NEW YORK (AP) — Regulators seized troubled First Republic Bank early Monday and sold all of its deposits and most of its assets to JPMorgan Chase Bank in a bid to head off further banking turmoil in the U.S.

San Francisco-based First Republic is the third midsize bank to fail in two months. It is the second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history, behind only Washington Mutual, which collapsed at the height of the 2008 financial crisis and was also taken over by JPMorgan.

First Republic has struggled since the March collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and investors and depositors had grown increasingly worried it might not survive because of its high amount of uninsured deposits and exposure to low interest rate loans.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said early Monday that First Republic Bank’s 84 branches in eight states will reopen as branches of JPMorgan Chase Bank and depositors will have full access to all of their deposits.

Regulators worked through the weekend to find a way forward before U.S. stock markets opened. Markets in many parts of the world were closed for May 1 holidays Monday. The two markets in Asia that were open, in Tokyo and Sydney, rose.

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Man who lost wife, son in Texas mass shooting tells story

CLEVELAND, Texas (AP) — Wilson Garcia hadn’t even asked his neighbor to stop shooting his gun.

People in their rural town north of Houston are used to people firing their weapons to blow off steam, but it was late Friday night, and Garcia had a month-old son who was crying.

So, Garcia said, he and two other people went to his neighbor’s house to “respectfully” ask that he shoot farther away from their home.

“He told us he was on his property, and he could do what he wanted,” Garcia said Sunday after a vigil in Cleveland, Texas, for his 9-year-old son who was killed in the attack that soon followed.

The suspect, 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza, remained at large late Sunday despite a search involving more than 200 police from multiple jurisdictions.

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Russia missile attack on Ukraine injures 34, damages homes

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched its second large salvo of missiles at Ukraine in recent days early Monday, damaging buildings and wounding at least 34 people in the eastern city of Pavlohrad but failing to hit Kyiv, officials said.

Air raid sirens began blaring across the capital at about 3:45 a.m., followed by the sounds of explosions as missiles were intercepted by Ukrainian defense systems.

Eighteen cruise missiles were fired in total from the Murmansk region and the Caspian region, and 15 of them were intercepted, said Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

The head of Kyiv's city administration, Serhii Popko, said all missiles fired at the city were shot down, as well as some drones. He didn't provide further details, but said more information would be available later.

The attack follows Friday's launch of more than 20 cruise missiles and two explosive drones at Ukraine, which was the first to target Kyiv in nearly two months.

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'Waste of time': Community college transfers derail students

First came the good news. After taking classes at a community college, Ricki Korba was admitted to California State University, Bakersfield, as a transfer student. But when she logged on to her student account, she got a gut punch: Most of her previous classes wouldn’t count.

The university rejected most of her science classes, she was told, because they were deemed less rigorous than those at Bakersfield — even though some used the same textbooks. Several other courses were rejected because Korba exceeded a cap on how many credits can be transferred.

Now Korba, a chemistry and music major, is retaking classes she already passed once. It will add a year to her studies, plus at least $20,000 in tuition and fees.

“It just feels like a waste of time,” said Korba, 23, of Sonora, California. “I thought I was supposed to be going to a CSU and starting hard classes and doing a bunch of cool labs.”

Every year, hundreds of thousands of students start at community colleges hoping to transfer to a university later. It’s advertised as a cheaper path to a bachelor’s degree, an education hack in a world of ever-rising tuition costs.

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Poll: Americans fault news media for dividing country

WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to the news media and the impact it's having on democracy and political polarization in the United States, Americans are likelier to say it's doing more harm than good.

Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults say the news media is increasing political polarization in this country, and just under half say they have little to no trust in the media's ability to report the news fairly and accurately, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.

The poll, released before World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday, shows Americans have significant concerns about misinformation — and the role played by the media itself along with politicians and social media companies in spreading it — but that many are also concerned about growing threats to journalists' safety.

“The news riles people up," said 53-year-old Barbara Jordan, a Democrat from Hutchinson, Kansas. Jordan said she now does her own online research instead of going by what she sees on the TV news. “You're better off Googling something and learning about it. I trust the internet more than I do the TV.”

That breakdown in trust may prompt many Americans to reject the mainstream news media, often in favor of social media and unreliable websites that spread misleading claims and that can become partisan echo chambers, leading to further polarization.

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LGBTQ+ lawmaker to GOP: 'I’m literally trying to exist'

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — State Sen. Shevrin Jones can often be seen at the Florida Capitol greeting staff and colleagues with a smile or laugh, but when he’s alone it’s a different story.

“The outward expression is to show God’s love. That’s what I was taught,” said Jones, a Democrat. But, he said, “I have enough tears in my car to fill a lake.”

For Jones, who is gay, the past two years have been emotionally draining as Florida passed a flurry of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

More than 200 LGBTQ+ lawmakers across the country feel just like Jones, at a time when anti-gay and anti-transgender legislation is flourishing — as if they are under personal attack, and that they need to continually defend their community’s right to exist. The issue exploded into the national spotlight last week when Montana Republicans voted to bar Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who is transgender, from the House floor after a standoff over gender-affirming medical care for minors.

The ACLU is tracking nearly 470 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in 16 states, most with Republican-controlled Legislatures. Texas, Missouri and Tennessee alone account for more than 125 such bills; Florida has ten.

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Biden's diverse coalition of support risks fraying in 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat-turned-Independent long known for his centrist views, voted for Joe Biden in 2020. But as Biden's reelection campaign begins, Lieberman is preparing to recruit a third-party candidate capable of defeating the Democratic president.

“Centrists and moderates feel that he's governed more from the left than they hoped,” Lieberman, a leader of the group, No Labels, said of Biden in an interview. “He hasn't been able to be the unifier that he promised to be.”

Biden's political challenges are not confined to voters in the middle. In the days since he formally launched his 2024 campaign, key members of the sprawling political coalition that lifted him over former President Donald Trump in 2020 are far from excited about the prospect of four more years. That underscores the test confronting Biden as he aims to motivate the coalition of African Americans, Latinos, young people, suburban voters and independents to show up for him again.

John Paul Mejia, the 20-year-old spokesman for the progressive Sunrise Movement, says Biden has simply not done enough to ensure the young voters who rallied behind him in 2020 would do so again.

“Young people are starving for more,” Mejia said, pointing to Biden's recent decision to approve two controversial fossil fuel projects in Alaska. “Biden has to demonstrate the extent to which he’s willing to be a fighter. We've seen this sort of two-step on the promises he made to young people.”

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Virginia Beach struck by tornado, dozens of homes damaged

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va (AP) — The City of Virginia Beach declared a state of emergency after a tornado moved through the area Sunday and damaged dozens of homes, downed trees and caused gas leaks.

City officials said it’s unclear how many homes had been damaged but they estimated between 50 and 100, after the tornado touched down just after 6 p.m., WTKR-TV reported.

City Manager Patrick Duhaney declared a state of emergency Sunday night.

Much of the damage had been reported in the area of River Road and N. Great Neck Road. It also includes Upper Chelsea Reach and Haversham Close.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

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Grab your fancy duds for Met Gala mania with Karl Lagerfeld

NEW YORK (AP) — It's the first Monday in May: Welcome to Met Gala mania.

With a livestream available when the evening gets underway, the world's most fashionable fundraiser takes on one of the world's most prolific — and controversial — designers, the late Karl Lagerfeld, as the starry party's theme.

So how would the man of the hour, who died in 2019, feel about all the hullabaloo? Lagerfeld was a student of history, to be sure, but his eyes were forever on the future.

“Karl never wanted to have a retrospective when he was alive. He felt that it was funereal. He made the point that (Cristóbal) Balenciaga and (Coco) Chanel never had them when they were alive,” said William Middleton, who wrote the biography “Paradise Now: The Extraordinary Life of Karl Lagerfeld."

So what about now?

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Willie Nelson inhales the love at 90th birthday concert

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Are there any more real cowboys?” Neil Young sang Saturday night at the Hollywood Bowl on a rare evening when he was neither the headliner nor, at age 77, even close to the oldest artist on the bill.

Providing an instant answer, Willie Nelson, wearing a cowboy hat and red-white-and-blue guitar strap, slowly strolled on to the stage on his 90th birthday, bringing the crowd of more than 17,000 to its feet.

Nelson sat in a chair — one of the few onstage concessions he's made to age — and joined Young for the rest of their 1985 duet, “Are There Any More Real Cowboys?”

“I want to thank all the artists who came out tonight to help celebrate whatever it is we're celebrating,” said Nelson, feigning senility and getting a laugh.

The moment came three hours into the first of a two-night celebration of the country legend at the open-air Los Angeles amphitheater, where generations of stars sang his songs in tribute.