(AP) - Donald Trump recounted his assassination attempt in vivid detail and promised the largest deportation in U.S. history during a high-profile return to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter — a conversation that was plagued by technical glitches.

“If I had not turned my head, I would not be talking to you right now — as much as I like you,” Trump told X’s owner Elon Musk.

Musk, a former Trump critic, said the Republican nominee’s toughness, as demonstrated by his reaction to last month’s shooting, was critical for national security.

“There’s some real tough characters out there,” Musk said. “And if they don’t think the American president is tough, they will do what they want to do.”

The rare public conversation between Trump and Musk, which was overwhelmingly friendly, revealed little that’s new about Trump’s plans for a second term. The former president spent much of the conversation discussing his recent assassination attempt and illegal immigration.

Still, the meeting underscored just how much the U.S. political landscape has changed less than four years after Trump was permanently banned by the social media platform’s former leadership for spreading disinformation that sparked the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress and undermined the very foundation of the American democracy.

Such disinformation has thrived at X under Musk’s leadership.

The session was also intended to serve as a way for the former president to reach potentially millions of voters directly. It was also an opportunity for X, a platform that relies heavily on politics, to redeem itself after some struggles.

It did not begin as planned.

With more than 878,000 users connected to the conversation more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time, the interview had not yet begun. Many users received a message reading, “Details not available.”

Trump’s team posted that the “interview on X is being overwhelmed with listeners logging in.” And once the meeting began, Musk apologized for the late start and blamed a “massive attack” that overwhelmed the company’s system.

Trump supporters were openly frustrated.

“Not available????? I planned my whole day around this,” wrote conservative commentator Glenn Beck.

“Please let Elon know we can’t join,” billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posted.

Ahead of his conversation, Musk posted on the platform that X was conducting “some system scaling tests” to handle what’s anticipated to be a high volume of participants.

The rocky start was reminiscent of a May 2023 social media conversation between Musk and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Republican governor was using the social media platform as a way to officially announce his presidential bid, a disastrous rollout marred by technical glitches, overloaded by the more than 400,000 people who tried to dial in.

Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, noted that Trump mocked DeSantis at the time.

“Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!” Trump wrote in a message reposted by Harris’ campaign Monday.

Monday’s meeting also highlighted the evolving personal relationship between Trump and Musk, two of the world’s most powerful men, who have shifted from being bitter rivals to unlikely allies over the span of one election season.

Musk, who has described himself as a Democrat until a few years ago, suggested in 2022 that Trump was too old to be president again. Still, Musk formally endorsed Trump two days after his assassination attempt last month.

The tech CEO had already been working privately to support a pro-Trump super PAC. The group, known as America PAC, is now under investigation by election officials for alleged misleading attempts to collect data from voters.

Meanwhile, Trump has softened his criticism of electric vehicles, citing Musk’s leadership of Tesla. And on Monday, at least, Trump returned to Musk’s social media platform in force. The former president made at least eight individual posts in the hours leading up to the Musk interview.

Long before he endorsed Trump, Musk turned increasingly toward the right in his posts and actions on the platform, also using X to try to sway political discourse around the world. He’s gotten in a dustup with a Brazilian judge over censorship, railed against what he calls the “woke mind virus” and amplified false claims that Democrats are secretly flying in migrants to vote in U.S. elections.

Musk has also reinstated previously banned accounts such as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Trump, who was kicked off the platform — then known as Twitter — two days after the Jan. 6 violence, with the company citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.” By November 2022, Musk had bought the company, and Trump’s account was reinstated, although the former president refrained from tweeting until Monday, insisting that he was happier on his own Truth Social site, which he launched during the ban.

Trump’s audience on X is legions larger than on Truth Social, which became a publicly traded company earlier this year. Trump has just over 7.5 million followers on Truth Social, while his mostly dormant X account is followed by 88 million. Musk’s account, which hosted the interview, has more than 193 million followers.

In a reminder that the world was watching, the chat prompted a preemptive note of caution from Europe.

Thierry Breton, a French business executive and commissioner for internal market of the European Union, warned Musk of possible “amplification of harmful content” by broadcasting his interview with Trump. In a letter posted on X, Breton urged Musk to “ensure X’s compliance” with EU law, including the Digital Services Act, adopted in 2022 to address a number of issues including disinformation.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung urged the EU to “mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the U.S. Presidential election.” He said the EU was “an enemy of free speech and has no authority of any kind to dictate how we campaign.”

LAREDO, Tx. (KGNS) - Two people are hurt following a crash in south Laredo Saturday, Aug. 10.

According to the Laredo Police Department, the crash happened at around noon on the southbound lanes of Highway 83 near Palo Blanco Street.

Officers had to close off the area to the traveling public while crews worked to clear the area.

According to the Laredo Fire Department two vehicles were involved and the victims only received minor injuries.

Fire officials say, none of the people involved needed to be taken to the hospital.

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - Laredo Police responded to a near-drowning incident in North Laredo over the weekend.

A 3-year-old is in the hospital after a near-drowning incident happened on Saturday evening.

The Laredo Police Department was called out to the 100 block of Regal Drive.

The child was taken to a local hospital for care but later flown out to Corpus Christi to a specialized hospital.

The incident is being investigated.

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - Casa Ortiz is hosting a new event unlike anything they’ve done before. The historic home is turning into an enchanting night mixing meditation with upbeat music on Saturday, August 10.

People can expect a flower crown workshop, guided meditation, a light show and live music.

Member of the Laredo Cultural District, Jorge Santana, shares how they plan to combine zen with rave.

“Meditation is, if people don’t know about it they think that it’s something very boring, you just sit there and you’re by yourself. If you mix it up with lights and music, it becomes an experience. If you haven’t experienced it, you need to come and have this opportunity, and what better place than Casa Ortiz,” said Santana.

The Midsummer Mediation Rave is taking place from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. at Casa Ortiz, located at 915 Zaragoza St. in downtown Laredo.

For more information on the Midsummer Meditation Rave, click here.

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - Family and friends are mourning 22-year-old Arath Nicolas Gutierrez, who died in a car crash early Wednesday morning, August 7, in south Laredo.

Gutierrez was traveling on Cuatro Vientos Road in his black Honda Civic when the car reportedly rolled over, leading to his death. Melissa Amici, Arath’s aunt, expressed the family’s grief: “It’s an incredible shock, and it’s an incredible senseless loss of a very young beautiful vibrant life.”

Amici recalled Gutierrez’s dreams and passions. “He loved fashion. He just really wanted to be able to buy all the latest fads and the big tennis shoes. He wanted to make money, buy a house, and take care of his family,” she said.

Arath’s uncle, Amando Mendez, shared his nephew’s dedication to his job at FedEx Ground: “When we talked, we talked last Sunday during my mother’s birthday, we had a good talk. He mentioned FedEx and his coworkers and that he loves his job.”

Mendez also remembered Gutierrez’s kindness: “There was an aura around him that shined and as he grew up and got older, he was always kind-hearted with people. He loved his family, he loved his mom and his sister. Overall, he had a big heart and was a very good person.”

Since his passing, flowers have been placed at the crash site as a tribute. Many have supported the family through a GoFundMe page, and his coworkers at FedEx Ground have organized a fundraising event. Amici added, “To know that someone can impact so many people in 22 short years is really beautiful. It’s lovely to know that the way he was with us, was the way he was with everyone.”

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - The Diocese of Laredo celebrates its 24th anniversary on August 9, starting a year of events leading up to its 25th anniversary.

A special Mass will be held at St. Augustine’s Cathedral at 6:00 p.m. on August 9. The public is invited to attend.

The diocese said this is just the beginning of a year full of events to remember the past, celebrate now, and look forward to the future.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It’s Los Angeles’ turn for the torch. Mayor Karen Bass accepted the Olympic flag at the Paris closing ceremony Sunday, before handing it off to a key representative of LA’s local business — Tom Cruise — who in a pre-recorded trek via motorcycle, plane and parachute kicked off the countdown to 2028.

The city will become the third in the world to host the games three times as it adds to the storied years of 1932 and 1984. Here’s a look forward and back in time at the Olympics in LA.

LA’s Olympic trilogy

Los Angeles got the 2028 games as a consolation prize when Paris was picked for 2024.

Back in 1932, LA hosted its first Olympics. The city was the only bidder for the games at a time marred by the Great Depression and the absence of several nations. Yet memorable sport moments came from athletes including American athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias, who won golds in the new women’s events of javelin and hurdles.

Financial and cultural success gave 1984 a reputation as the “good” Olympics” which made seemingly every major world city want their own.

Emphasizing both the modern and the classical with a hand from Hollywood, the games opened with decathlon champion Rafer Johnson lighting the torch, a guy in a jetpack descending into the Memorial Coliseum and theme music by “Star Wars” maestro John Williams.

With Eastern Bloc countries boycotting, the U.S. dominated. Carl Lewis and Mary Lou Retton are among the athletes who became household names. A young Michael Jordan led the men’s basketball team to gold.

The games renewed, for a while, the global reputation of a city that had been perceived to be in decline.

“We want our games to be a modern games, youthful, full of the optimism that Southern California brings to the world and the globe,” Janet Evans, four-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming and chief athlete officer for the LA 2028 organizing committee, told The Associated Press in Paris.

Passing the torch

Bass, who returned to LA Monday, said one of the biggest takeaways was the way Paris organizers made the “Olympics for everyone, whether you participated in the games or not.”

She gave examples of watch parties held in surrounding cities and breakdancing classes before the competitions.

Joining her were LA28 Chairperson Casey Wasserman, an entertainment executive, and LA councilmember Traci Park, chair of the city Olympic committee.

City council president Paul Krekorian, who joined Bass in bringing the Olympic flag to LA, said they were “going to make this the only city in the world who have ever had three financially successful Olympic Games.”

Venues old and new, plus a swimming stadium

Amid a stadium-and-arena boom, LA will polish existing structures rather than erect new ones.

“It’s a no-build games,” Evans said.

After Paris’ innovative opening ceremony on the Seine River, LA plans to open with a traditional, stadium-based approach at SoFi Stadium in neighboring Inglewood that also incorporates the century-old Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles itself.

Home to two NFL teams, SoFi has hosted a Super Bowl and several Taylor Swift concerts since opening in 2020. It will become what organizers say is the largest Olympic swimming venue ever. Its opening ceremony role means swimming will come after track and field for the first time since 1972.

Intuit Dome, the soon-to-open Inglewood home of the NBA’s Clippers, would be the games’ newest major venue and is the planned home for Olympic basketball. The Lakers’ downtown Crypto.com Arena will host gymnastics.

The toxicity of swimming in the Seine became a serious issue in Paris. That could put renewed focus on the Long Beach area waterfront when it hosts marathon swimming and triathlon races. Its cleanliness history is mixed but its ocean waters got consistently high marks in a 2023 analysis by nonprofit Heal the Bay.

The Long Beach shore was home to the pre-recorded performances during Sunday’s ceremony of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, though it was easy to mistake for LA’s Venice Beach, where the journey of the flag begun by Cruise was shown ending moments earlier.

Trains, buses and traffic

A city that’s notoriously hard to traverse may seem like an odd fit for the Olympics, but it can work.

Bass said she plans to emulate the tactics of Tom Bradley, the mayor in 1984, whose traffic mitigations had some saying it was better than at non-Olympic times. They include asking local businesses to stagger workforce hours to reduce the number of cars on the road and allow work from home during the 17-day games.

Landing the Olympics under then-Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2017 gave the city an unusually long lead time for planning.

While it’s no Paris Metro, LA has built a subway since its last Olympics, with lines running past major venues.

In 2018, the city planned an ambitious slate of 28 bus and rail projects to transform public transit. Some were scrapped but others moved forward, including the extension of a subway line to connect downtown Los Angeles with UCLA, the planned home of the Olympic Village.

Another high-profile project is the Inglewood People Mover, an automated, three-stop rail line past major Olympic venues. It initially received a commitment of $1 billion in federal funding, but opposition from Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters led to a $200 million reduction, the Los Angeles Times reported. It’s unclear whether the line will be completed by 2028.

Metro recently received $900 million in funding through an infrastructure spending package and grants from the Biden administration, of which $139 million will go directly toward improving transportation by 2028 and the goal of a “car-free” Olympics.

“The biggest challenge is not waiting to 2028, but really taking the opportunity between now and 2028 to help Angelenos and visitors alike reimagine the transportation network as something that will be their first choice,” Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins said.

Crime, safety and perception

While crime rates were considerably higher in 1984 than today, the countdown to 2028 comes as the issue has gotten increased attention and cast a social-media-amplified shadow.

The Olympics are designated as a national special security event, which makes the U.S. Secret Service the lead agency tasked with developing a security plan, supported by significant federal resources.

LA city and county law enforcement sent officers to Paris to observe, learn and assist as they prepare for their own 2028 games.

There are many more encampments on city streets than there were in 1984, and it’s unlikely LA will have solved its homeless crisis in the next four years. As the Paris games ended, California Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to withhold funding from cities unable to clear encampments.

Ahead of the Games in Paris, organizers relocated thousands of unhoused people, a practice also used for the 2016 Rio de Janiero games and criticized by activists as “social cleansing.”

Tourists and finances

LA is the “next logical destination” for the Olympics, said Adam Burke, president and CEO of the LA Tourism and Convention Board. “LA has emerged as really one of the world’s sports capitals.”

First though, the city will host a FIFA World Cup event and U.S. Women’s Open in 2026 and another Super Bowl in 2027.

The city’s hotel industry has continued to see growth, adding 9,000 new hotel rooms in the past four years with more to come over the next four.

LA28 organizers are banking on ticket sales, sponsorships, payments from the International Olympic Committee and other revenue streams to cover the games’ $6.9 billion budget. The committee has brought in just over $1 billion toward a goal of $2.5 billion in domestic corporate sponsorships.

Associated Press Writer Noreen Nassir contributed from Paris.

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) reported that a black Tahoe involved in a migrant pickup was spotted on Monday afternoon, August 12.

According to Sgt. Erick Estrada, DPS received a call around 3 p.m. about the vehicle, which had picked up migrants by Dolores Creek in Zapata County. A DPS trooper saw the Tahoe heading north on U.S. 83 and started a chase. The vehicle stopped at Meadow Avenue and Roosevelt Street in Laredo.

A woman in the passenger seat was arrested. Two undocumented migrants were detained and handed over to Border Patrol. The driver, a man, was also arrested and found later at his home.

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - On Sunday, August 11, at 9:30 p.m. at the intersection of 5200 Bob Bullock Loop, right in front of Laredo International Airport, emergency units reported a tragic incident.

The victim’s daughter identified him as 56-year-old, Gabriel Meza, a truck driver who was on his way home last night when the accident occurred.

Initially, Laredo police reported that the accident was caused by a vehicle colliding with the motorcyclist and leaving the scene.

However, they now believe that Meza lost control due to a trailer that he was hauling.

Joe Baeza with Laredo Police spoke on the current state of the investigation.

“We’re still trying to verify through the investigation. Whether or not it was a hit-and-run, or the person had just fallen from the motorcycle. At that point, the individual who was driving the motorcycle was taken to a hospital. Regrettably, he passed away soon after,” said Baeza.

The authorities are asking people that if anyone witnessed the incident, to please contact them.