United States was prominent in Greenland for decades but, since 1945, the U.S. military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers on 17 bases and installations to roughly 200 soldiers on the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest. The base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday morning, Trump provided a small window into details of the deal.

“We will immediately begin the process of developing a large military presence in the appropriate locations,” he said, including “building two very major military bases.”

Denmark’s parliament approved a bill last year to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil, widening a 2023 military agreement made with the Biden administration that gave U.S. troops broad access to air bases in Denmark.

Trump previously insisted the U.S. needed to “take Greenland,” to prevent Russia or China from doing the same. Though Trump said he would rather “ make a deal ” for the territory, he added: “one way or the other, we’re going to have Greenland.”

All parties present the agreement as a positive move

Mikkel Runge Olesen, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute of International Studies, said Greenland and Denmark come away from the deal with the possibility of “ending the crisis without compromising on sovereignty,” while the U.S. gets a “somewhat more favorable” deal than under the existing defense treaty.

But relations overall between the U.S., Denmark and Greenland “are likely to be haunted by this long after Trump leaves office, and the crisis is likely to have significant and lasting negative impact on transatlantic relations more generally,” he said. “The lost trust will take decades to rebuild.”

Frederiksen said Tuesday that the deal being signed was a “deal that can last forever,” labelling it as good for the U.S., Greenland, Denmark and the broader NATO alliance.

“Mr. President, you have been very clear: You don’t want adversaries to come too close,” she said. “I fully agree.”

Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s prime minister, called it “a win-win-win agreement.”

“Your security is our security, and our security is your security,” he said Tuesday.

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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report from Washington.

Ingredients

For the Dough

• 1 cup warm milk
• 2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup melted butter
• 1 large egg
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt

For the Filling

• ½ cup softened butter
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• ¼ cup softened butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1–2 tablespoons milk

Instructions

1. Make the Dough Combine the warm milk, yeast and sugar in a large bowl and let it sit for about 5 minutes until foamy. Stir in the melted butter and egg, then gradually add the flour and salt until a soft dough forms.

2. Let the Dough Rise Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for about 5 minutes. Place it in a greased bowl, cover and let it rise in a warm spot for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

3. Add the Cinnamon Filling Roll the dough into a large rectangle. Spread the softened butter evenly over the surface, then sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.

4. Roll and Slice Starting from one long side, tightly roll the dough into a log. Cut it into about 12 even rolls and arrange them in a greased baking dish.

5. Bake the Rolls Cover the rolls and let them rise for another 30 minutes. Bake at 350°F for 22–27 minutes, or until lightly golden on top.

The vote was delayed as protestors who had spoken earlier in the day stayed and stood up to disrupt the final vote.

WakeMed and Atrium issued a joint statement shortly after the vote:

“Over the past several months, Wake County has engaged in critical conversations about the future of healthcare in this region — with strong opinions, tough questions and differing perspectives. Through it all, one thing was clear: people care deeply about WakeMed, its caregivers, its patients and the future of this community. We greatly appreciate everyone who took part in that conversation and helped make it stronger.

We spent countless hours listening to county leaders, community organizations, faith leaders, employees, care providers and residents who wanted to understand what this combination would mean for Wake County. That’s a fair question, and we believe the additional commitments included in the final agreement are a meaningful answer.

The $150 million Wake County Whole Health Program is a significant long-term investment in the health and vitality of Wake County, building on our track record of investing in community well-being and addressing needs that extend beyond the walls of hospitals and physician practices. The amended Transfer Agreement includes a strengthened charity care commitment establishing a higher minimum threshold for caring for patients in need, providing additional assurance around a level of support that already exceeds that threshold today and helping ensure access to care regardless of a person’s ability to pay.

These enhancements build on Atrium Health’s commitment to invest $2 billion in WakeMed, supporting continued investment in people, facilities, technology and services needed to meet the needs of one of the fastest-growing communities in the country. This combination will expand access to affordable, nationally leading care, strengthen mental health and other critical services, grow local jobs, increase investment in nonprofit and community-based organizations, address social drivers of health, catalyze innovation and improve the health and well-being of Wake County for generations to come.

This vote brings us to the next chapter of the process, and important work remains ahead. As the proposed combination now moves to the regulatory review process, we look forward to fulfilling our commitments. We recognize that trust is earned, and our focus now is to follow through on what we’ve outlined, continuing to listen to the community and demonstrating, through our actions, the value this combination will create for the people of Wake County and beyond.”

Governor Josh Stein, who got involved in last minute talks on the deal, issued his own statement:

“The commission voted to approve the Atrium-WakeMed merger. I thank the commissioners for their work on patients’ behalf, and I am pleased that Atrium and WakeMed agreed to my request to protect families by capping price increases at WakeMed for the next five years. Now that the commission has voted, I welcome the Attorney General’s review of the proposed transaction and his office’s independent assessment of it. “

“Since my time as Attorney General, I have been urging the General Assembly to give the Attorney General’s Office more authority to review hospital transactions and protect North Carolinians from the increased prices and decreased quality they often bring. Health care costs are too high, and additional oversight and authority would better protect patients.”

In 2023, Governor Stein helped draft bipartisan legislation proposed by Senators Jim Burgin and Julie Mayfield to give the Attorney General authority to review hospital transactions and block mergers or sales that increase costs, diminish quality of care, or harm the local community. The legislation would also increase public reporting requirements for proposed hospital transactions. Governor Stein continues to call on the General Assembly to act on that legislation.

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street climbed to the edge of its all-time high, and stocks rallied worldwide after oil prices and yields in the bond market surrendered their market-rattling gains from last week. The S&P 500 jumped 1.5% Monday and pulled within 0.4% of its record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.7%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 2.3% as chip stocks led the way. Stocks benefited from a drop for Brent oil back toward $100 per barrel, while the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.95%. The easing pressure helped indexes rise more than 1% from Germany to Hong Kong to South Korea.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are climbing with markets worldwide on Monday after oil prices and yields in the bond market gave back some of their jumps from last week.

The S&P 500 rose 1.5% and pulled within 0.4% of its all-time high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 348 points, or 0.7%, as of 2:20 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.2% higher.

They got help from the price for a barrel of Brent oil falling 3.4% to $100.29. While that’s still much higher than its roughly $72 price from earlier this summer, it’s down from the nearly $110 it touched last week.

Oil prices are swinging up and down as some crude from the Middle East is able to sail through the Strait of Hormuz, though nowhere nearly as much as the industry and customers would like because of the war with Iran. Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson said another leg higher in prices for oil, gasoline and other refined products is the main risk he sees in the near term that could keep the U.S. stock market from rising to his forecasted target for the year’s end.

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline across the United States has already climbed to nearly $4.48, according to AAA. That’s up from less than $4.32 just a week earlier and from $3.18 a year ago.

Monday’s pullback in oil prices helped lower the pressure coming from the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.97% from 5.01% late Friday after it crossed above the 5% threshold last week for the first time in three years.

Yields have been on the rise because of worries about inflation, big debt loads for governments worldwide and other factors. That hurts the economy because high yields make it more expensive not only for the U.S. government to borrow money to pay its bills but also for households and businesses.

Worries remain about how much oil is available for customers worldwide, ING commodities strategists Ewa Manthey and Warren Patterson wrote in a commentary on Monday. However, they said profit-taking by investors after the recent jump in oil prices, together with hopes for constructive discussions at this week’s U.N. General Assembly and at a meeting between China’s and the United States’ leaders, helped improve optimism.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters following talks Sunday with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York that the U.S. had “a very successful engagement” with the Chinese side. Bessent said talks with China touched on trade and AI. China and the United States have been discussing reciprocal tariff reductions on $30 billion worth of goods from each side.

In Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday confirmed that Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to the United States between Sept. 23 and 25. Experts and policymakers believe trade, tariffs, and AI safety are likely among the topics to be on the agenda. The war in Iran and developments in the Middle East and ties between China and Iran could also be discussed.

On Wall Street, stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry continued to stabilize following their worldwide slide at the start of last week. Leaders of the AI industry have recently warned a slowdown is needed in the industry’s development for the safety of humanity.

Advanced Micro Devices rallied 8.8% and could finish the day with a total market value above $1 trillion, while Nvidia added 2.2%.

Stocks enmeshed in the cryptocurrency industry, meanwhile, rallied after bitcoin’s price rose back above $85,000 and returned to where it was in January. Coinbase Global jumped 4.8%, and Robinhood Markets rose 4.2%.

Skydance-owned Paramount fell 1.6% as it reached a settlement in a lawsuit challenging its buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery, which jumped 10.8%.

Stock indexes around the world also climbed thanks to the easing of oil prices and bond yields. Indexes gained 0.9% in France, 1.2% in Hong Kong and 1.6% in South Korea.

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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.