LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Men in Nigeria lower buckets into the murky water of the Lagos Lagoon and bring up loads of sand, one by one. Going underwater for about 15 seconds at a time, dredgers haul up bucketloads bound for construction sites, reshaping the coastline of Africa’s largest city.
Filling a boat takes about three hours, which is worth about 12,000 naira ($8) to a middleman who supplies larger buyers.
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Residents on a boat on the Lagos Lagoon on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Aerial view of Makoko, one of Lagos' oldest fishing communities where dredging barges operate close to homes built on stilts on Saturday, Dec.13, 2025. Residents say the encroachment has destroyed fishing grounds and put many out of work. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Worker shovels up freshly extracted sharp sand from a dredging transporter in Ibeshe, Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Aerial view of heaps of sand and dredging equipment in the busy Ajah area of Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. Lagos is in constant construction. Roads, bridges and housing estates are rising daily on reclaimed waterfronts as the city's rich displace many of its poor. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
One of thousands of local dredgers diving for sand to support his household on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. He said he and his partner earn about 12,000 naira ($8) each per boatload, selling to a middleman who supplies larger buyers. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Sand extraction in progress on Lagos waters, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Fishermen in the lagoon in Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Worker shovels up freshly extracted sharp sand from dredging transporter in Ibeshe, Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Aerial view of heaps of sand and dredging equipment in the busy Ajah area of Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Sand extraction in progress in Lagos waters, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Dredgers and local traders say the price of sand, crucial for making concrete, has risen steadily.
The changes to the lagoon are unmistakable. What was once an open stretch of water is increasingly broken up by sandy patches, narrowing channels, and reshaping currents that support thousands of fishermen.
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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
Residents on a boat on the Lagos Lagoon on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Aerial view of Makoko, one of Lagos' oldest fishing communities where dredging barges operate close to homes built on stilts on Saturday, Dec.13, 2025. Residents say the encroachment has destroyed fishing grounds and put many out of work. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Worker shovels up freshly extracted sharp sand from a dredging transporter in Ibeshe, Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Aerial view of heaps of sand and dredging equipment in the busy Ajah area of Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. Lagos is in constant construction. Roads, bridges and housing estates are rising daily on reclaimed waterfronts as the city's rich displace many of its poor. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
One of thousands of local dredgers diving for sand to support his household on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. He said he and his partner earn about 12,000 naira ($8) each per boatload, selling to a middleman who supplies larger buyers. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Sand extraction in progress on Lagos waters, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Fishermen in the lagoon in Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Worker shovels up freshly extracted sharp sand from dredging transporter in Ibeshe, Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Aerial view of heaps of sand and dredging equipment in the busy Ajah area of Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
Sand extraction in progress in Lagos waters, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Grace Ekpu)
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Laurie Buckhout, a 2024 congressional candidate who fell just short of unseating North Carolina Democratic Rep. Don Davis, will get another chance this year after winning Tuesday’s Republican primary for a district recently redrawn favorably for the GOP.
Buckhout defeated four other candidates competing for the Republican nomination in the 1st Congressional District. The victory sets up a rematch with Democratic Rep. Don Davis, who defeated Buckhout in the 2024 general election by less than 2 percentage points. Davis faced no primary opposition.
Since then, the Republican-controlled General Assembly altered the 1st District as part of President Donald Trump’s multistate redistricting campaign ahead of the 2026 elections to retain the House.
A now more right-leaning 1st District covers all or parts of 25 counties from the coast inland to Raleigh’s outer suburbs.
Buckhout is a retired U.S. Army colonel who started a military technology consulting company before later selling it and moving to North Carolina.
Republicans currently hold 10 of the state’s 14 U.S. House districts.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and ex-Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley each won their party’s U.S. Senate nominations in North Carolina on Tuesday, setting them up for a fall campaign that could determine control of Congress' upper chamber.
Whatley and Cooper are seeking the seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who chose last June not to seek a third term. The two announced their campaigns weeks later and easily won their respective primary elections over crowded fields.
Cooper’s candidacy brought optimism to Democrats aiming to take back the Senate this year with a net gain of four seats. Whatley, who is also a former state Republican chairman, entered the race when President Donald Trump endorsed him after Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, declined to run.
North Carolina, a traditional battleground where Democrats have been able to hold the governor’s seat even as voters helped send Trump to the White House, was one of three states kicking off this year’s midterm elections, along with Texas and Arkansas. Tuesday’s slate of primaries came against the backdrop of the U.S. and Israel attack on Iran, which began over the weekend.
North Carolina’s election this year could be crucial for determining which party controls the U.S. Senate, where Republicans currently have the majority. The seat is open because Tillis decided to retire after clashing with Trump and the president threatened to support a primary challenger. Political experts say a typhoon of outside money could make the race the most expensive Senate campaigns in U.S. history, perhaps reaching $1 billion.
Many Democrats see Cooper, who served two terms as governor and has been successful in state politics for decades, as the party’s best shot at victory. Democrats think their most likely path to regaining the Senate majority includes winning in North Carolina, Maine, Alaska and Ohio.
Whatley promises to keep pushing Trump’s agenda if elected, one that he says has cut taxes and spending and restored U.S. military might.
“His leadership has changed our country, and I am proud to stand with him in the fight to secure our border, to strengthen our economy, and put America first,” Whatley said while giving his nomination acceptance speech in Charlotte.
Moments later in his own speech in Raleigh, Cooper said inflation and health care cuts caused by Republican policies are hurting North Carolina residents.
“These are not ordinary times. Everyday people are being left behind,” Cooper said. “And we see the chaos that’s coming out of Washington only making it worse.”
Some primary voters say Congress needs Democratic control as a counterweight to Trump and what they consider disastrous policies.
“I just think we’re not headed in the right direction as a country, so I needed to express that opinion,” said Shailendra Prakash, 65, of Raleigh, an unaffiliated voter who chose to vote in the Democratic primary on Tuesday and picked Cooper. “My hope is that it needs to flip.”
Republican voter Lisa Weaver, 64, of Apex, said she was picking Whatley because as the former RNC chairman, “he’s in tune with the issues that we care most about” and would assist the president.
“It’s not that I love everything that Trump does, but I do believe in the framework that he is offering for our country,” Weaver said.
A Democrat hasn’t won a Senate race in North Carolina since 2008. Meanwhile, Cooper, 68, hasn’t lost a North Carolina election going back to first running for the state House in the mid-1980s, leading to 16 years as attorney general and eight as governor through 2024.
Whatley, 57, previously worked in President George W. Bush’s administration, for then-North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole and as an energy lobbyist.
Whatley, Trump and other Republicans have blistered Cooper on criminal justice matters, accusing him of promoting soft-on-crime policies while governor. They’ve repeatedly highlighted last August’s fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light-rail train. Trump identified Zarutska’s mother in attendance at last week’s State of the Union address.
The fall election will be “a choice between a conservative champion for North Carolina, who will be an ally for President Trump in the Senate, or a champion for the failed policies of the left,” Whatley said Tuesday night.
Cooper told reporters recently that his career is about “prosecuting violent criminals and keeping thousands of them behind bars.”
In turn, Cooper and his allies have centered campaign attacks on Whatley’s allegiance to the president and to his past lobbying, with Cooper calling him an "out-of-touch D.C. insider.”
Repeating recent comments, Cooper said Tuesday night that if elected he would be a “strong, independent senator who will work with this president when I can and stand up to him when the people need me to.”
Tuesday’s election also included primary elections in all but one of North Carolina’s U.S. House districts. They include a five-candidate Republican primary in the northeastern 1st Congressional District, which is currently represented by Democratic Rep. Don Davis, who faced no primary opposition.
The Republican-controlled General Assembly created last fall a more right-leaning 1st District to join Trump’s multistate redistricting campaign ahead of the 2026 elections to retain the House. Davis won in 2024 by less than 2 percentage points.
Associated Press journalists Erik Verduzco in Charlotte and Allen G. Breed in Raleigh contributed to this report.
In this image from video provided by WNCT, Laurie Buckhout speaks during a debate with Republican candidates running in the primary for North Carolina’s Congressional District 1, in Greenville, N.C., Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (WNCT via AP)
This combo image shows North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate former Gov. Roy Cooper, left, and Republican candidate former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley, both speaking at separate primary election night watch parties Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Ramey, Erik Verduzco)
North Carolina Republican Senate candidate former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley speaks at a primary election night watch party Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate former Gov. Roy Cooper speaks at a primary election night watch party Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Ramey)
North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate former Gov. Roy Cooper speaks at a primary election night watch party Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Ramey)
From left, Viet Tran, Lorena Castillo-Ritz and John Steward pose for a photo together at the primary election night watch party for former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
People attend the primary election night watch party for former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
North Carolina Republican Senate candidate former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley speaks at a primary election night watch party Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)
