NEW YORK (AP) — It’s one sweet day for Lil Nas X: The breakthrough rapper’s viral “Old Town Road” has broken the Billboard record set by Mariah Carey’s “One Sweet Day” for most weeks at No. 1.

Lil Nas X accomplishes the feat this week as his country-trap song spends its 17th week on top of the Hot 100 chart. Carey and Boyz II Men’s duet set the record in 1996, and the only song to come close to breaking it was the ubiquitous international hit “Despacito,” which tied the 16-week record in 2017.

“YEEE TF HAWWW,” Lil Nas X tweeted Monday.

Hours later he posted a video thanking his fans for helping his song set a new record.

“I’m on the toilet right now, but I want to say thank you to every single person who has made this moment possible for me. We just broke the record for the longest-running No. 1 song of all-time,” said Lil Nas X, sporting a cowboy hat as he played “Old Town Road” in the background. “Let’s go!”

“Old Town Road,” which has achieved most of its success through audio streaming, was originally a solo song but 20-year-old Lil Nas X added Billy Ray Cyrus to the track. The song also has remix versions featuring Diplo, Young Thug, Mason Ramsey and BTS, and Billboard counts the original song and its remixes as one when calculating chart position, thus helping “Old Town Road” stay on top.

“17 is my new favorite number,” Cyrus said in a statement Monday, also referring to his debut album “Some Gave All,” which spent 17 weeks at No. 1 in 1992. “My goal was always to make music that would touch people’s lives around the world.”

“Old Town Road” initially was in a bit of controversy in March when Billboard removed it from its country charts, deeming it not country enough (it peaked at No. 19 on the country charts). But the drama didn’t hurt the song; it only propelled it.

Songs have come close to displacing “Old Town Road” from the top spot — including Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” and a pair of Taylor Swift singles — but ultimately were unsuccessful.

Swift was successful in 2017 when her song “Look What You Made Me Do” stopped Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber’s “Despacito” from reaching a 17th week at No. 1. Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me” ended Carey and Boyz II Men’s epic run in 1996.

VISAGINAS, Lithuania (AP) — An HBO miniseries featuring Soviet-era nuclear nightmares has sparked global interest in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and boosted tourism in Lithuania.

The Baltic country, which served as the filming location for “Chernobyl,” has become a destination of so-called atomic tourism since the program aired earlier this year.

At Ignalina nuclear power plant, Mikhail Nefedyev was staring grimly at the row of blinking green lights on a control panel when another group of curious visitors poured into his realm. The 64 year-old engineer explained to them what exactly happened when a similar reactor exploded in Chernobyl, Ukraine, 33 years ago.

The Ignalina plant is of the same prototype as the one in Chernobyl. It has similar blueprints and the same water-cooled graphite-moderated reactors with a capacity of 1,500 megawatts of power. Ignalina was shut down a decade ago. Closing and decommissioning it were key conditions of Lithuania’s entry to the European Union in 2004.

In 1986, Lithuania, then part of the Soviet empire, was one of the republics affected by the nuclear disaster. Thousands were sent to clean up the mess in Chernobyl. Many of them are dead.

Today, the nuclear disaster is helping Lithuania grow as a tourist destination.

“Chernobyl,” a highly-rated miniseries, continues to send curious watchers to the filming locations in the capital Vilnius and at Ignalina, where glowing uranium rods cool in concrete pools. The plant, which is still open for tourists, drew 2,240 visitors in 2018. By July, 1,630 had visited the plant. And demand is growing, plant officials said.

“They have made a good movie, I guess. But what happened long ago does not bother us now. I think looking backward is not good,” Nefedyev said, after explaining how the RBMK-type reactor blew up.

Tourists who come to this Baltic coastal country of 3 million to see the HBO filming locations first visit the KGB museum in downtown Vilnius where interrogation scenes were shot. They are taken to a Soviet-era district of gray condos built in the mid-1980s that look somewhat like Pripyat, a nuclear city that served the Chernobyl plant.

“People come to see these places that we never used to promote. This is very new and unusual to see them not in the Old Town taking photos of Baroque churches, but sporting selfies here,” said Inga Romanovskiene, general manager at Go Vilnius agency.

Already a popular movie-making destination, Lithuania has benefited economically from the HBO miniseries. The amount of foreign capital spent on filming reached 45.5 million euros ($50.6 million) last year.

After locations in Vilnius, atomic tourists may opt to travel 160 kilometers (100 miles) north and join a three-hour tour of the nuclear plant. They are given dosimeters, plastic helmets, white clothes and shoes before venturing through a maze of long, poorly lit corridors, reactor halls, turbine hangars and the control center with the red button which was pushed just before the explosion. Cellphones, cameras, eating, drinking and smoking are strictly off limits.

The plant tour costs 67 euros (75 dollars) per person and tickets are sold until Christmas, said Natalija Survila, spokeswoman for Ignalina power plant.

Lynn Adams, a 49-year-old psychotherapist, came from the United Kingdom to see the whole thing with her own eyes.

“It feels like you are stepping back into one of the scenes actually. It’s very, very authentic. And I remember seeing about Chernobyl on the news, but I’m so much more interested in what happened and the events having seen the drama series. So I think it has kind of ignited an interest that I wasn’t aware of at the time,” Adams said after the visit to a Soviet-era district, used by HBO as a filming location for Pripyat.

Antanas Turcinas was among those sent to Chernobyl weeks after the disaster. He hopes the buzz from the miniseries leads to better care for survivors.

“This movie has brought back old memories. Emotions are very strong, because in 1986 we did not understand what we faced. I am happy to be still alive,” he said.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — The celebrity ancestry show “Finding Your Roots” has a message to counter divisive political rhetoric, said its host, educator Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The PBS series demonstrates that “we’re all descended from immigrants,” whether they came to America willingly or as slaves, and all share a common origin, Gates told a TV critics meeting Monday.

“People want that reassurance that we’re all the same,” he said, especially as some seek to divide the nation and distinguish between who does and doesn’t have the right to be an American and live in America.

It was an apparent reference to President Donald Trump’s call for four Democratic House members of color to “go back” to their countries, although all are U.S. citizens and all but one was born in the United States.

“Guess what, we’re all home. This is our home. And our ancestors came here and fought for the right to make this our home. … and we all have an equal purchase on the rights guaranteed by the Declaration (of Independence) and the Constitution,” Gates said.

“And I’m going to go down swinging against anybody who tries to divide us because of our apparent ethnic differences or gender differences or sexual preference differences,” he said.

“Finding Your Roots,” which is produced by Harvard professor Gates, returns this fall with guests including Melissa McCarthy, Jordan Peele, Issa Rae, Diane von Furstenberg and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Genealogy research and DNA tests help uncover the celebrities’ ancestral backgrounds.

Asked if he’d consider having Trump as a guest, Gates said PBS rules prevent candidates from appearing. Would he consider the president if that wasn’t the case?

“I don’t pick people by their ideology to be on the show,” Gates said. That’s been shown with previous guests, including Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and the late Sen. John McCain, he said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A jury’s verdict that Katy Perry’s 2013 hit “Dark Horse” improperly copied a 2009 Christian rap song represents a rare takedown of a pop superstar and her elite producer by a relatively unknown artist, and sets up a battle over damages that will begin Tuesday.

Monday’s unanimous verdict by a nine-member federal jury in a Los Angeles courtroom came five years after Marcus Gray and two co-authors, first sued in 2014 alleging “Dark Horse” stole from “Joyful Noise,” a song Gray released under the stage name Flame.

The penalty phase is scheduled begin Tuesday with opening arguments, and will ultimately determine how much Perry and other defendants owe for copyright infringement. Testimony will give jurors a peek into the finances behind “Dark Horse,” a hit single that earned Perry a Grammy nomination and was the second song in her elaborate 2015 Super Bowl halftime performance.

Questions from the jury during two days of deliberations had suggested that they might find only some of the defendants liable for copyright infringement. The case focused on the notes and beats of the song, not its lyrics or recording, and the questions suggested that Perry might be off the hook.

But in a decision that left many in the courtroom surprised, jurors found all six songwriters and all four corporations that released and distributed the songs were liable, including Perry and Sarah Hudson, who wrote only the song’s words, and Juicy J, who only wrote the rap he provided for the song. Perry was not present when the verdict was read.

Other defendants found liable were Capitol Records as well as Perry’s producers: Dr. Luke, Max Martin and Cirkut, who came up with the song’s beat.

Gray’s attorneys argued that the beat and instrumental line featured through nearly half of “Dark Horse” are substantially similar to those of “Joyful Noise.” Gray wrote the song with his co-plaintiffs Emanuel Lambert and Chike Ojukwu.

“Dark Horse,” a hybrid of pop, trap and hip-hop sounds that was the third single of Perry’s 2013 album “Prism,” spent four weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in early 2014.

Her attorneys argued that the song sections in question represent the kind of simple musical elements that if found to be subject to copyright would hurt music and all songwriters.

“They’re trying to own basic building blocks of music, the alphabet of music that should be available to everyone,” Perry’s lawyer Christine Lepera said during closing arguments Thursday.

The defendants’ musical expert testified that the musical patterns in dispute were as simple as “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

But the jury of six women and three men disagreed, finding that the bumping beat and riff at the center of “Joyful Noise” were original enough to be copyrighted.

Perry and the song’s co-authors testified during the seven-day trial that none of them had heard the song or heard of Gray before the lawsuit, nor did they listen to Christian music.

Gray’s attorneys had only to demonstrate, however, that “Joyful Noise” had wide dissemination and could have been heard by Perry and her co-authors. They provided as evidence that it had millions of plays on YouTube and Spotify, and that the album it’s included on was nominated for a Grammy.

“They’re trying to shove Mr. Gray into some gospel music alleyway that no one ever visits,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Michael A. Kahn during closing arguments, when he also pointed out that Perry had begun her career as a Christian artist.

Jurors agreed, finding that the song was distributed widely enough that the “Dark Horse” writers may well have heard it.

Kahn and Gray declined comment but smiled as they left the courtroom after the verdict.

Lepera and other defense attorneys also declined comment outside court. Perry’s publicist did not immediately return an email message seeking comment Monday evening.

Perry, a 34-year-old pop superstar and “American Idol” judge, brought laughs to the proceedings when she testified during its second day when her lawyers were having technical troubles getting “Dark Horse” to play in the courtroom.

“I could perform it live,” Perry said.

No performance was necessary after the audio issues were fixed. Jurors heard both songs played back-to-back in their entirety at the end of closing arguments last week.

NEW YORK (AP) — Mets All-Star Jeff McNeil was working the phone Friday, hoping to acquire a promising, four-pawed prospect with the trade deadline looming.

A ruff negotiation, indeed.

McNeil video chatted with his wife, Tatiana, from Citi Field prior to a game against the Pirates, pleading to bring home a puppy brought to the ballpark by the North Shore Animal League. With his spouse uncertain, McNeil clubbed a three-run homer in New York’s 6-3 win over Pittsburgh — just the leverage he thinks he needed.

“Hitting a home run after holding a puppy, I think that gives me a little bargaining chip,” McNeil said. “My wife wants more homers, then we have to get a puppy.”

McNeil, who leads the majors with a .340 batting average, said the couple planned to visit the puppy together Saturday and then make a decision.

He and his teammates took turns greeting the rescued dogs, who were held in a pen outside the home dugout during batting practice. McNeil fell hard for a pup with a fuzzy blond coat and a dark face.

The canine was the first thing on his mind after he hit his 10th homer of the season a few hours later.

“I got in the dugout and said I was getting a puppy,” McNeil said.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — At first, the co-owner of the quirky alien-themed motel down a Nevada highway from the mysterious Area 51 site didn’t take a posting for a prank Facebook event too seriously.

Then, her phone started ringing.

“It doesn’t stop, our phone won’t stop ringing,” Connie West, of the Little A’le’Inn, told the Las Vegas Sun.

The 10-room motel is one of few businesses in Rachel, a town of 54 residents now gaining celebrity status among aviation and UFO enthusiasts attracted by the posting about a Sept. 20 event dubbed “storm Area 51.”

More than 1 million people have responded to the internet post calling for people to “Naruto run” at 3 a.m. into the remote U.S. Air Force test area in the Nevada desert that has long been the focus of UFO conspiracy theories.

The face-forward, arms-back running style is favored by characters in the anime series “Naruto.”

“They can’t stop all of us,” the post jokes. “Lets see them aliens.”

The military is warning people not to try to enter the once top-secret Cold War site, which is posted and patrolled as part of the vast Nevada Test and Training Range.

After refusing for decades to acknowledge Area 51 even existed, the CIA declassified documents in 2013 referring to the 8,000-square mile (20,700-sq. kilometer) installation by name and locating it on a map near the dry Groom Lake bed.

The base has been a testing ground for top-secret aircraft including the U-2 spy plane in the 1950s and later the B-2 stealth bomber.

“Any attempt to illegally access the area is highly discouraged,” the Air Force said in a statement released by Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas.

West is apprehensive about what might happen if big crowds arrive.

“It’s a little scary to think that many people could descend on a town of 54,” she said. “How can you prepare?”

Down the state Highway 375, dubbed the Extraterrestrial Highway, Linda Looney, at the Alien Research Center gift shop and campsite, told the Sun she also was concerned about the effect of the Facebook post.

“I don’t think it’s just a passing fancy,” she said.

Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee said he doesn’t expect many people to actually show up, and county spokesman Ben Rowley tallied 184 hotel rooms in the county.

But Lee said 500 or 1,000 sudden visitors could create traffic, parking and congestion issues in a jurisdiction with 26 sworn sheriff’s deputies and about 5,200 permanent residents mostly in rural towns including Caliente, Pioche, Panaca and Alamo.

“I think this started out as a joke but there may be enough people taking it seriously and it could be a problem,” the sheriff said. “Someone is going to get hurt and people may go to jail. It’s not anything to joke about.”

A typical July includes vacations, travel, shopping, weddings and beaches. Budgets? Not really.

But the year’s halfway point provides a great opportunity to take a close look at your financial health and goals.

Now’s a good time to “check yourself before you wreck yourself,” says Nora Yousif, certified financial planner and vice president at RBC Wealth Management in the Boston area.

Here are three important reasons to check your budget right now — and easy things you can do to ensure you reach your money goals for the rest of the year.

YOU CAN LEARN FROM THE PAST

School’s out, but summer budgeting calls for a grading exercise. Judging your budgeting behavior is a productive way to see where you stand, according to Andrew Almeida, CFP, founder of Almeida Investment Management in New York.

Here’s how to do it: If you haven’t already, separate your monthly budget into categories, such as groceries, rent, entertainment and so forth. Then see if you were over or under budget for each line item. If you have 10 categories, overshot three last month and stayed on budget for seven, you’d be at 70%. So give yourself a C for June.

Almeida recommends doing this each month. With six months of the year behind you, you’re in a good position to evaluate if you’re passing more months than you’re failing. But don’t get discouraged; you shouldn’t expect straight A’s.

“No one’s going to hit it 100% of the time,” Almeida says. “Life is fluid.”

One easy and effective way to monitor how you’re doing is by logging in to your financial accounts, according to Brandon Renfro, an assistant professor of finance at East Texas Baptist University.

“You can kind of see where your money went, and that will start to give you a better idea of problem areas or focus areas,” says Renfro, who is also a financial planner.

Lean on your credit card and bank account apps to help you track your cash flow. Some of these apps may even categorize the transactions for you.

YOU CAN PREPARE FOR THE HOLIDAYS AND TAXES

Once you’ve looked back, take a moment to think ahead. After all, the holiday season is only a few months away. And whether you like it or not, tax season will come shortly after that. Get ready now for these potential costly times of the year.

Start by setting a holiday season budget. “A lot of people don’t consider that, but it’s a big year-end expense, which I think you should account for,” Almeida says. “And if you haven’t by midyear, I think you should.”

If you’re not sure where to start, use the amount you spent last year on holiday gifts and festivities as a baseline.

Next, focus on taxes. That means reviewing your income, advises Helen Ngo, CFP, CEO of Capital Benchmark Partners in Georgia.

“When we do midyear budgeting, we don’t necessarily look at your spending,” Ngo says. “The first thing we look at is what money is coming in.”

She says to pay attention to things like your pay stubs and discretionary income. For example, are you withholding enough in taxes to break even in April? Did you pay off a debt in the first half of the year and now have more income you can contribute to your 401(k)? Make adjustments where necessary.

YOU CAN CORRECT YOUR COURSE

By the time you finish these steps, you’ll likely have identified areas where your budget has room for improvement.

“If you’re way off your projected saving or spending goals, you can modify your habits for the rest of the year before it’s too late,” Yousif, of RBC Wealth Management, said in an email.

That may include eliminating small things from your budget, such as a subscription or membership you no longer need. And when you do remove something, redirect that money somewhere it can be more useful.

“For instance, maybe instead of just canceling the gym membership and letting the $20 fall wherever it goes, go ahead and direct that to savings,” Renfro says. That can help build your holiday fund, for example.

But what if you don’t even have a budget to check up on? It’s not too late. The midpoint of the year can give you a much-needed nudge to create one.

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This column was provided to The Associated Press by the personal finance website NerdWallet. Courtney Jespersen is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @courtneynerd.

RELATED LINK:

NerdWallet: Budgeting 101: How to create a budget https://bit.ly/nerdwallet-how-to-budget

I love to grill, and barbecue, and I have devoted my career to outdoor cooking for more than two decades. In that time, I’ve seen a lot of mistakes and people tend to make them over and over. So I put together a list of the biggest grilling don’ts and how to avoid them. Print this list and refer it the next time you get ready to grill!

NEVER OIL THE GRILL

any people oil the cooking grates — big blunder! Follow my mantra: “Oil the food, not the grates!” If you brush oil on hot cooking grates (and a lit grill), you run the risk of a big flare-up. The oil that you have brushed on will instantly burn leaving a sticky residue that will “glue” your food to the grates, making it stick, break apart and dry out_like dehydrating food. If you oil the food, it will stay juicy, promote caramelization_those great grill marks! And help to prevent “stickage.”

DON’T PUT FOOD ON A COLD GRILL

Always preheat a gas grill with all burners on high or wait until charcoal briquettes are covered with a white-gray ash. Preheating also burns off residue and makes it easier to clean the grill. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t ever need to cook on a grill that is hotter than 550 F. The hotter the grill, the more likely you will burn the outside of the food before the inside is cooked.

CLEAN THAT DIRTY GRILL

An outdoor grill is like a cast-iron skillet. It gets better and better the more you use it, but you do need to clean it every time you use it. Clean the grill grates twice every cook-out with a stiff metal bristle grill cleaning brush_before and after you cook. If you do this, it will never be a big job to clean your grill. If you don’t have a grill cleaning brush, crumble a ball of heavy-duty aluminum foil and hold it in a pair of 12-inch locking chef tongs to use to clean the grill.

KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIRECT AND INDIRECT HEAT

The most frequent mistake is to choose the wrong cooking method. To be a good griller, you must know the difference between direct, indirect or combo grilling and when to use them. Direct grilling means that the food is set directly over the heat source — similar to broiling in your oven. Indirect grilling means that the heat is on either side of the food and the burners are turned off under the food — similar to roasting and baking in your oven. Combo grilling means that you sear the food over direct heat (i.e., to sear a tenderloin, or large steak) before moving it to indirect heat to finish the cooking process. Remember this general rule of thumb: If the food takes less than 20 minutes to cook, use the DIRECT METHOD. If the food takes more than 20 minutes to cook, use the INDIRECT METHOD.

THE RIGHT WAY TO DEAL WITH FLARE-UPS

Never use a water bottle to extinguish a flare-up. Spraying water on a hot fire can produce steam vapors which may cause severe burns. The water can also crack the porcelain-enamel finish, resulting in damage to your grill. Fire loves oxygen, so cook with the lid down and don’t peek. Repeatedly lifting the lid to “peek” and check the food while it’s cooking lengthens cooking time. If you have a full-on fire, turn all the burners off, remove the food and extinguish the flames with kosher salt or baking soda. In a worst-case scenario, use a fire extinguisher but know that it will ruin your grill.

AVOID FREQUENT FLIPPING

If you are cooking food by the direct method (hamburgers, hot dogs, boneless chicken breasts, small steaks, vegetables, etc), flip only once halfway through the cooking time. All protein will stick to the grates as soon as it makes contact with the hot grill grates. As it cooks, it will naturally release itself, and that is when you can turn it over with a pair of tongs. Just remember to oil the food, not the grates!

DODGE CROSS-CONTAMINATION

One of the most common mistakes backyard cooks make is using the same tongs for raw and cooked foods. This creates cross-contamination and can result in food-borne illness. It’s easy to fix this problem. I have been color-coding my 12-inch locking chef tongs with red and green duct tape for as long as I have been grilling. The different colors help me to remember which pair of tongs I used for raw food (red), like chicken, and which are safe to use for the cooked food (green). And remember to use a separate clean platter for your cooked food, too.

DON’T SAUCE TOO SOON

If I had a dime for every time I saw someone pour thick sweet barbecue sauce on bone-in-chicken pieces or a whole rack of ribs while they were raw, I would be a very wealthy griller! All barbecue sauces have a lot of sugar in them and sugar burns very quickly. Almost always burning the outside of the food before the inside cooks. Generally I only brush food with sauce during the final 10-15 minutes of cooking time. With ribs that cook 2-3 hours, I will brush with a diluted sauce (1/2 beer and 1/2 sauce) for the final 30 minutes of cooking time.

RESIST TESTING FOR DONENESS BY CUTTING.

Cutting your food to test for doneness is another common way people bungle their food. When you cut any protein, you are letting the precious juices escape and if the food is under-cooked, the area where it was cut will be over-cooked when you put it back on the grill. Use an instant-read meat thermometer to test for doneness, and always let your food rest for at least 5 minutes before cutting into it.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Elizabeth Karmel is grilling, barbecue and southern foods expert, a media personality and the author of four cookbooks, including the newly released ”Steak and Cake .”

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter is reporting surprisingly strong user numbers and revenue even as it eliminates robotic and fake accounts on its platform.

On that front, the company said instances of suspicious behavior and spam dropped by 18% during the second quarter when it posted financial results for the second quarter Friday.

But Twitter’s push to cut down on fake accounts costs money, and its adjusted profit fell 36% to about $37 million, or 5 cents per share. At the same time, revenue surged 18 percent, to $841 million, far better than the $829 million that Wall Street was looking for, according to a survey by FactSet.

Twitter’s daily user base rose 14% to 139 million. Analysts were expecting 134.7 million daily users.

DENVER (AP) — Colorado police say a driver tried to replace a broken tail light with a red sports drink.

Denver news station KMGH-TV reported that Longmont police stopped a driver Monday who placed a red-colored bottled drink where his car’s rear light should have been.

Authorities say the driver was on his way to get the tail light fixed when officers stopped him in Longmont, 38 miles (61 kilometers) north of Denver.

Officials say officers didn’t ticket the driver, who was seen repairing his car later that day.

Police say tail lights prevent crashes and “while we appreciate the ingenuity of this taillight, this is not a permanent solution.”

Authorities say vehicles must have a red tail light that can be seen at least 100 feet (30 meters) away during the day.

LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — Court logs show a Louisiana district court judge ordered a man’s mouth be taped shut for repeatedly interrupting proceedings.

The Acadiana Advocate reports Michael C. Duhon was being sentenced July 18 for theft and money laundering.

Court minutes show Duhon objected when Judge Marilyn Castle asked him to stop submitting motions on his own behalf instead of through his attorney. After repeatedly requesting for Duhon to be quiet, Castle ordered the bailiff to tape Duhon’s mouth shut.

The tape was removed after an objection from Duhon’s public defense attorney, Aaron Adams, who requested the judge remove his client from the courtroom instead.

Castle sentenced Duhon to 11 years in prison and recommended he be transferred to a facility with mental health treatment options.

Another public defender in the courtroom faces contempt charges for recording the incident.