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The Justice Department on Friday asked a court to drop charges against two former police officers accused of providing false information on a search warrant that led to the fatal 2020 police raid at the apartment ofBreonna Taylor.

First bringing charges against the officers in 2022, federal prosecutors alleged that Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany provided false information on the search warrant that allowed police to enter Taylor's Louisville home. They were also charged with civil rights violations.

In afilingFriday, an attorney with DOJ's Civil Rights Division, said those charges should be dropped, and said the department has notified Taylor's family of the move.

Ex-officer Brett Hankison sentenced to 33 months in prison in Breonna Taylor's death

A federal judge had twice struck felony charges against the two officers, reducing them to misdemeanors, most recently in 2025.

"The Government undertook a further review of this matter," according to the filing.  "Based on that review, and in the exercise of its discretion, the Government has determined that this case should be dismissed in the interest of justice."

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Whether the remaining charges are ultimately dropped is up to a judge, who has yet to issue a ruling.

Taylor was fatally shot in the 2020 raid that came as plainclothes Louisville officers were serving a warrant searching for Taylor's ex-boyfriend, who they alleged was dealing drugs, but who was not at the apartment.

Officers broke down the door to Taylor's apartment, and her then-current boyfriend Kenneth Walker, who thought someone was breaking into the home, fired one shot with a handgun, striking an officer in the leg.

Three other officers returned fire, shooting 32 bullets into the apartment.

A former Louisville officer, Brett Hankison, wasconvicted of a civil rights offensein connection with Taylor's death during the raid and sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.

"The Department of Justice's move to dismiss these remaining charges is deeply painful for Breonna Taylor's family and it sends a chilling message about the value of Black lives in our country," Ben Crump and Lonita Baker, attorneys for the Taylor family, said in a statement.

The attorneys added, "The warrant that sent officers to Breonna's door has always been at the center of this tragedy and it deserves no less than the highest level of accountability. We cannot accept a reality where a young woman can be killed in her own home and no one is held responsible under the law. That is not justice. That is injustice compounded."

LONDON (AP) — Iran haslaunched missilesatDiego Garcia, an Indian Ocean island that is home to a strategic U.K.-U.S. military base.

Britain condemned "Iran's reckless attacks" after the unsuccessful attempt to hit the base. It's unclear how close the missiles came to the island, which is about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) from Iran.

Here is what to know about the remote but strategic base.

It's a hub for US operations in the Middle East and beyond

The U.S. has described the Diego Garcia base as "an all but indispensable platform" for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.

Home to about 2,500 mostly American personnel, it has supported U.S. military operations from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, the U.S. acknowledged it also had been used for clandestine rendition flights of terror suspects.

Last year the U.S.deployed several nuclear-capable B-2 Spirit bombersto Diego Garcia amid an intense airstrike campaign targeting Yemen's Houthi rebels.

Britaininitially refusedto let the base be used forU.S-Israeli attacks on Iran, but after Iran lashed out at its neighbors, the U.K. said American bombers could use Diego Garcia and another British base to attack Iran's missile sites. On Friday, the British government said that includes sites being used to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.K. insists British bases can only be used for "specific and limited defensive operations."

But Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on X that Prime Minister Keir Starmer "is putting British lives in danger by allowing UK bases to be used for aggression against Iran."

Iran currently has a self-imposed limit on its ballistic missile program, limiting their range to 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers). Diego Garcia is well outside that range. However, U.S. officials long have alleged Iran's space program could allow it to build intercontinental ballistic missiles

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Diego Garcia is part of a contested island chain

Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos Archipelago, a chain of more than 60 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean off the tip of India. The islands have been under British control since 1814, when they were ceded by France.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Britainevicted as many as 2,000 peoplefrom Diego Garcia so the U.S. military could build the base there.

In recent years, criticism has mounted over Britain's control of the archipelago and the way it forcibly displaced the local population. The United Nations and theInternational Court of Justicehave urged Britain to end its "colonial administration" of the islands andtransfer sovereignty to Mauritius.

Trump has criticized U.K. plans for the island

After long negotiations, the British government struck a deal last year with Mauritius to hand over sovereignty over the islands. Britain would then lease back the Diego Garcia base for at least 99 years.

The U.K. government says that will safeguard the future of the base, which is currently vulnerable to legal challenge. But the agreement has been criticized by many opposition politicians in Britain who say giving up the islands puts them at risk of interference by China and Russia.

Some of thedisplaced Chagos islandersand their descendants also have challenged the deal, saying they were not consulted and it leaves them unclear on whether they will ever be allowed to return to their homeland.

The U.S. administration initially welcomed the deal, but in January President Donald Trumpchanged his mind, calling it "an act of GREAT STUPIDITY."

Starmer's initial refusal to let the U.S. attack Iran from Diego Garcia further angered Trump, who said earlier this month that "the U.K. has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have."

Passage of the U.K.-Mauritius deal through Britain's Parliament has been put on hold until U.S. support can be regained.

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this story.

The effective closure of theStrait of Hormuzduring theIran warhas choked global oil supply. Two key alternatives remain, though any disruption to them could make moving oil out of the Arabian Peninsula "virtually impossible," an analyst said, amid concerns over Iran'stargetingof Gulf countries' energy infrastructure.

On a typical day, a significant share of oil exports from the Arabian Peninsula depends on just a handful of critical routes and terminals -- making the system highly vulnerable to disruption, according to Matt Smith, the lead oil analyst at energy consultant group Kpler.

The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off Iran's southern coast, normally handles about 20% of global oil consumption. In 2024, roughly 20 million barrels per day passed through it, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Since Iran attacked several oil tankers following the start of the war in late February, nearly all shipping traffic through the strait has halted,disrupting global oil markets.

Two of the most important alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz are Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, which terminates at the Red Sea port of Yanbu, and the United Arab Emirates' ADCOP pipeline, which feeds the export terminal at Fujairah, according to Kpler.

At Yanbu, exports have historically averaged around 750,000 barrels per day of crude oil. In recent weeks, however, volumes have surged, according to Kpler.

"It is up to 2.5 million [barrels per day] so far this month, and based on vessels heading there, should climb materially higher than that," Smith said.

Oil and gas prices surge as Iran escalates strikes on Gulf refineries

Meanwhile, the Fujairah terminal typically handles about 1 million barrels per day of crude exports via the ADCOP pipeline. That figure recently spiked to 2.25 million barrels per day before dropping sharply following reported drone strikes in the region, Smith said.

If both Yanbu and Fujairah were compromised, moving oil out of the Arabian Peninsula would become "virtually impossible," according to Smith.

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There are only a few limited exceptions: Iran can still export crude through the Strait of Hormuz and from its Jask terminal, located just outside the Strait of Hormuz; and Northern Iraq can move oil via a pipeline from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, per Kpler.

Oil experts convey a bottom line: beyond those routes, there are no meaningful alternatives — there is no equitable backup plan to the Strait of Hormuz; these alternatives are the limited options left.

Why are your gas prices rising if the US barely imports any oil from the Strait of Hormuz?

Liquefied natural gas presents an even greater vulnerability -- there are effectively "no alternative" export routes outside of the Strait of Hormuz, Smith said.

One of the world's largest liquefied natural gas hubs is in Qatar. The facility, Ras Laffan, was damaged in Iranian strikes this week that reduced Qatar's liquefied natural gas export capacity by 17% and will take up to five years to repair, QatarEnergy's CEO said Thursday.

The Qatari Foreign Ministry condemned the attack, calling it a "dangerous escalation."

Ras Laffan was among severalenergy assetsidentified by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps this week as "legitimate" targets after Israel hit Iran's largest gas field.

The list of IRGC targets includes key oil, refining, and natural gas infrastructure across the region -- including export routes that handle millions of barrels per day.

ABC News' Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.

The men's basketball team at Gonzaga was doomed — or so the coach of the small, Jesuit university would lament.

Dan Monson chuckles now at the memory. In the early 1990s he was a young Gonzaga assistant who would listen as his boss, Dan Fitzgerald, the Bulldogs' coach who died in 2010, would lay out to Monson and Mark Few, another assistant, all the reasons why success in Spokane, Washington, seemed Sisyphean.

Convincing recruits to play at the school's remote campus? Brutally difficult in a conference where Gonzaga's rivals played in cities like San Diego, San Francisco, Portland and Los Angeles. The weather? Icy. Gonzaga's tradition? Outside of alumnus John Stockton, almost non-existent.

"And he was right at the time," Monson recalled recently. "He'd tell Mark and I all the time that Gonzaga is the worst job in the West Coast Conference."

Such a notion seems absurd now.

This week, Gonzaga played in its 27th consecutive NCAA Tournament, an active streak only eclipsed by Kansas and Michigan State, and won its 17th consecutive opening-round game. The Bulldogs have played for two national championships and gone 56-6 in the West Coast Conference tournament in 27 years since Few was tapped to become the head coach after Monson departed for a job in a bigger conference.

As Gonzaga has authored perhaps the most dominant run over a conference in the history of college basketball, Monson has received countless phone calls from coaches and administrators all asking for advice that once might have seemed unthinkable:How can we be the next Gonzaga?

"It's just such a unique, unbelievable story in sports, let alone basketball," said Bill Grier, a Colorado assistant who started his career on Gonzaga's staff and later coached WCC rival San Diego. "(You) have a little program that had never even been to the (NCAA) tournament til 1995 and then now look at what's been accomplished through Final Fours and championship games."

It is "a journey unlike any college program in the country," West Coast Conference commissioner Stu Jackson told NBC News.

As the Zags became a national brand synonymous with March, the rest of their WCC opponents did not. In a conference that often earned just one NCAA tournament berth per season, Loyola Marymount (1990), Portland (1996), Pepperdine (2002) and San Diego (2008) have gone a generation or more since their last appearance in March Madness. Santa Clara's tournament berth this year was its first since 1996.

Life in the WCC meant knowing "one of those (NCAA Tournament) bids are going to go to Gonzaga. They're going to go because they're just a powerhouse," said Gyno Pomare, a former San Diego big man from 2005-09. "But the only other way to get there is winning the tournament."

Led by Pomare and coached by Grier, San Diego won the conference tournament in 2008. San Francisco did in 1998, as well. But they're the outliers. Since 1998, Gonzaga won the conference tournament title, and the automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament that came with it, 22 times, and Saint Mary's four times. Gonzaga's tournament title earlier this month was its 12th in the last 14 years.

"You had some excellent coaches in that league, you know," said Phil Matthews, San Francisco's coach in 1998. "And it was a fight for second place."

"We haven't missed an NCAA Tournament and we won games in the NCAA Tournament so that's I think far and away the legacy that I'm most proud of," Few said after the latest conference-title win this month.

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But this summer, the long shadow it cast over the rest of the WCC will recede as Gonzaga leaves for the reconstituted Pac-12 Conference. If you were expecting the exit of a basketball behemoth to be cheered throughout the rest of a conference long starved for NCAA Tournament exposure, though, think again. Gonzaga's transformation into a perennial top-10 team brought relevance and revenue to the rest of the conference that won't easily, or quickly, be replaced.

"Being a competitor, no, I'm not happy they're leaving," said Pomare, who said playing Gonzaga twice each season provided two high-profile opportunities to impress the NCAA Tournament selection committee.

Jackson, the WCC Commissioner, acknowledged that the little school had become the WCC's "biggest brand" in basketball.

"Every member in the conference, both financially and from a brand standpoint in our conference as a whole, has benefited," he said. "And you know, we are sad to see them go. But we understand, and from a West Coast Conference perspective, we wish them nothing but the best.

"But that said, now comes opportunity. And I have gotten a sense, not just now, but over the past couple years, a sense that schools are trying to position themselves to take advantage of that opportunity."

Part of the reticence to cheer Gonzaga's departure is that while its success was bad news for many conference opponents on the court, it was also big business.

Teams that win games in the NCAA Tournament earn a "unit," a slice of tournament revenue, that goes to their conference and is later distributed among its members. Gonzaga's 47 wins in March Madness created a steady windfall.An analysisby the Associated Press in 2018 estimated Gonzaga had generated more than $51 million to the WCC since 1999. As another conference, the Mountain West, courting Gonzaga in 2018, the WCC changed its revenue-sharing rules to give schools that won multiple games in a given tournament a larger piece of the pie — a change that applied to any member, but applied in practice almost always to Gonzaga.

Since 2024, when Gonzaga announced its intention to leave for the Pac-12, half of each "unit" earned in the NCAA Tournament goes to the school that earned it, Jackson said; the other half goes to the conference, which distributes it among other members.

Monson believed Gonzaga's departure "had to mean disaster for the administration of these other schools, because the amount of money and recognition that Gonzaga brought that league is uncharted, unmatched," he said. "But for coaches, they had to be ecstatic — because the opportunity to go to the tournament was just never there."

Little about this would have been predicted in 1999, when Monson left Gonzaga to coach at Minnesota on the heels of leading the Bulldogs to a stunning run to the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight. His reason for leaving, he said, was knowing that teams atop the competitive WCC rarely stayed there for long.

As Few took over in Spokane, though, the school didn't want its moment to slip away. It poured money into a new arena, scheduled games against blueblood opponents on neutral courts in front of national television audiences, and used that exposure to recruit around the globe. Few never left, creating an unmatched continuity.

"They realized before any other program that, 'We're going to put money and resources into basketball,'" said Matthews, the former San Francisco coach who saw it first-hand when his son played on Gonzaga's 2017 Final Four team.

Jackson, the WCC Commissioner, has worked as a head coach in college and the NBA, and later as a high-ranking NBA executive. This season marked only the fourth time the WCC had sent three teams to the NCAA Tournament. Still, he believes investments around the conference into basketball could keep it a multi-bid league despite the exit of Gonzaga, whose national presence helped opponents' strength of schedule.

Pepperdine is building an on-campus arena, San Francisco and San Diego have each built a new practice facility and Loyola Marymount has renovated its longtime arena.

"There's some good signs with having new members coupled with the increased level of investment commitment amongst our existing members," he said. "So, I think we're going to be OK."

SYDNEY (AP) — Maika Hamano's first-half strike propelled Japan to theWomen's Asian Cuptitle with a 1-0 win over Australia on Saturday at Sydney's Stadium Australia.

Women's Asian Cup Soccer Japan Australia

The 21-year-old Hamano, on loan at Tottenham from Chelsea, took a pass from the left with her back to goal, turned and launched a powerful strike from outside the area in the 17th minute.

The Australians applied all the pressure in the last 10 minutes pressing for an equalizer but were continually denied by Japan's defense, including Alanna Kennedy's close-range header with two minutes left in regulation.

Japan had beaten Australia in finals to win back-to-back Women's Asian Cups in 2014 and 2018 and has now won the title three times in the last four continental championships.

The top-ranked team in Asia conceded just one goal in six games in Australia.

The Matildas haven't won the continental championship since 2010, whenSam Kerr— then 16 — scored in the decider.

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Six teams from the Asian Cup have qualified for next year's Women's World Cup in Brazil.

The 12-team tournament gained global attention due to the involvement of an Iranian squad affected by the Middle East war.

The Iranian team arrived in Australia before the Feb. 28 attacks by the United States and Israel triggered theIran war,and their participation held the international focus.

Seven members of the Iran delegation initially were granted asylum by the Australian government, butall but twohave sincereturned home.

AP soccer:https://apnews.com/hub/soccer