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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Neptune’s far-flung moon Nereid may be the last of the planet’s original companions that managed to survive a cosmic crash, scientists reported Wednesday. Sixteen known moons circle Neptune, our solar system’s eighth and most distant planet. Neptune’s biggest moon, Triton, barged in from the solar system’s frigid outskirts billions of years ago, scattering the planet’s original moons and putting them on destructive collision courses. A team led by the California Institute of Technology used NASA’s Webb Space Telescope to study Nereid. Their observations suggest that Nereid is no party crasher like Triton and likely survived by escaping into its extreme, elliptical orbit around Neptune. “What we know about Nereid is very limited. For its size, Nereid is extremely understudied,” said study author Matthew Belyakov, of Caltech. Neptune has only been visited by one spacecraft, NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1989. Nereid was discovered 40 years earlier by Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who named the moon after the sea nymphs in Greek mythology. Roughly 220 miles (350 kilometers) across, Nereid has an extremely eccentric orbit for a moon. It takes practically an entire Earth year for Nereid to orbit Neptune, with the moon passing less than 1 million miles (1.4 million kilometers) from the giant icy planet at one end of its egg-shaped loop and as far as 6 million miles (9.6 million kilometers) at the other end. Like so many other moons in the outer solar system, Nereid was long suspected of migrating to Neptune’s neighborhood from the frigid outlying expanse known as the Kuiper Belt. But using the Webb telescope, scientists determined that Nereid’s composition was inconsistent with Kuiper Belt objects — it had too much ice. That suggests it was part of Neptune’s system all along. “We don’t have all that much evidence left around Neptune — the system doesn’t have very many moons left,” Belyakov said in an email. But the latest observations “strongly rule out” that Nereid wandered by like so many others and got ensnared by planetary gravity. The findings appear in the journal Science Advances. This is “an exciting result,” said Carnegie Science planetary astronomer Scott Sheppard, who was not part of the study. The observations show for the first time that Nereid’s peculiar orbit matches “the history we might expect from a moon that originally formed close to Neptune and was later pushed outward from the capture of Triton,” Sheppard said in an email. Neptune’s innermost moons likely formed out of the shattered remains of the originals that were Triton’s casualties, according to Belyakov and his team. All three of the solar system’s other giant planets have more moons, with Saturn topping the charts at 292. A visiting spacecraft could clinch the Neptunian system’s origin story, according to scientists, although none are currently planned. ___ 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

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — US Rep. Barry Moore and former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson advanced to a runoff on Wednesday for the Republican nomination for the open U.S. Senate seat in Alabama. Moore is a three-term congressman endorsed by President Donald Trump and Hudson is a political newcomer. Moore said the state deserves a “Trump conservative” in the Senate, while Hudson has promised to be “a warrior for President Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda” if he is elected. The seat is being vacated by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor. The Republican and Democratic runoffs will be held June 16. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

ROME (AP) — A calendar featuring close-ups of young, handsome men in priestly attire has been a perennial Rome souvenir for the last two decades — but few, it seems, are actually men of the cloth. Giovanni Galizia has been the cover shot for the so-called sexy priest calendar for many of the last 23 editions. In the same photo used year after year, Galizia wears a clerical collar and flashes an enigmatic smile worthy of the Mona Lisa against the granite wall of a church in his native Palermo. “It was the smile of an embarrassed kid, because I saw all my friends in front of me laughing out loud because I was dressed like I was a priest,” Galizia told The Associated Press during an interview Wednesday in his Verona living room. For Galizia, the shoot was a lark that left no mark on his life, until a story in the Rome daily La Repubblica this week revealed that the “sexy priest calendar” could be more accurately called “the fake priest calendar,” drawing nationwide attention. The calendar is not affiliated with the Vatican, which declined to comment. Now a 39-year-old flight attendant for a Spanish airline, Galizia was just 17 years old when mutual friends put him in touch with photographer Piero Pazzi, who has also created a calendar featuring Venetian gondoliers and has founded museums in Budapest and Montenegro on the history of cats. Officially named Calendario Romano, each edition features 12 black-and-white portraits of men mostly in clerical attire — many of which are recycled year after year. Galizia only knew one of the other subjects, a French man who also was not a priest. Pazzi told the AP that at least one-third of those pictured in the already released 2027 calendar are actually priests but provided no details. Galizia said he has never been stopped on the street, though his cousins once gave the calendar to their grandmother as a gift, “and they all died laughing.” Galizia sees the photographs depicting priests as part of an artistic tradition, noting that no one watching a TV drama involving priests believes they are actually played by clergy. “Of course, it winks a bit at the dynamic between the sacred and the profane, because it is clear that seeing a world that is distant and in some ways so lofty as the ecclesiastical world, with such a fresh-faced young man, creates a kind of dissonance,” he said. But he also said he doesn’t understand why the black-and-white close-ups have been interpreted as sexy. Pazzi also said that was not the point. “There’s a tendency to confuse what is beautiful with what is sensual, because nowadays, especially in today’s world, which is quite sexualized, beauty is expressed only through sensuality,” Galizia said. “That said, I appreciate the observation and take it as a compliment — because managing to be sexy in a priest’s collar is no small feat.” Pazzi won’t say how many of the Roman calendars have been sold — but estimates several thousand a year. While Pazzi says he receives royalties, Galizia, who signed a release form when the photo was taken, said he has never sought payment. The calendar sells for around 8 euros (around $9.30) in shops that surround the Vatican and crowd Rome’s historic center. One shop clerk, Hassam Mohammad, said he sells a handful of them every day. Pazzi includes a page of information about the Vatican in the calendar, but its production is independent and unrelated to the Holy See. A priest from South Korea walking near the Vatican this week said that the calendar is well known in his home country, especially among young people who view the calendar with humor. “They often think priests are stiff and distant,” said the priest, who identified himself informally as Father Domenico. “But looking at this calendar, they think priests are more familiar, and priests can be funny. I think in Korea this calendar is very famous, and it is OK.” ____ Barry reported from Verona, Italy. Giada Zampano in Rome and Nicole Winfield in Vatican City contributed. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

MEXICO CITY (AP) — With the 2026 FIFA World Cup less than a month away, thousands of passengers arriving at Mexico City’s Benito Juárez International Airport are greeted by a chaotic construction site of buzzing drills, scattered pipes and unfinished flooring. The construction work coexists with hundreds of posters promoting the soccer tournament, as well as large-scale figures of soccer balls and trophies, which help passengers forget the inconveniences caused by renovations that have dragged on for a year. Seating beside one of the six cranes remaining at the Terminal 1 entrance, 28-year-old engineer Luis Ibarra says he isn’t bothered by the renovations. After all, he noted, the airport has suffered for years from flooding, leaky roofs and severe overcrowding. The countdown to complete one of the largest renovations at Mexico’s largest airport has more than 3,000 people working 20 hours a day, airport authorities told The Associated Press. It has not been an easy task. One year into the renovation — with the first phase over 90% complete — complications have been “more than we expected,” Juan José Padilla, general director of the Benito Juárez International Airport, told the AP. He explained that the unexpected challenges stemmed from half-century-old infrastructure and a lack of original blueprints for some areas. “We are facing years of neglect,” said Padilla, acknowledging that years of underinvestment had affected the terminals handling some 120,000 daily passengers. Against this backdrop, work began in May 2025 on a $500 million modernization project. The massive undertaking is fully funded by the airport itself, which has been administered by the Mexican Navy since 2023. Project coordinator Capt. Arturo Flores noted that the massive upgrade includes new terminal facades, renovated restrooms, refreshed baggage carousels, and the replacement of nearly 100,000 square meters of flooring and lighting. An internal redesign also reclaimed 30,000 square meters of waiting space for travelers. Phase two will begin in August — following the World Cup — and run through December. The renovations also include an increase in security cameras — rising from 2,200 to over 4,000 — which will operate using artificial intelligence to detect suspicious vehicles, luggage or individuals. Padilla noted that an anti-drone system is also expected to be installed shortly to address any contingencies. Earlier this month, Mexico’s foreign ministry announced an agreement with the U.S. Department of Transportation to enforce the 2015 bilateral transportation pact through a new series of measures. These measures include expanding the number of slots — the specific windows allocated for aircraft takeoffs and landings — which Washington had requested for U.S. airlines. During the previous administration, available slots at the capital’s airport were slashed from 61 to 43 per hour, before ticking back up to 44 last year. In this regard, Padilla reported that the number of slots available to both foreign and domestic airlines will soon be increased to 46. The latest airport upgrade is a major initiative by President Claudia Sheinbaum, following a turbulent period under her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had attempted to reroute capital flight operations to a new, military-run airport in a different location — an effort that ultimately failed to gain traction. ___ Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former federal prosecutor in Miami is facing federal charges over allegations that she sent to her personal email account a report that a judge had ordered to be kept secret detailing Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents, according to court papers unsealed Wednesday. Carmen Lineberger, who worked in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida and managed its Fort Pierce branch, pleaded not guilty during a court appearance in Palm Beach to charges of theft of government property. Her attorney did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment. The indictment accuses her of sending to her personal Hotmail account a copy of the Smith report with a subject line of “chocolate cake recipe.” The Authorities say she illegally tried to email herself from her government account the volume of Smith’s report about the classified documents prosecution case after a Trump-appointed judge barred its public release. The volume detailing Smith’s findings in a criminal investigation once seen as posing significant legal peril to Trump has never been seen by the public. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon backed arguments from Trump’s lawyers that it would be unfairly prejudicial to release the report after Smith abandoned the case in the aftermath of Trump’s 2024 election victory. Lineberger worked in the same judicial district where Smith’s documents case against Trump was filed. That case accused Trump of illegally retaining at his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach dozens of classified records from his first term in office and obstructing government efforts to get them back. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com