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Darrell Green may have retired from the NFL in 2002, but that isn't stopping the Hall of Famer from getting back on to the field for a different type of football at age 66.

Green, who played 20 years in the NFL and won two Super Bowls with Washington, is in Chula Vista, California, this weekend to take part in the national flag football team trials. He will be one of many athletes attempting to earn a spot on the 2026 U.S. squad that will compete at the world championships in Germany in August.

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According to Callie Brownson, USA Football's senior director of high performance and national teams, the longtime NFL cornerback qualified for this stage of the process through a digital combine via "impressive" testing results. "He's a rare athlete who has stayed in shape and is ready to compete this week," she saidvia The Associated Press.

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Green will try to make an already competitive team. The U.S. men's national squad has won six of the pastseven IFAF world titles since 2010.

"There's nothing like getting on that field and competing on behalf of this country," Green saidvia USA Football's Instagram page. "And then topping that off standing on that top podium getting that gold [medal]. I've done it in track in college and high school; I've been in Super Bowls, this is the granddaddy of them all. Don't feel sorry for me, don't feel bad for me. I'm a competitor just like everybody else and I'm gonna give it my best and walk away with my head up, either way."

Green was the 28th overall pick by Washington in the 1983 NFL Draft. Along with two championships, he was a four-time All-Pro, seven-time Pro Bowler and a member of the NFL 100th Anniversary All-time Team.

Prior to his NFL career, Green was a track and field standout at then-Texas A&I University, earning back-to-back All-America honors in 1981 and 1982.

In October 2023, theInternational Olympic Committee executive board approvedflag football among five sports that were added to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics schedule. This past December, theNFL voted to fund and launch a professional flag football league, months after the league approved a resolution allowingplayers to participateat the LA Games. Injury protection and salary cap credit will be offered to teams that lose players to injury.

Nicholas Brendon died "in his sleep of natural causes" at age 54, his family said in a statement on Friday, March 20

NEED TO KNOW

• Brendon is best known for playing Xander on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer

• The actor "had struggles in the past," his family said, but he "was optimistic about the future at the time of his passing"

Nicholas Brendon, the actor best known for his role as Xander onBuffy the Vampire Slayer, has died. He was 54.

"We are heartbroken to share the passing of our brother and son, Nicholas Brendon. He passed in his sleep of natural causes," his family said in astatement sharedon his official Instagram page on Friday, March 20.

"Most people know Nicky for his work as an actor and for the characters he brought to life over the years. In recent years Nicky has found his passion in painting and art," the family added. "Nicky loved to share his enthusiastic talent with his family, friends and fans. He was passionate, sensitive and endlessly driven to create."

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The statement added, "Those who truly knew him understood that his art was one of the purest reflections of who he was. While it'sno secret that Nicholas had struggles in the past, he was on medications andtreatment to manage his diagnosisand he was optimistic about the future at the time of his passing. Our family asks for privacy during this time as we grieve his loss and celebrate the life of a man who lived with intensity, imagination and heart. Thank you to everyone who has shown love and support."

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Brendon rose to fame as Xander Harris onBuffy the Vampire Slayer,which aired seven seasons from 1997 to 2003, alongside costars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Charisma Carpenter and David Boreanaz. He also appeared in movies likePsycho Beach Party, UnholyandCoherence. His other TV shows included Bradley Cooper'sKitchen ConfidentialandCriminal Minds, in which he played the recurring character Kevin Lynch.

In the years afterBuffy, Brendon spoke out about struggling with depression as well as alcohol and substance addictions, checking into rehabbetween multiple arrests, including for domestic violence chargesand prescription fraud.

He toldThe A.V. Club in 2017that landing his role onBuffywas a "dream" come true.

"There were so many times I'd just be on set and in this place of wonder, saying, 'Oh my God. I can't believe I'm a part of this show,' " he said at the time, adding, "There were so many wonderful moments on it. You cannot just pick one. I think probably, when I booked it, when I got the phone call on a Tuesday at about 10 a.m., that's kind of where this whole journey started for me. Twenty years later, it's really still going."

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The boy in the grainy video feed sounded desperate.

"I don't want to be here anymore," he said. "Nothing is good here."

Since early March, 9-year-old Deiver Henao Jimenez had been held with his parents at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas, where children have complained of limited education, lights that never turn off and moldy food. Now he was on a video call with someone who said she wanted to help: Ms. Rachel.

Wearing her signature pink headband,the popular children's entertainerleaned toward the screen, trying to comfort the boy.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said in a warm, high-pitched voice familiar to millions of children and parents. "A lot of people want to try to help."

Deiver told her he missed his friends and that the food at Dilley made his stomach hurt. But that wasn't what worried him most. Before he was detained, he had won his school spelling bee and placed third at regionals, earning a spot at New Mexico's state competition in May.

"I want to leave and go to the spelling bee," he said.

Ms. Rachel tried to reassure him.

"You have a real gift for spelling. You're so smart."

Then her smile faltered.

"It was unbelievably surreal to see this sweet little face and feel like I was on a call with somebody who's in jail," Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Accurso, told NBC News in an exclusive interview this week. "It broke me, and it was something I never thought I'd encounter in life."

Like many Americans, Accurso said she first became aware of the family detention center in Dilley, Texas, in January, after federal immigration agents detained the father of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in Minneapolis and sent them both to the remote, prisonlike facility. A photograph of the child — wearing a blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack — spread widely online, drawing national attention to the center and the treatment of families held there. They were eventually released butthe family's asylum claim was denied this week.

In the first year of its expanded immigration crackdown, the Trump administration placed more than 2,300 children into detention with their parents, with the overwhelming majority held at Dilley, according to figures provided by court-appointed monitors. Many have been held forseveral weeks or months.

During that time, Accurso — whose educational videos for babies and toddlers have made her one of the nation's most recognizable kids' entertainers — has become an increasingly prominent voice speaking out on behalf of vulnerable children. She has drawn attention to the plight of children in war-torn Gaza, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars and drawing backlash from critics who have accused her of picking sides in global conflicts.

She has repeatedly defended her advocacy under a simple mantra: "I see all children as precious and equal."

After her video call last week with Deiver and another boy held at Dilley, Accurso told NBC News she is now embarking on a new mission closer to home: working with lawyers and immigration rights activists "to close Dilley and make sure that kids and their parents are back in their communities where they belong."

Parents and immigration lawyershave described childrenthere losing weight after findingworms in their food, growing anxious as guards patrol andstanding in line for hoursfor single doses of medicine. Some havesuffered medical emergencieswhile detained.

About 50 children remained at Dilley this week, down from about 500 in January,The New York Times reportedFriday based on a review of government figures and advocacy group estimates. Some of the families were released in the U.S.; others were deported. It's unclear what led to the sharp decline, but it follows months of pressure from human rights advocates, Democratic members of Congress and immigration lawyers.

The Department of Homeland Security didn't answer questions about the families Accurso met over video. The agency has disputed reports of poor conditions as "mainstream media lies," saying families at Dilley are provided comprehensive care in a facility "purpose-built" for their needs.

The more Accurso read about Dilley after Liam's detention, she said, the more unsettled she became. Then, last week, she got a chance to hear directly from children held there.

Journalist Lidia Terrazas, who has spent months reporting on conditions inside Dilley for theSpanish-language network N+ Univision, set up the video call.

Before chatting with Deiver, Accurso spoke to Gael, a 5-year-old with significant developmental delays. The boy, who is nonverbal, was in the process of being assessed for autism when he and his parents were detained in El Paso at a routine immigration check-in, according to the family's lawyer, Elora Mukherjee. Like Deiver's family, Gael's parents fled Colombia, have pending asylum claims and no criminal history in the U.S., and had been working and living in the country for years before their arrests, the families' lawyers said.

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Mukherjee, a professor at Columbia Law School and the director of its Immigrants' Rights Clinic, said Gael has a history of severe constipation that had been managed at home with a specialized diet, including fresh fruit and soups. In detention, she said, his condition spiraled.

In a brief video interview on Friday, Gael's parents, Nelsy and Leonardo, told NBC News their son's condition had continued to deteriorate in detention, both physically and emotionally. They asked to be identified only by their first names, fearing retaliation should they be deported to Colombia.

"This is not a place for him because he needs special care," Leonardo said, as Gael wandered around the bare, gray meeting room. "No human being should ever go through this."

On Accurso's call with her, Gael's mother said her son had not been able to poop in nine days and was struggling to eat, gagging when he tried. The facility had been treating him with laxatives and later an enema, but his condition hadn't significantly improved, his mother said. His stomach was visibly distended, Accurso said, leaving her "incredibly worried."

"Imagine if your child hadn't pooped in nine days," she said. "This is not normal. This is an important medical situation."

As his mother spoke, Accurso slipped into character and tried to engage him — singing "Wheels on the Bus," holding up a toy and talking to him about his love of trains — but he appeared restless and overwhelmed, she said.

Amid his confusion and discomfort, Gael has grown increasingly distressed at Dilley, Mukherjee said, at times hitting himself — behavior his parents had not previously seen.

"Treating a child this way is a crime," Accurso told NBC News. "It's neglect and child abuse."

Accurso said she was no less concerned about Deiver.

In their brief conversation, he moved quickly past the conditions inside the facility to what he was missing outside it — his classmates, his gifted and talented courses and, most of all, the spelling bee he had been preparing for.

"He's so proud," Accurso said.

The juxtaposition, she said, was difficult to process: a child talking about his love of pizza and school one moment, then asking for help getting out of a federal detention center the next.

"We're trying to get a child out of a jail to do a spelling bee," she said. "I just never thought those words would go together."

Accurso recalled winning her own second-grade classroom spelling bee with a lucky guess on the word "chocolate" — a small, long-ago victory she still remembers in vivid detail.

Moments like that are more than milestones, said Accurso, who has master's degrees in music education and early childhood development. They shape how children see themselves — their confidence, their sense of belonging, their sense of what comes next.

Taking those kinds of opportunities away from a child, she said, "is cruelty."

After speaking with the children, Accurso said she initially hesitated to speak out publicly.

Her advocacy for children in Gaza had led to a torrent of criticism from right-wing groups that accused her of antisemitism for centering Palestinian children rather than Israelis. Accurso has pushed back on those claims, noting that she advocates for children suffering on both sides of the conflict. The controversy has led to threats against her family, she said, and she worried that speaking out about ICE detention might inflame the situation.

But she kept coming back to the example set by Fred Rogers, the late children's television icon she considers her hero, who used his platform to speak out on behalf of children.

Ultimately, she said, the decision felt clear.

And unlike in the past, when she painstakingly sought to frame her activism as apolitical, Accurso said she is ready to embrace the label.

"I am political," she said. "It's political to believe that children are worthy of love and care, and that every child is equal, and that our care shouldn't stop at what we look like, our family, at our religion, at a border."

If being political is what it takes to bring Gael home, or to get Deiver to his spelling bee, Accurso said, then her conscience leaves her no other choice.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sixty years afterNeil Armstrongbarely survived an emergency in orbit around Earth on Gemini 8, never-before-seen photos of his heroic return have been donated to the Ohio museum that bears his name.

Armstrong-Astronaut Photos

Quick thinking saved Armstrong and fellow astronaut David Scott, who ended the mission early with a splashdown off Okinawa, Japan.

Previously unreleased photos taken by Ron McQueeney, an Army veteran and professional photographer who escorted Armstrong and Scott, show new angles of the pair.

Since the splashdown was unplanned, few members of the media were on site, though NASA and military photographers were there. People who were unexpectedly called to help with recovery operations, like McQueeney, played a key role in capturing the aftermath.

"Sometimes, an incredible event can actually be documented by some of the most ordinary means," said Dante Centuori, executive director of the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Armstrong's western Ohio hometown.

McQueeney's widow donated the photos, which show Armstrong and Scott on the deck of a U.S. Navy vessel and waving to service members on land. One shows the Gemini 8 capsule being lifted into the air for transport.

One of the mission's goals was to complete the first docking in space. Minutes after accomplishing this, both spacecraft started tumbling uncontrollably. The astronauts separated from the other spacecraft but the spinning got worse.

Armstrong made a calculated decision, deploying the craft's thrusters to stop the spinning. In doing so, he ate into some of the vital fuel needed to get home. For safety's sake, they had to end the mission early.

The duo splashed down about 10 hours after the March 16, 1966 launch. They were picked up by a recovery ship and brought to the Naha Air Base in Japan.

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Centuori said one element of the photos that sticks out is the smiles on the astronauts' faces, which he suggested shows their professionalism and ability to remain at ease even after a life-threatening mission.

Science historian Robert Poole said the grins point to something else.

"The obvious thing that sticks out to me is that they are very happy to be alive," said Poole, of the University of Lancashire.

Armstrong's ability to stay cool in a crisis was key to his getting picked as commander of Apollo 11, Poole said.

More than a half-century after the last Apollo mission, NASA ispreparing to return to the moonwith a lunar fly-around by Artemis astronauts in April.

Past missions are a reminder of the effort and preparation it takes to get to space and adapt when plans change.

"Seeing people launch to space frequently can suggest that it's easy, but it's very hard. And it requires a lot of resources and attention," said Emily Margolis, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum.

The new images will help the Armstrong Museum fill in gaps when telling the story of the mission to visitors. The Gemini 8 capsule is already on display at the museum.

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.

CBS News announced Friday that CBS News Radio will be shutting down this spring after nearly 100 years of broadcasting. The company cited "challenging economic realities" and a shift in radio programming strategies as reasons behind the decision.

About 700 affiliated stations nationwide carry CBS News Radio programming, which will end on May 22. All jobs on the radio team will be eliminated, the company said.

"We understand how difficult this news is for our staff and their colleagues, who have worked side by side with us to cover some of the most significant stories of our time," CBS News President Tom Cibrowski and Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss said in a statement.

They also paid tribute to the historic role of CBS News Radio in covering major events worldwide since the dawn of the broadcasting era.

"For nearly 100 years, CBS News Radio has delivered original reporting to the nation — from Edward R. Murrow's World War II reports in London to today's daily White House updates," they said. "Our signature broadcast, 'World News Roundup,' remains the longest-running newscast in the country. CBS News Radio served as the foundation for everything we have built since 1927."

Murrow became a household name as millions of Americans tuned in for news of the war, and he later became a mainstay on CBS News television broadcasts. But radio declined in the TV era, and in recent years social media and podcasts further cut into the audience.

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"This is another part of the landscape that has fallen off into the sea," Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers, a trade publication for radio talk shows, told The Associated Press. "It's a shame. It's a loss for the country and for the industry."

Layoffs also took place across other parts of CBS News on Friday; a total number of job cuts was not announced.

"It's no secret that the news business is changing radically, and that we need to change along with it," Cibrowski and Weiss said in an email to staff.

CBS is owned by Paramount Skydance, whichtook ownershiplast year.

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LONDON —Iran has fired missilesat the joint U.K.-U.S.Diego Garcia military basein the Indian Ocean, claiming the strike shows it is capable of longer-distance attacks than previously known.

"Iran's reckless attacks, lashing out across the region and holding hostagethe Strait of Hormuz, are a threat to British interests and British allies," a spokesperson for the U.K.'s Ministry of Defense said Saturday, confirming the unsuccessful strike.

Tehran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at the base in the Chagos Islands, a remote British overseas territory located more than2,000 miles from Tehran, Iran's semiofficial Mehr news agency reported on Saturday. Neither missile hit the base, it added, though neither Iran nor the U.K. specified how close the missiles came to Diego Garcia.

The distance of the attempted strike could indicate that Iran has capabilities for long-distance attacks that it has previously denied, with the base the same distance from Iran as much of central Europe. It is unclear, however, if the missiles carried a payload or how far such an attack could truly reach, as neither missile reached its target.

In aninterview with NBC News' "Meet the Press"earlier this month, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country had intentionally kept the range of its missiles below 1,250 miles "because we don't want to be felt as a threat by anybody else in the world."

The Wall Street Journal, citing multiple officials, reported that one of the missiles was shot down by a U.S. warship and the other failed in flight.

Mehr said targeting the base was a "significant step ... that shows that the range of Iran's missiles is beyond what the enemy previously imagined."

One analyst said the intercepted missile could be a "candidate for the longest-range missile" that the U.S. has ever shot down.

Iran has been testing "big, solid missiles" over the years, Tom Karako, who runs the missile defense project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told NBC News. "So it's not at all surprising."

There's been speculation before that Iran could be capable of strikes beyond the claimed 1,250-mile limit, he added, "they just haven't shown their cards." The attack on Diego Garcia "would seem to be" that moment, he said.

The attack on Friday came shortly before the U.K. announced that it would allow the U.S. to use its bases, including Diego Garcia, to hit targets near the Strait of Hormuz.

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Government ministers agreed to allow the U.S. military to use its bases to conduct "defensive operations" to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the office ofPrime Minister Keir Starmersaid Friday, weeks into a conflict that has seen Britain, like most of Europe, remain largely on the sidelines.

About 20% of the oil that the world consumes every day travels via the Strait of Hormuz, which runs along part of Iran's coast. But since the war began at the end of February, shipping in the channel has come to a halt.

President Donald Trumpsaid the decision to allow the use of U.K. bases was "a very late response from the U.K." He had previously criticized the nation for a perceived lack of support in Iran, saying its Starmer was "no Winston Churchill." He called NATO allies "cowards" on Friday for refusing to offer warships to support reopening the shipping channel, though he had previously said their support would not be needed.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Starmer was "putting British lives in danger" by allowing the use of bases.

"Vast majority of the British People do not want any part in the Israel-U.S. war of choice on Iran," Araghchi wrote on X. "Ignoring his own People, Mr. Starmer is putting British lives in danger by allowing UK bases to be used for aggression against Iran. Iran will exercise its right to self-defense."

Starmer has so far walked a tightrope on Iran, balancing diplomatic relations with Trump and protecting U.K. assets in the Mediterranean with avoiding direct participation in a war thatpolling showsis overwhelmingly unpopular with the British public.

The Diego Garcia base is about 2,360 miles from Iran and home to an air base capable of accommodating long-range U.S. bombers.

The Chagos Islands, which house the base, have been part of a separate rift between the U.K. and the Trump administration, after Britain agreed to cede sovereignty over the territory to Mauritius and lease back the base.

Trump has vacillated between supporting the proposed deal and publicly attacking Starmer over it, most recently urging Starmer not to "give away Diego Garcia" in February, despite Washington giving its official backing just days before.

Mauritius, an Indian Ocean nation and a close ally of China, had argued that it was illegally forced to give away the archipelago to gain independence from Britain. The International Court of Justice sided with Mauritius in a 2019 case over the territory, issuing an advisory ruling that declared the British occupation unlawful.

As part of the deal backed by Starmer, the U.K. and the U.S. will retain a 99-year lease of the Diego Garcia military base.

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.