DALLAS (AP) — An 18-year-old woman about to begin her first year at the U.S. Air Force Academy was killed when a personal watercraft hit her kayak on a Texas lake over Memorial Day weekend, setting off a pursuit by law enforcement that ended in the arrests of two people.
Ava Moore died following the collision Sunday on Lake Grapevine, a popular boating and fishing destination near Dallas. She had just graduated last week from the U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School.
Authorities said Wednesday the woman accused of operating the personal watercraft is charged with felony manslaughter. She is accused of fleeing the lake in a vehicle with a man who was charged with two misdemeanors, including one related to hitting two cars as they left the scene. Both are Venezuelans who had entered the U.S. illegally in 2023, authorities said.
Here's what to know about the investigation:
Moore graduated on May 19 from U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School, and had accepted an appointment to join the academy as a member of its class of 2029, according to a news release from the academy.
Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy, said in the news release that Moore's “passion for leadership and service left an impact on everyone she met.” He said her “constant happiness and attitude helped her squadron get through the challenges” of prep school and “her drive to excel was on display as she sought out leadership positions."
Moore’s family said in a statement that they were thankful for the love, support and prayers they had received.
“This is a difficult time for all involved but also an opportunity for our beautiful girl to continue to impact our community,” the family said. “Out of this tragedy, God will make good and that only can be accomplished through forgiveness.”
The prep school is a 10-month program that offers a select group of enlisted personnel and civilians a potential pathway to become a cadet at the academy, according to an academy spokesperson. The spokesperson said Moore was on the prep school's basketball team.
A personal watercraft with two women on board was being driven at a high speed near the shore of a park when it struck Moore's kayak, Texas Game Warden Capt. Joseph Quintero said at a news conference Wednesday.
Authorities say the two women on the personal watercraft fled the scene of the collision, and then returned to the park. The personal watercraft's passenger remained there while 22-year-old Daikerlyn Gonzalez Gonzalez left in a vehicle with 21-year-old Maikel Coello Perozo, authorities said. Their vehicle collided with two other vehicles as they fled, authorities said.
Gonzalez’s passenger on the personal watercraft does not currently face any charges, Quintero said.
A police spokesperson said Gonzalez and Perozo were being held at the detention center in Grapevine on Wednesday. The spokesperson did not know if they had attorneys to speak on their behalf.
Quintero said the investigation is continuing and more charges could be filed. He said authorities are looking into who owned the personal watercraft. Authorities have no evidence that alcohol was involved in the collision.
Quintero said authorities do not know the relationship between the man and woman arrested.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that both Gonzalez and Perozo are from Venezuela.
Gonzalez illegally entered the U.S. in September 2023, was given a notice to appear and released, ICE said. Perozo entered the U.S. in January of that year after arriving at a port of entry in Eagle Pass and was released pending an immigration hearing, the agency said.
The statement did not say when they were scheduled to appear.
ICE said immigration detainers have been lodged with Grapevine police following the arrests of Gonzalez and Coello.
This booking photo provided by the Grapevine Police Department on Tuesday, May 27, 2025, shows Maikel Coello Perozo. (Grapevine Police Department via AP)
This booking photo provided by the Grapevine Police Department on Tuesday, May 27, 2025, shows Daikerlyn Gonzalez Gonzalez. (Grapevine Police Department via AP)
This undated photo provided by the U.S. Air Force Academy shows cadet candidate Ava Moore. (U.S. Air Force Academy via AP)
NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.
Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.
Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.
About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.
Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.
The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.
Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.
In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.
“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.
Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.
The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.
Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.
"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.
There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."
Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.
Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.
Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
