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SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Matthew Tkachuk is ready to go back to work. That doesn’t mean he’s ready to stop celebrating Olympic gold. Tkachuk — part of the U.S. men’s hockey team that won gold at the Milan Cortina Games — is in the Florida Panthers’ lineup for their first post-Olympic game Thursday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Panthers are throwing a gold medal celebration and U.S. captain Auston Matthews, who also captains the Maple Leafs, is set to be part of it as well. “I really think our team really showed what it’s like to be true Americans and the pride we played with and how we would do every single thing for our country,” Tkachuk said, gold medal dangling from his neck. “So, the support we’ve gotten is incredible.” It has been a whirlwind since Sunday for Tkachuk: an all-night party in Italy before a charter flight back to the U.S., more parties with the team in Miami on Monday, then a trip to the White House for the State of the Union with most of his Olympic teammates. And life has been one big celebration for Tkachuk in recent years anyway, with a Stanley Cup win in 2024, another in 2025, a wedding in there as well — and now, gold. “The hardest thing to do in sports is winning the Stanley Cup,” Tkachuk said. “You go through an 82-game grind and then your four playoff series, some Game 7s probably, and just the physicality and the travel and everything, it’s crazy. Whereas you could almost argue it over there at the Olympics, it’s so hard because it’s just one-game elimination.” Tkachuk is one of seven Panthers players who won Olympic hockey medals: Brad Marchand, Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett won silver medals for Canada, while Anton Lundell, Niko Mikkola and Eetu Luostarinen won bronze medals with Finland. Panthers general manager and hockey operations president Bill Zito was part of the braintrust for the U.S. team in Milan, and equipment manager Teddy Richards had the same role for the Americans at the Olympics. They’ll all be part of Thursday’s ceremonies. “It’s a weird dynamic,” Marchand acknowledged. “Obviously we’re disappointed and you want a different outcome, but at the same time, trying to remember to be grateful for the incredible part of it all.” ___ AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — The vast majority of organ donations once came from people who were brain-dead. Now they’re increasingly coming from people who died when their heart stopped beating, a major shift that can boost transplants but also raises public confusion, researchers reported Thursday. What’s called donation after circulatory death, or DCD, jumped dramatically in a short period: It accounted for 49% of all deceased donors in the U.S. last year, up from 2% in 2000. Technology has helped overcome barriers to using those organs — ways to keep them from deteriorating as the heartbeat winds down — spurring this type of donation at the same time the nation is hunting ways to overcome a dire shortage. More than 100,000 people are on the transplant waiting list and thousands die waiting. Just over 49,000 transplants were performed last year. But specialists from NYU Langone Health found donation after circulatory death is far more common in some parts of the country than others. That suggests better educating the public and local hospitals about the option could further increase access to lifesaving transplants. The findings, published in the medical journal JAMA, come as some rare but scary reports of potential donors who showed signs of life have shaken trust in the transplant system. Additional safeguards are being developed by both federal officials and the nonprofit organ procurement organizations, or OPOs, that the government certifies to coordinate donation. The new findings may aid that policymaking. Donation after circulatory death is complex and “we need to make sure we are doing it well,” said Dr. Babak Orandi, an NYU transplant surgeon and study co-author. “If we stop doing it or severely restrict it, there would be pretty significant repercussions for patients.” While living donors can provide certain organs, most transplants are thanks to donations from the deceased. Brain death is declared when testing shows someone has no remaining brain function. If they’re a possible organ donor, the body is kept on a ventilator to support the organs until they’re retrieved. Donation after circulatory death can be an option if someone has a nonsurvivable injury but all brain function hasn’t ceased, and the family chooses to end life support. Death occurs after the heart gradually stops beating. Once that happens there’s a mandatory wait — five minutes, according to guidelines from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons — to be sure it won’t restart. Then the person’s doctor declares death. By law, donation and transplant groups can’t participate in the decision to end life support, and they’re not in the room when it’s withdrawn. Organ retrieval cannot begin until death is declared. If death doesn’t occur quickly enough, within about two hours, the organs aren’t usable and retrieval isn’t attempted. To track the donor evolution, the NYU team analyzed data from the nation’s Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, and from 55 OPOs that recover organs in assigned regions around the country. Last year, circulatory death accounted for more than half the donors at 24 organ donation agencies. But it varied widely, with some accounting for as little as 11% of donors. Hospital resources play a role, according to the Association for Organ Procurement Organizations. Decisions to withdraw life support are common, but small or rural hospitals may not be as familiar with the extra steps involved with donation. Another factor is whether hospitals have adopted that new technology. The quality of organs can suffer as the heart stops, briefly depriving them of oxygen. After death is declared, a tool called normothermic regional perfusion allows surgeons to temporarily restore that blood flow to organs in the chest or abdomen — avoiding the brain — while they do the delicate work of removing them. It has helped enable use of organs from older, sicker donors after their hearts stop. But even temporarily restoring blood flow after death has raised ethical questions. The Health Resources and Services Administration is preparing new national policies to improve safeguards for this type of donation. One proposal would allow anyone involved with a potential donor who questions if their condition is right for life-support withdrawal to call for a pause in those preparations. Other proposals would require OPOs to document that the hospitals caring for the potential donor are performing appropriate neurological exams, and to educate families of potential DCD donors about the steps required. The Association of Organ Procurement Organizations has some similar guidelines and some OPOs already have created checklists to help hospitals. The group also urges withdrawing life support in the critical care unit, not in an operating room, to help avoid public confusion about when death occurs and when organ groups step in, said association president Jeff Trageser. Donation after circulatory death “requires a lot of buy-in from the community, including the local hospitals, to make this happen,” said NYU’s Orandi. “A couple of cases out of many, many cases has led to a loss of trust.” ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A toxic algae bloom known as a red tide is causing the mass deaths of crayfish and other ocean life on parts of South Africa’s west coast. The environment ministry warned people on Thursday against collecting and eating the crayfish, which could be toxic, and police were deployed on some beaches. A red tide occurs when colonies of algae in the ocean grow out of control, according to the U.S. government’s National Ocean Service. The algae give the seawater a distinct reddish tinge, and produce toxins that kill fish and shellfish. It’s a reasonably common happening in South African coastal areas, but this week’s red tide was an especially severe one, according to South Africa’s Ministry of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. It said the red tide caused a “mass walkout” by crayfish — also known as rock lobsters — at Elands Bay, which is about 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of Cape Town. The crayfish were attempting to escape the toxins given off by the algae, but piles of them could be seen dead or dying on beaches alongside fish. Crayfish is a prized meal in South Africa, and the environment ministry said more than 20 people had to be removed from one beach while trying to collect some of the crayfish. It said they could contain lethal neurotoxins. Officials from the ministry were working to save any live crayfish and dispose of the piles of dead ones safely, the ministry said. ___ AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon’s top spokesman has reiterated that the military wants to use Anthropic’s artificial intelligence technology in legal ways and will not let the company dictate any limits ahead of a Friday deadline to agree to its demands. Sean Parnell said Thursday on social media that the Pentagon “has no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement.” Anthropic’s policies prevent their models from being used for those purposes. It’s the last of its peers to not supply its technology to a new U.S. military internal network. Parnell said the Pentagon wants to “use Anthropic’s model for all lawful purposes” but didn’t offer details on what that entailed. He said opening up use of the technology would prevent the company from “jeopardizing critical military operations.” “We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions,” he said. During a meeting on Tuesday between Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, military officials warned that they could designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk, cancel its contract or invoke a Cold War-era law called the Defense Production Act to give the military more sweeping authority to use its products, even if the company doesn’t approve. Parnell mentioned only two of those consequences in the Thursday post on X and said Anthropic has “until 5:01 PM ET on Friday to decide.” “Otherwise, we will terminate our partnership with Anthropic and deem them a supply chain risk,” he wrote. Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. It said in a statement after Tuesday’s meeting that it “continued good-faith conversations about our usage policy to ensure Anthropic can continue to support the government’s national security mission in line with what our models can reliably and responsibly do.” Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

Burger King is testing AI-powered headsets that can recite recipes, alert managers when inventories are low and even track how friendly employees are to customers. Restaurant Brands International – the Miami-based company that owns Burger King, Popeyes and other brands – said Thursday it’s currently testing the OpenAI-powered headsets in 500 U.S. restaurants. The system collects data on restaurant operations and shares it via “Patty,” a voice that talks to employees through their headsets. If the drink machine is low on Diet Coke, Patty will tell the store’s manager. If a customer uses a QR code to report a messy bathroom, the manager will be alerted. Employees can ask Patty how to make various menu items or tell Patty to remove items from digital menus if they’ve run out of ingredients. Burger King said it’s also exploring using Patty as a way to improve customer service. The system can track when employees say key words like “welcome,” “please” and “thank you” and share that with managers. When asked about that capability Thursday by The Associated Press, Burger King said the intent is to use Patty as a coaching tool, not a tracker of individual employees. “It’s not about scoring individuals or enforcing scripts. It’s about reinforcing great hospitality and giving managers helpful, real-time insights so they can recognize their teams more effectively,” Burger King said in a statement. Burger King added that the key words are “one of many signals to help managers understand service patterns.” “We believe hospitality is fundamentally human. The role of this technology is to support our teams so they can stay present with guests,” Burger King said. Patty is part of a larger app-based BK Assistant platform that will be available to all U.S. restaurants later this year. Burger King is one of several fast food chains experimenting with artificial intelligence. Yum Brands said last spring it was partnering with Nvidia to develop AI technologies for its brands, which include KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. McDonald’s ended a partnership with IBM in 2024 that was testing automated orders at its drive-thrus. The company is now working with Google on AI systems. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com