Mastantuono hat trick spurs Fiorentina to first win in Serie A and Rennes tops Ligue 1

Rennes and Sevilla maintained their promising starts in Ligue 1 and La Liga, Fiorentina got its first win in Serie A, and Schalke beat Union Berlin 3-1 in a Bundesliga match where the referee was replaced on Friday.

Both teams had just one point after their first two Bundesliga matches but newly promoted Schalke went home happiest thanks in part to a fine goalkeeping display from player of the match Loris Karius.

Robin Gosens opened the scoring for Schalke with an angled volley and Aouchiche doubled their lead moments after the break with a superbly taken strike.

Karius held Berlin at bay for much of the second period and though he could not stop Tim Skarke from scoring in the sixth minute of added time, Maximilian Wober restored Schalke’s two-goal lead with almost the last kick of the game.

The match was notable for the substitution of referee Timo Gerach early in the second half. Gerach complained of a sore calf and was replaced by fourth official Jarno Wienefeld, an experienced Bundesliga 2 referee who took charge of his first top tier game.

Venezia and Fiorentina lost their first three Serie A games and the home side drew first blood when Akor Adams put Venezia ahead in the 22nd minute with a nice right-foot finish after good leadup work from American midfielder Gianluca Busio.

However, Franco Mastantuono broke forward in the 29th and 30th to give Fiorentina a halftime lead.

Mateo Pellegrino made it 3-1 midway through the second with his second goal in two games and Mastantuono got his hat trick six minutes from time.

Antoine Hainaut scored a late second for Venezia but the defeat left it pointless and at the bottom of the 20-team table. Fiorentina moved into 15th.

Sevilla moved into joint second in La Liga with a late 1-0 win over struggling Valencia.

A poor game produced few real chances but the home side finally broke the deadlock with nine minutes remaining. Giorgi Kochorashvili’s deep cross from the left was met by Juan Antonio Iglesias, whose header looped in over the keeper.

Valencia, which didn't put a shot on target, was bottom of the table with one point from a possible 15.

Rennes went to the top of Ligue 1 after beating Marseille 1-0.

Recent signing from Lens Adrien Thomasson got his first goal for the club six minutes into the second half to guarantee a third win on the bounce for the Breton side.

Marseille is suffering its worst start to the league in more than 20 years. The latest defeat was its third in a row and it sits in 11th place with three points.

Rennes rose to one point above Monaco.

In England, West Ham went to the top of the Championship table after crushing Wrexham 6-0.

Six different West Ham players got on the scoresheet in a win that lifted it a point above West Bromwich Albion.

See AP’s full soccer coverage here

West Ham United's Joel Piroe, left, scores their second goal against Wrexham during the EFL Championship soccer match, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in London. (Adam Davy/PA via AP)

Union's Woo-yeong Jeong, attemps to shoot as Berlin's Max Wöber defends during the German Bundesliga soccer match between Union Berlin and FC Schalke in Berlin, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (Julius Frick/dpa via AP)

Schalke's Michel Aebischer, right, heads the ball from behind Berlin's Max Wöber during the German Bundesliga soccer match between Union Berlin and FC Schalke in Berlin, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (Julius Frick/dpa via AP)

Fiorentina's Mateo Pellegrino, left, scores their third goal during the Serie A soccer match between Venezia FC and Fiorentina, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Venice, Italy. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse)

Fiorentina's Franco Mastantuono celebrates after scoring a goal during the Serie A soccer match between Venezia FC and Fiorentina, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Venice, Italy. (Paola Garbuio/LaPresse)

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a defeat for the Trump administration, a federal court on Friday ruled that the Energy Department exceeded its authority when it forced a Michigan coal-fired power plant to stay open past its scheduled retirement date last year.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright had said the 64-year-old J.H. Campbell Generating Plant was needed to ensure reliable electricity in the region, and he used emergency powers to keep it operating. Environmental groups and three states — Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota — went to court to try to overturn orders keeping the plant online.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the states and the groups, saying there was no real emergency under the law.

The section of the Federal Power Act that allows emergency orders “is essentially a narrow, last-resort backstop," Appeals Court Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel. Use of emergency authority “is triggered only when there is a need for immediate, essentially last-resort action and the circumstances require action by DOE in particular, as opposed to action by the state or states responsible for resource adequacy," she added.

Reversing the Campbell plant's “long and carefully planned retirement" is "disruptive," Pillard wrote.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she was relieved the appeals court “threw out DOE’s order that had zero basis in reality.”

Nessel, a Democrat, said her office “has been fighting this unlawful political stunt at every turn, and this ruling proves what we have been saying all along: this administration does not get to invent fake emergencies to bypass the rule of law against the best interests of Michigan residents.”

The Michigan case is one of several legal disputes that have emerged across the country as the Trump administration uses emergency powers to force a half-dozen coal-fired plants to remain open.

Administration officials were undeterred by Friday's court ruling and just hours later Wright announced another emergency order to keep online a coal plant in Centralia, Washington. That plant, operated by TransAlta, had been scheduled to shut down at the end of 2025.

The orders, which also apply to plants in Indiana, Colorado, Florida and Washington state, are raising ratepayer bills and adding air and water pollution that could have been avoided, critics say. An oil and gas plant in Pennsylvania was also ordered to keep its turbines running as a hedge against electricity shortages in the mid-Atlantic grid.

President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency in a January 2025 executive order, citing demand increases from artificial intelligence and data center growth.

An Energy Department spokesperson said the emergency orders — including at Campbell — “prevented blackouts and likely saved hundreds of lives during peak capacity events this past year,” especially severe winter storms in late January and early February.

At the peak of the storms, coal generation in affected regions increased by 25% compared to the previous year, spokeswoman Emily Matthews said. The Campbell plant provided over 650 megawatts — enough power for hundreds of thousands of homes — every day from Jan. 21 to Feb. 1, she said.

The Energy Department "will continue to protect and defend energy security for all Americans,” she said.

Keeping the Michigan plant open beyond its May 2025 retirement has cost about $259 million so far, according to new financial filings. Those losses will likely be paid by families and businesses in the Midwest, opponents of the order say.

Consumers Energy, which operates the Campbell plant, said it was reviewing the court ruling. In the meantime, the utility will keep the plant operating under terms of a recent DOE order that extends its directive through mid-November, spokesman Brian Wheeler said in a statement.

Ted Kelly, U.S. clean energy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the court ruling rejected the Trump administration’s nationwide effort to force “unreliable, aging coal plants that are bleeding money and polluting communities to stay online.”

The Energy Department's “unlawful actions attempted to make families and businesses in the Midwest wastefully pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a coal plant that should have been shut down over a year ago,” Kelly said Friday. The Campbell plant and other aging sites are “incredibly expensive, dangerous to our health and break down frequently,” he said.

Sanjay Narayan, a lawyer for the Sierra Club, called the ruling a victory for families across the Midwest who are “paying to keep this old, expensive and dirty power plant online.”

The Trump administration “has been pulling out all the stops to try to bolster dirty and expensive fossil fuels at public expense. This reckless agenda will not succeed,” Narayan said. "We will continue to fight back against the other illegal extensions across the country.”

Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this story.

FILE - An aerial image of Consumer Energy's J.H. Campbell Generating Complex is seen in Ottawa County, Mich., Sept. 21, 2024. (Joel Bissell/Kalamazoo Gazette via AP, File)

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaks after the signing of an oil agreement between the US and Venezuela at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)