SYDNEY (AP) — U.S. women’s national team coach Vlatko Andonovski has resigned, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The move comes less than two weeks after the Americans were knocked out of the Women’s World Cup earlier than ever before.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the move had not been officially announced. An announcement was expected Thursday.

The four-time champion struggled through the World Cup. A victory over Vietnam to kick off the group stage was followed by draws against Netherlands and Portugal — barely enough to get the team into the knockout stage.

The Americans played well in the round of 16 against Sweden but ultimately fell on penalties after a scoreless tie. The U.S. scored just four goals over the course of the tournament.

The United States had never finished worse than third at previous World Cups.

The 46-year-old Andonovski was named coach of the United States in October 2019, taking over for Jill Ellis, who led the United States to back-to-back World Cup titles. He finished 51-5-9 during his time with the team, and was 3-2-5 in major tournaments.

Following the match against Sweden, Andonovski said he wasn’t thinking about his future with the team — only his young players. Fourteen players on the roster were appearing in their first World Cup, and 12 of them had never played in a major tournament.

“We spent four years together. They got their first caps with me, they got their first national team call-ups with me,” Andonovski said. “We spent tough times, good times. I don’t want to see them like that. That’s all I think about.”

The United States also finished with a disappointing bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Afterward, Andonovski turned his attention on developing young players ahead of the World Cup. Some of the players who emerged were Sophia Smith, last year’s U.S. Soccer player of the year, and Trinity Rodman.

The United States was bitten by injuries in the run-up to the tournament, losing key players. Mallory Swanson injured her knee during a friendly in April, and captain Becky Sauerbrunn couldn’t recover from a foot injury in time.

Promising young forward Catarina Macario tore her ACL playing for her club team Lyon last year and also wasn’t ready to play in the World Cup.

The World Cup was challenging for many elite teams because of the ever-growing parity in the women’s game. Germany, Brazil and Canada, the winners in Tokyo, also got knocked out early. Sunday’s final between England and Spain in Sydney will give the tournament a first-time winner.

Andonovski was head coach of Seattle’s OL Reign in the National Women’s Soccer League when he was hired. During his seven years in the NWSL, he led the now-defunct FC Kansas City from the league’s inception in 2013 until the club folded in 2017, winning two league titles.

Andonovski, a native of Skopje, Macedonia, played for several teams in Europe before embarking on a professional indoor soccer career in the United States.

His predecessor on the U.S. team, Ellis, led the Americans to World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019. Over the course of her five-year tenure, they lost just seven matches.

“What I would hope in this (hiring) process (is) that it’s robust, it’s diverse. It has to be,” Ellis said Thursday in Sydney. “This is a critical hire. And I think it has be the right person.”

The timeline to find a replacement is relatively short. The United States has already qualified for the 2024 Olympics in France. Before that, the team has a pair of exhibition matches against South Africa on Sept. 21 in Cincinnati and Sept. 24 in Chicago.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Prosecutors have received a second expert analysis of the revolver fired in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of a Western film in New Mexico, as they weigh whether to refile charges against the actor.

Baldwin has said the gun fired accidentally after he followed instructions to point it toward cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was behind the camera in rehearsal. Baldwin said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the gun fired, fatally wounding Hutchins on Oct. 21, 2021, at a movie ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe.

Special prosecutors dismissed an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in April, saying they were informed the gun might have been modified before the shooting and malfunctioned. They commissioned a new analysis of the gun, along with other weapons and ammunition from the set of the movie, “Rust,” which moved filming from New Mexico to Montana.

The new gun analysis from experts in ballistics and forensic testing based in Arizona and New Mexico relied on replacement parts to reassemble the gun fired by Baldwin — after parts of the pistol were broken during earlier testing by the FBI. The new report examines the gun and markings it left on a spent cartridge to conclude that the trigger had to have been pulled or depressed.

“Although Alec Baldwin repeatedly denies pulling the trigger, given the tests, findings and observations reported here, the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver,” states the analysis led by Lucien Haag of Forensic Science Services in Arizona.

An attorney for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the weapons supervisor on the movie set, disclosed the report in a court filing Tuesday. Gutierrez-Reed has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering in the case. Her trial is scheduled to begin in December.

Defense attorneys for Baldwin did not immediately reply to an email Tuesday seeking comment on the gun analysis. A publicist declined comment.

Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey said in an email Tuesday that a formal announcement on whether to refile any charges against Baldwin is forthcoming but didn’t say how soon.

In an early June court filing, prosecutors gave themselves 60 days to renew a case against Baldwin, contingent on a determination that the gun did not malfunction.

“A possible malfunction of the gun significantly effects causation with regard to Baldwin,” they wrote.

Authorities have not specified exactly how live ammunition found its way on set and into the .45-caliber revolver made by an Italian company that specializes in 19th century reproductions.

The company Rust Movie Productions has paid a $100,000 fine to state workplace safety regulators following a scathing narrative of safety failures in violation of standard industry protocols, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires on set before the fatal shooting.

An August FBI report on the agency’s analysis of the gun found that, as is common with firearms of that design, it could go off without pulling the trigger if force was applied to an uncocked hammer — such as by dropping the weapon.

The only way the testers could get it to fire was by striking the gun with a mallet while the hammer was down and resting on the cartridge, or by pulling the trigger while it was fully cocked. The gun eventually broke during the testing.

In Tuesday’s court filing, Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys asked for new safeguards at trial to ensure the movie armorer can’t be convicted if negligence by any other person was the only significant cause of death or changed the course of events in unforeseeable ways.

Morrissey criticized the defense’s request for special jury instructions as premature and a bid for media attention.

Defense attorneys said they plan to present evidence that Gutierrez-Reed asked assistant director and safety coordinator David Halls to call her back into rehearsal if Baldwin was going to use the gun. She said that didn’t happen before Hutchins was shot.

In March, Halls pleaded no contest to a conviction for unsafe handling of a firearm and received a suspended sentence of six months of probation. He agreed to cooperate in the investigation of the shooting that also wounded director Joel Souza.

Jason Bowles, an attorney for Gutierrez-Reed, said the new analysis of the gun that was fired at Hutchins “supports the idea that there was no modification” to the gun prior to the fatal shooting and that it fired as designed when broken parts were replaced.

The new firearms report contains images of the broken, disassembled gun as delivered in July, along with images taken from a video of Baldwin in rehearsal prior to the fatal shooting, with his finger apparently resting on the trigger of the pistol.

“From an examination of the fired cartridge case and the operationally restored evidence revolver, this fatal incident was the consequence of the hammer being manually retracted to its fully rearward and cocked position followed, at some point, by the pull or rearward depression of the trigger,” the report from Haag states. “The only conceivable alternative to the foregoing would be a situation in which the trigger was already pulled or held rearward while retracting the hammer to its full cock position.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Michael Oher, the former NFL tackle known for being the inspiration for the movie “The Blind Side,” filed a petition Monday in a Tennessee probate court accusing Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy of lying to him by having him sign papers making them his conservators rather than his adoptive parents nearly two decades ago.

In the petition filed Monday in Shelby County Probate Court, Oher asks for the conservatorship to be terminated along with asking for a full accounting of the money earned off the use of his name and story. He also asks to be paid what he is due along with interest.

He accuses the Tuohys of enriching themselves at his expense by continuing to “falsely and publicly” represent themselves as his adoptive parents “to the date of the filing of this petition.”

“Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023, when he learned that the Conservatorship to which he consented on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family, in fact provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys,” according to the petition.

Oher, who has never been a fan of the movie about his life, also asks in the petition that the Tuohys be sanctioned and required to pay both compensatory and punitive damages determined by the court.

Steve Farese, a lawyer for the Tuohys, told The Associated Press they will file an answer to the allegations in court but declined to comment further. He was among three attorneys served on behalf of the Tuohys on Monday.

Leigh Anne Tuohy did not immediately respond to an email sent via her personal website.Her husband told The Daily Memphian the conservatorship was done to satisfy the NCAA as Oher considered Tuohy’s alma mater Mississippi for college.

Sean Tuohy said he and his wife would end the conservatorship if that’s what Oher wants.

“We’re devastated,” Tuohy said. “It’s upsetting to think we would make money off any of our children. But we’re going to love Michael at 37 just like we loved him at 16.”

The movie was nominated for an Oscar, and Sandra Bullock won the Academy Award for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy.

Oher accuses the Tuohys of never taking legal action to assume custody from the Tennessee Department of Human Services before he turned 18. The conservatorship paperwork was filed months after Oher turned 18 in May 2004.

He moved in with the Tuohys just before his senior year of high school and says he was told to call them “Mom” and “Dad.” Oher says in the petition he was encouraged to call the attorney who filed the conservatorship paperwork “Aunt Debbie” Branan.

Oher also alleges the Tuohys had him sign paperwork almost immediately after he moved in as part of the adoption process. Oher says he was “falsely advised” that it would be called a conservatorship because he was already 18 but the intent was adoption.

“At no point did the Tuohys inform Michael that they would have ultimate control of all his contracts, and as a result Michael did not understand that if the Conservatorship was granted, he was signing away his right to contract for himself,” according to the petition.

A book based on Oher’s life was released in September 2006. The author, Michael Lewis, was described in the petition as a childhood friend of Sean Tuohy’s. The petition alleges Oher’s conservators began contract negotiations for movie rights.

The petition alleges a deal was reached to pay the Tuohys, plus children Sean Jr. and Collins, $225,000 plus 2.5% of future defined net proceeds hinging on Oher’s signature. A contract titled “Life Story Rights Agreement” was “purportedly signed by Michael Oher” and dated April 20, 2007, according to the petition.

The petition says Oher believes the signature is similar to his own but that he “at no time ever willingly or knowingly signed this document and that nobody ever presented this contract to him with any explanation that he was signing such a document.”

In the petition, Oher asks for a full accounting of his assets and how they were used considering his life story produced millions of dollars and he received nothing for the rights to something that would not have existed without him.

Oher was the 23rd overall pick in the 2009 draft out of Mississippi, and he spent his first five seasons with the Baltimore Ravens. He wound up playing eight NFL seasons, including 2014 when he started 11 games for the Tennessee Titans. Oher finished his career with two years in Carolina.

He started 110 games and won a Super Bowl with the Ravens. He also finished second in the voting to Percy Harvin of Minnesota for The Associated Press NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year after starting all 16 games his first season at right tackle.

Oher, who turned 37 in May, last played in 2016. He was released in 2017 by Carolina.

Nearly two years ago, supporters cheered when Britney Spears was freed from her conservatorship. The ruling came after Spears publicly demanded the end of the arrangement, which had prevented her from making her own medical, financial and personal decisions since 2008.

Spears’ high-profile battle put a spotlight on efforts that advocates across the United States have launched raising questions that such strict controls result in more harm than protection.