In pain so bad he couldn’t stand, Chris Meek was rushed to the hospital with a life-threatening ruptured gallbladder. When he emerged from surgery, he learned he had kidney cancer that thankfully hadn’t yet spread.

Meek, a social studies teacher in Wilmington, North Carolina, was 47 at the time. But he remained confused for years about why, as someone seemingly not at risk, he had gotten cancer until Emily Donovan, a parent of students at his school, gave a guest talk about high levels of harmful forever chemicals known as PFAS in North Carolina’s environment. When Donovan mentioned kidney cancer, the possible cause of Meek’s diagnosis finally clicked.

Until then, Meek said, he “had no idea what PFAS was.”

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency set the first federal drinking water limits for PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, finding they increased the risk of cardiovascular disease, certain cancers and babies being born with low birth weight.

In a decision with consequences for tens of millions of Americans, the Trump administration is expected to soon say whether it intends to stand by those strict standards and defend the limits against a water utility industry challenge in federal court.

PFAS in drinking water created a crisis for many communities

In North Carolina, runoff from a Chemours plant contaminated the Cape Fear River, creating a crisis for cities like Wilmington that use it for drinking water. Amid public outcry, Wilmington effectively eliminated it from tap water.

Other U.S. communities — often near military bases or industrial sites — did the same when test results were frightening and public pressure, local leadership or state law forced PFAS-laden wells offline or prompted installation of expensive filtering systems, according to Mark White, drinking water global practice leader at the engineering firm CDM Smith.

The EPA said the PFAS found in North Carolina, often called GenX chemicals, can be toxic to the kidney. While other types of PFAS may raise kidney cancer risk, little research has focused on the link between kidney cancer and GenX, according to Sue Fenton, director of the Center for Human Health and the Environment at North Carolina State University. Chemours said evidence doesn’t support arguments that GenX at low levels is a health threat. The company has sharply reduced PFAS discharges.

So far, sampling has found nearly 12% of U.S. water utilities are above the recently set EPA limits, but most aren’t above by much. Forcing this group to reduce PFAS more than doubles the rule’s health benefits but roughly triples its costs, the EPA has said.

The Biden administration’s rule set standards for two common types of PFAS at 4 parts per trillion, effectively the lowest level at which they can be reliably detected. Standards for several other PFAS chemicals were set, too, and utilities must meet those levels by 2029.

PFAS have had wide uses over the decades

Manufactured by companies like Chemours and 3M, PFAS were incredibly useful in many applications -– among them, helping clothes to withstand rain and ensuring that firefighting foam snuffed out flames. But the chemicals also accumulate in the body. As science advanced in recent years, evidence of harm at far lower levels became clearer.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has championed fossil fuels and the rollback of major clean air and water rules. His history with PFAS is more nuanced; during his time as a New York congressman, he supported legislation to regulate forever chemicals in drinking water.

“It’s an issue that touches people in a very tangible way across the political spectrum, including in Lee Zeldin’s former district,” said Melanie Benesh, vice president of government affairs at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.

Zeldin has offered clues about what the EPA could do. The agency estimated the rule would cost about $1.5 billion annually and Zeldin said recently that communities struggling to afford a fix for PFAS that are just above the standard might be handled differently than wealthy places with lots of it.

“What we are going to have to be is extremely thoughtful in figuring this out,” he said.

On Monday, the EPA said it will establish an agency lead for PFAS, develop wastewater limits for PFAS manufacturers and investigate sources that pose an immediate danger to drinking water, among other actions.

EPA decision looms on whether to let the rule stay as it is

Soon, the EPA must tell a federal appeals court in Washington whether the rule should stand or be rewritten, although weakening it could be complicated because the Safe Drinking Water Act prevents new rules from being looser than previous ones. The agency could, however, encourage exemptions and deadline extensions, according to Erik Olson, an attorney with the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council supporting the current standards in the court case.

Consider Avondale, Arizona, outside of Phoenix, which produces PFAS results modestly above the limits. Officials have done detailed testing and are planning to enhance water treatment. All told, lowering PFAS may cost Avondale more than $120 million, according to Kirk Beaty, the city’s public utility director.

That’s money a city like Avondale “just doesn’t have sitting in a back room somewhere,” Beaty said, adding he’ll defer to federal experts to dictate what’s acceptable.

“We’re hoping we’re a little further ahead of everybody else. If the regulation changes, well you know, we may let off the gas a little bit, we may not,” he said, adding that it is hard to justify spending extra money to do more than what’s required when the cost falls on residents.

If the government decides higher amounts of PFAS are acceptable, that could confuse people, especially in areas where the public is already concerned.

“If we enter into a gray area over what’s healthy and what’s not healthy, then utilities are at risk of being caught up in a debate for which they have no real responsibility nor expertise to decide on,” said Karine Rougé, CEO for municipal water at Veolia North America, a water operations company.

Industry group says the rule goes too far and is too costly

The American Water Works Association, an industry group, filed the court challenge to the new rule. It agrees that certain PFAS should be regulated but argues the EPA’s standards go too far, underestimate costs and are “neither feasible nor cost-effective.” There are serious consequences for residents’ water bills, it says.

The burden of complying will fall heavily on small utilities that can least afford it. Many water providers already struggle to maintain their existing infrastructure, some experts say. On top of everything else, they face new requirements to replace lead pipes. The AWWA wants the EPA to extend the PFAS and lead deadlines by two years.

There is money available to help. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided $9 billion for chemicals like PFAS and utilities have won multibillion-dollar settlements against PFAS polluters that help as well.

Meek, who successfully recovered after surgery from cancer and is now 59, is planning to sue over his illness. He once didn’t second-guess using tap water. Now he reaches for bottled water.

Donovan, who introduced Meek to PFAS and helped start Clean Cape Fear, says if the government’s standards are weakened, it’ll relieve pressure on utilities to effectively treat the water.

Previously, “our local utilities could tell us publicly that the water met or exceeded all state and federal guidelines because there weren’t any,” she said.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

President Donald Trump is holding a rally in Michigan on Tuesday to mark the first 100 days of his second term, staging his largest public event since returning to the White House in a state that has been especially rocked by his steep trade tariffs and combative attitude toward Canada.

Democrats have tallied it up: The Trump administration has frozen, stalled or otherwise disrupted some $430 billion in federal funds — from disease research to Head Start for children to disaster aid — in what top Democrats say is an “unprecedented and dangerous” assault on programs used by countless Americans.

Another federal judge in Washington has expressed skepticism about the legality of a Trump administration executive order targeting a prominent law firm, saying he was concerned that the clear purpose of the edict was punishment. And the battle between Harvard University and the Trump administration’s freeze on its $2.2 billion in grants will stretch into the summer, with federal court arguments set for July 21 over the university’s lawsuit against the government.

The Latest:

Trump’s team has disrupted some $430 billion in federal funds, top Democrats say

The Trump administration has frozen, stalled or otherwise disrupted some $430 billion in federal funds — from disease research to Head Start for children to disaster aid — in what top Democrats say is an “unprecedented and dangerous” assault on programs used by countless Americans.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut on Tuesday released an online tracker that is compiling all the ways Trump and his adviser, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, are interrupting the flow of federal funds, often going up against the law.

“Instead of investing in the American people, President Trump is ignoring our laws and ripping resources away,” said Murray and DeLauro, who are the top Democrats on the Appropriations committees in Congress.

The tally is far from complete or exhaustive, the lawmakers said, but a snapshot in time. It comes in a rapidly changing political and legal environment as the Trump administration faces dozens of lawsuits from state and local governments, advocacy organizations, employees and others fighting to keep programs intact.

▶ Read more about Trump’s use of federal funding

Trump made big promises and moved at frenetic speed. 100 days in, here’s what he’s done and not done

The weeks since Trump returned to office have been a whirlwind of activity to show Americans that his administration is relentlessly pursuing his promises.

With a compliant Republican-controlled Congress, Trump has had a free hand to begin overhauling the federal government and upending foreign policy.

As Trump hits his 100th day in office, his imprint is everywhere. But the long-term impact is often unclear.

Some of the Republican president’s executive orders are statements of intent or groundwork to achieve what has yet to be done.

Trump’s goals occasionally conflict with each other. He promised both to lower the cost of living and to impose tariffs on foreign goods, which will most likely increase prices. Other issues are languishing.

Very much unsettled is whether Trump has run up his scorecard lawfully. He has faced lawsuits over some of his actions, meaning much of what he’s done could be undone as cases play out.

▶ Read more about where progress on his promises stands

Trump marks his first 100 days in office with a rally in Michigan, a state rocked by his tariffs

Trump is holding a rally in Michigan on Tuesday to mark the first 100 days of his second term, staging his largest public event since returning to the White House in a state that has been especially rocked by his steep trade tariffs and combative attitude toward Canada.

He will make an afternoon visit to Selfridge Air National Guard Base for an announcement alongside Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. He’s expected to speak at a rally at Macomb Community College, north of Detroit, allowing him to revel in leading a sprint to upend government and social, political and foreign policy norms.

Michigan was one of the battleground states Trump flipped from the Democratic column. But it’s also been deeply affected by his tariffs, including on new imported cars and auto parts.

Donald Trump’s second presidency has produced a seemingly constant stream of news. The Associated Press has shared the headlines with people worldwide, flagging the most notable developments in hundreds of news alerts.

The alerts reflect a dizzying stretch of activity by Trump, those who oppose him, the courts and the world. To show the back-and-forth on those issues, we sorted the alerts into six categories.

The largest number were about actions taken by Trump or his administration. Others indicated lawsuits filed or other steps taken to oppose the administration. In dozens of cases, courts blocked or reversed these actions, or Trump reversed himself.

Many alerts showed reaction or fallout throughout the world. Others highlighted newsworthy statements by Trump.

About four dozen — such as alerts about Congress approving Trump-backed bills and nominees — were marked as “other.”

We identified the areas that saw the most action, based on the alerts, from Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 to the 100th day of his administration on Tuesday.

The alerts show how the days played out in some of the areas where Trump focused most, which included immigration, federal spending, foreign policy and tariffs. Here are some examples:

Swift action on immigration met resistance

Trump’s earliest actions cracked down on immigration.

Breaking News: Jan. 20, 1:04 p.m. The Trump administration ended use of a border app called CBP One that has allowed nearly 1 million people to legally enter the U.S. with eligibility to work.

The courts got involved almost immediately.

Breaking News: Jan. 21, 1:45 p.m. Eighteen states and two cities sue to block President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship.

Some of Trump’s actions were paused as they worked their way through the courts.

Breaking News: Jan. 23, 1:35 p.m. A federal judge temporarily blocks President Donald Trump’s order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship.

Breaking News: Feb. 25, 2:04 p.m. A federal judge in Seattle has blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to halt the nation’s refugee admissions system.

As judges sorted through cases, the Trump administration began mass deportations.

Breaking News: March 15, 5:12 p.m.

President Trump has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a sweeping war time authority last invoked in World War II, to deport members of a Venezuelan gang.

These actions also came under scrutiny.

Breaking News: April 9, 12:23 p.m.

A judge in Texas temporarily barred the U.S. government from invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans held at a facility in the state.

The administration also arrested and attempted to deport students who participated in anti-Israel demonstrations.

Breaking News: March 10, 5:50 p.m.

Judge orders the Trump administration not to deport a Palestinian activist pending legal fight over his detention.

Start-and-stop tariffs shook global markets

Trump announced – then paused – the first round of tariffs on U.S. trading partners shortly after taking office.

Breaking News: Feb. 3, 11:03 a.m.

President Trump says tariffs on goods from Mexico paused for a month for negotiations. Mexico’s president said it will put 10,000 troops at the border.

He then declared April 2 “Liberation Day” …

Watch live: April 2, 4:19 p.m.

President Trump announces sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs to promote U.S. manufacturing, raising risks of higher costs and trade wars.

… and markets quickly responded.

Breaking News: April 3, 4:14 p.m.

Dow suffers its biggest wipeout since 2020 as fears of fallout from President Trump’s tariffs shake markets.

Market meltdown: April 7, 4:04 a.m.

European and Asian stocks nosedive as Trump doubles down on tariffs and China accuses the US of economic bullying and protectionism.

Trump backtracked, pausing the tariffs he announced on “Liberation Day” — on all countries except one.

Breaking News: April 9, 1:33 p.m.

Stocks surge after President Trump announces a 90-day pause on tariffs, except for China, which he raises to 125%.

Trade war escalates: April 11, 4:27 a.m.

China raises retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods to 125% from 84%.

Foreign policy focus has bounced around

Trump’s term began with the president suggesting Palestinians be entirely displaced from Gaza.

Breaking News: Feb. 4, 7:06 p.m.

President Trump says he wants the U.S. to take ownership of the Gaza Strip and redevelop it after Palestinians are resettled elsewhere.

After a blow-up in the Oval Office, the U.S.-Ukrainian relationship dominated the news.

Breaking News: Feb. 28, 12:37 p.m.

President Trump and Vice President Vance call Zelenskyy “disrespectful” in an Oval Office meeting, as the Ukrainian leader asks for U.S. security commitment.

And for a week, headlines covered fallout from The Atlantic’s reporting about the sharing of military plans in a group chat that included a journalist.

Happening Now: March 25, 10:07 a.m.

Trump intelligence officials face Congress for hearings on national security a day after it was revealed that war plans were texted to a journalist.

Breaking News: April 3, 2:45 p.m.

The Pentagon’s acting inspector general announces an investigation into Pete Hegseth’s use of a Signal chat for Houthi attack plans.

DOGE took drastic action to cut the federal workforce

Trump began cutting the federal workforce from the start – from eliminating thousands of workers across agencies to more targeted firings.

Breaking News: Jan. 21, 9:34 p.m.

Trump administration directs all federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff be put on leave and plans to lay them off.

Trump fires watchdogs: Jan. 25, 1:54 p.m.

Donald Trump has fired more than a dozen inspectors general at federal agencies in a sweeping action that removes oversight of his new administration.

Billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk and the newly created Department of Government Efficiency were soon directing cuts at federal agencies.

Breaking News: Feb. 24, 9:53 a.m.

A lawsuit says that Elon Musk’s demand that federal employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired violated the law.

Among the hardest hit was the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides aid to other countries.

Breaking News: Feb. 11, 7:19 p.m.

The White House fires USAID inspector general a day after a warning about oversight of humanitarian aid, an official says.

Some of these federal firings were cleared by the courts, while judges temporarily blocked others.

Breaking News: March 18, 3:30 p.m.

A federal judge rules the dismantling of USAID likely violated the Constitution and blocks Elon Musk’s DOGE from further cuts.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.

A deaf mother trying to escape her abusive husband came to a domestic violence shelter seeking help, but she couldn’t communicate fluently with American Sign Language.

Shelter workers contacted Activating Change, a group that can provide sign language interpreters who are trained to help people experiencing trauma. Over the course of the year in the shelter, the woman worked with the interpreter to file for divorce, gain custody of her children, heal with therapy, and find a job and housing.

“Our superpower is adaptability, and having access to services like Activating Change allows us to have that,” said Marjie George, developmental director at the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services shelter.

Activating Change, which helps people with disabilities navigate the criminal justice system, was one of hundreds of organizations that received a notice on April 22 that the Department of Justice was canceling grants they had received through the Office of Justice Programs. More than 350 grants initially worth more than $800 million were ended midstream, sparking layoffs and program closures.

The disabilities nonprofit had to lay off nearly half its 26 workers after the government canceled $3 million in direct grants, about $1 million of which had already been spent, and ended pass-through grants from other organizations.

Amy Solomon, former assistant attorney general who oversaw the Office of Justice Programs and now a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice, called said the cuts touched on every aspect of the department’s portfolio.

“This is highly unusual,” Solomon said. “You expect any administration to have their own priorities, and to implement that in future budget years and with future awards. You would not expect it to be grants that have already been granted, obligated or awarded to be pulled back.”

The Office of Justice Programs typically awards nearly $4 billion in grants annually.

It was unclear how much money it would take back since some of the rescinded grants were initially awarded as far back as 2021. Grantees were locked out of the financial system a few days before they were due to be reimbursed for already completed work.

How the Justice Department planned to reallocate whatever money is returned was also unclear. Some came from dedicated pots of funding, including from the Victims of Crime Act, which collects fines and penalties in federal cases for programs serving crime victims.

A department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the cuts.

The cancellation notices noted that grant holders had 30 days to appeal. As of Friday, the department had reversed course on a handful of grants, restoring some funding.

Law enforcement priorities

The cancellation letters obtained by The Associated Press explained the cuts by saying the department had changed its priorities to focus on “more directly supporting certain law enforcement operations, combatting violent crime, protecting American children, and supporting American victims of trafficking and sexual assault.”

But advocates, researchers and leaders in criminal justice said many grants served those purposes. Some cuts seemed to target programs that were started by or were a priority under the Biden administration, such as grants for violence intervention programs. But others appeared to target priorities under Trump’s first administration, including elder abuse and financial exploitation.

While cities and law enforcement agencies largely escaped direct cuts, many are feeling the impacts of cancellations to partner programs.

In a scathing briefing Wednesday, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin noted nearly $13 million in ongoing program funding to the state was canceled.

“To say, ‘We’re going to cut programs that protect people from bias, that help people with opioid addiction, that keep guns off our streets’ — it’s irresponsible, it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s going to get people killed,” Platkin said.

The cancellations included funding for research organizations that create standards for training or data collection and provide resources for smaller law enforcement agencies.

Three grants to the Police Executive Research Forum were cut, including a study of police plans and responses to protests to develop practices for preventing civil disturbances. And the National Policing Institute lost grants that provided technical assistance to rural police departments and support for improving relationships between police and communities of color.

Mandated functions

A handful of the canceled grants paid for services intertwined with government functions mandated by law, including required audits under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

Impact Justice, which lost millions, had created and managed the PREA Resource Center for more than a decade. The center has had a hand in nearly every aspect of the implementation and management of the federal regulations from the online audit platform, auditor certification, and developing trainings for auditors, prison officials and others.

“It’s a collaborative relationship, but we are the ones that execute the work and have the systems and maintain the systems,” said Michela Bowman, Vice President of Impact Justice and senior advisor to the PREA Resource Center.

She explained that the center designed and owns the audit software and data collection systems.

“I can’t tell you what the DOJ plans to do in the alternate,” said Alex Busansky, president and founder of Impact Justice.

Safety and victim services

Nonprofits that provide services to crime victims also lost grants. Advocates say many cuts will impact public safety, like the elimination of funding for the national crime victims hotline or the loss of a grant to the International Association of Forensic Nurses to provide technical assistance and training to SANE— Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners— in underserved areas.

“It’s very important for a survivor to be able to access a rape exam done by a SANE nurse. It’s vital,” said Ilse Knecht, director of policy and advocacy at The Joyful Heart Foundation, and who oversees the agency’s efforts to track and combat a national backlog in untested forensic rape kits.

Grants that directly address the backlog seemed to be safe for now, but she said services offered to survivors are essential.

“When we don’t keep this system that has been set up to keep victims safe and make them want to participate in the criminal justice system … we are really doing a disservice,” she added. “How is this helping public safety?”

For Activating Change, the cuts meant an immediate reduction in services. Its leaders rejected the idea their services don’t align with federal priorities.

“It is a catastrophic blow to our organization,” said Nancy Smith, the organization’s executive director. “But also to the safety net for people with disabilities and deaf people who’ve experienced violent crime in our country.”

CHATHAM, Ill. (AP) — Authorities said Tuesday they believe a crash through an Illinois after-school building that killed three kids and one teenager wasn’t targeted.

The car smashed through a building Monday afternoon, injuring several others in the small city outside of Springfield, Illinois, police said.

Officers responded at about 3:20 p.m. to calls about a vehicle ramming through the building, fatally hitting four people before exiting the other side, Chatham Police Department Deputy Chief Scott Tarter said.

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Associated Press reporter Lisa Baumann contributed to this report from Bellingham, Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s first 100 days back in the White House have been a demolition job — and that’s a point of pride for his administration.

For the Republican administration, the raw numbers on executive actions, deportations, reductions in the federal workforce, increased tariff rates and other issues point toward a renewed America. To Trump’s critics, though, he’s wielding his authority in ways that challenge the Constitution’s separation of powers and pose the risk of triggering a recession.

From executive orders to deportations, some defining numbers from Trump’s first 100 days:

Roughly 140 executive orders

In just 100 days, Trump has nearly matched the number of executive orders that his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, signed during the previous four years, 162. Trump, at roughly 140, is essentially moving at a pace not seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency, when the Great Depression necessitated urgent action.

But the number alone fails to capture the unprecedented scope of Trump’s actions. Without seeking congressional approval, Trump has used his orders and directives to impose hundreds of billions of dollars annually in new import taxes and reshape the federal bureaucracy by enabling mass layoffs.

John Woolley, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-director of the American Presidency Project, sees “very aggressive assertions of presidential authority in all kinds of ways” that are far more audacious than anything done by former presidents. That includes Biden’s student debt forgiveness program and Barack Obama’s decision to allow residency for immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children.

“None of those had the kind of arbitrary, forceful quality of Trump’s actions,” Woolley said.

145% tariff rate on China

Trump’s tariff agenda has unnerved the global economy. He’s gone after the two biggest U.S. trade partners, Mexico and Canada, with tariffs of as much as 25% for fentanyl trafficking. He’s put import taxes on autos, steel and aluminum. On his April 2 “Liberation Day,” he slapped tariffs on dozens of countries that were so high that the financial markets panicked, causing him to pull back and set a 10% baseline tax on imports instead to allow 90 days of negotiations on trade deals.

But that pales in comparison to the 145% tariff he placed on China, which prompted China to fight back with a 125% tax on U.S. goods. There are exemptions to the U.S. tariffs for electronics. But inflationary pressures and recession fears are both rising as a trade war between the world’s two largest economies could spiral out of control in dangerous ways.

The U.S. president has said that China has been talking with his administration, but he’s kept his description of the conversations vague. The Chinese government says no trade negotiations of any kind are underway. Trump is banking on the tariffs raising enough revenue for him to cut taxes, even as he simultaneously talks up the prospect of an agreement.

So far, despite the economic risks, the Trump team shows little desire to budge, even as the president claims a deal with China will eventually happen.

“I believe that it’s up to China to de-escalate because they sell five times more to us than we sell to them,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Monday.

More than 10,000 square miles of Crimea

Trump said during his presidential campaign that he could quickly defuse the Russian-started war in Ukraine. But European allies and others say the U.S president’s statements about how to end the war reflect a troubling affinity for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s peace proposal says that Ukraine must recognize Russian authority over the more than 10,000 square miles (26,000 square kilometers) of the Crimean Peninsula. Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy rejected the idea out of hand: “There is nothing to talk about — it is our land, the land of the Ukrainian people.”

The U.S. president is essentially asking Ukraine to surrender any claims to a land mass slightly larger than Maryland. Russia annexed the area in 2014 when Obama was president, and Trump says he’s simply being realistic about its future.

The four meetings that Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, has had with Putin have yet to produce a trustworthy framework for the deal that Trump wants to deliver.

After recent Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and towns, Trump posted on social media that perhaps Putin “doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along.”

Over 2,000 more Palestinians in Gaza dead

Trump was eager to take credit for an “epic ceasefire” agreement in the Israel-Hamas War in order to restart the release of hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. But the ceasefire ended in March, and more than 2,000 Palestinians have died since the temporary truce collapsed. Palestinian officials have put the total number of deaths above 52,200. Food, fuel and medicine have not entered the Gaza Strip for almost 60 days.

Trump said in February that he would remove the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and relocate them elsewhere, suggesting that the United States could take over the area, level the destroyed buildings and construct a luxurious “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Roughly 280,000 federal job losses

The Department of Government Efficiency, led by tech billionaire and adviser Elon Musk, is dramatically shrinking the government workforce. Across all agencies, there have been about 60,000 firings, including at the IRS, which might make it harder to collect taxes and reduce the budget deficit. Another 75,000 federal workers accepted administration buyout offers. And the Trump administration has floated at least another 145,000 job cuts.

Those estimated job losses don’t include the possible layoffs and hiring freezes at nonprofits, government contractors and universities that had their federal funding frozen by the Trump administration.

The federal government had about 3 million federal employees, including at the U.S. Postal Service, when Trump became president, according to the Labor Department.

139,000 deportations

The Trump administration says it has deported 139,000 people who were in the United States without proper legal authority. Trump’s first months also have produced a sharp drop in crossings at the Southwest border, with Border Patrol tracking 7,181 encounters in March, down from 137,473 the same month last year.

Deportations have occasionally lagged behind Biden’s numbers, but Trump officials reject the comparison as not “apples to apples” because fewer people are crossing the border now.

The administration maintains that it’s getting rid of violent and dangerous criminals. But many migrants who assert their innocence have been deported without due process.

In April, the Supreme Court directed the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return to the U.S. of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvador citizen who was deported to his home country. Abrego Garcia had been living in Maryland and had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs. So far, Abrego Garcia remains held in a Salvadoran prison.

Trump said last week that he won the presidential election on the promise of deportations and that the courts are interfering with his efforts.

“We’re getting them out, and a judge can say, ‘No, you have to have a trial,’” Trump said. “The trial’s going to take two years, and now we’re going to have a very dangerous country if we’re not allowed to do what we’re entitled to do.”

A federal appeals court has paused a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England this week so it can consider an emergency motion filed by the government.

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New York, ruled Monday that a three-judge panel would hear arguments on May 6 in the case of Rumeysa Ozturk. She’s been detained for five weeks as of Tuesday.

A district court judge in Vermont had earlier ordered that the 30-year-old doctoral student be brought to the state by Thursday for hearings to determine whether she was illegally detained. Ozturk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.

The U.S. Justice Department, which is appealing that ruling, said that an immigration court in Louisiana has jurisdiction over her case.

Congress limited federal-court jurisdiction over immigration matters, government lawyers wrote. Yet the Vermont judge’s order “defies those limits at every turn in a way that irreparably harms the government.”

Ozturk’s lawyers opposed the emergency motion. “In practice, that temporary pause could last many months,” they said in a news release.

Immigration officials surrounded Ozturk as she walked along a street in a Boston suburb March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a plane to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana.

Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.

WARREN, Mich. (AP) — President Donald Trump is holding a rally in Michigan on Tuesday to mark the first 100 days of his second term, staging his largest public event since returning to the White House in a state that has been especially rocked by his steep trade tariffs and combative attitude toward Canada.

Trump is making an afternoon visit to Selfridge Air National Guard Base for an announcement alongside Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. He’s expected to speak at a rally at Macomb Community College, north of Detroit, allowing him to revel in leading a sprint to upend government and social, political and foreign policy norms.

His Republican administration’s strict immigration polices have sent arrests for illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border plummeting, and government-slashing efforts led by billionaire adviser Elon Musk have shaken Washington to its core. Its protectionist import taxes imposed on America’s trade partners have also sought to reorder a global economy that the U.S. had painstakingly built and nurtured in the decades after World War II.

Trump has also championed sweeping U.S. expansionism, refusing to rule out military intervention in Greenland and Panama, suggesting that American developers could help convert the war-torn Gaza Strip into a Riviera-like resort and even suggesting annexation of Canada.

“I run the country and the world,” Trump told The Atlantic magazine in an interview. He told Time of his first 100 days, “I think that what I’m doing is exactly what I’ve campaigned on.”

That doesn’t mean it’s popular.

Only about 4 in 10 Americans approve of how Trump , and his ratings on the economy and trade are lower than that. Additionally, 46% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s , with about half of Americans saying he has “gone too far” when it comes to deporting immigrants living in the country illegally.

Just 33% of Americans, meanwhile, have a favorable view of Musk, the Tesla CEO and world’s richest person, and about half believe the administration has gone too far in working to pare back the government workforce.

“The bottom line for the first hundred days is, lots of damage being done to the fundamentals of our government,” said Max Stier, founding president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit dedicated to better government.

Stier noted that there’d been “a lot of interest in this idea of trying to make our government more efficient, and what we’ve seen instead is the most substantial destruction of our core governmental capabilities in history.”

Michigan was one of the battleground states Trump flipped from the Democratic column. But it’s also been deeply affected by his tariffs, including on new imported cars and auto parts.

Michigan’s unemployment rate has risen for three straight months, including jumping 1.3% from March to reach 5.5%, according to . That’s among the highest in the nation, far exceeding the national average of 4.2%.

Automaker Stellantis halted production at plants in Canada and Mexico after Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported vehicles, temporarily laying off 900 U.S. employees. Industry groups have separately urged the White House to scrap plans for tariffs on imported auto parts, warning that doing so would raise prices on cars and could trigger “layoffs and bankruptcy.”

That seemingly would make the state an odd choice for Trump to hail his own accomplishments.

“I’m not sure that he is at all interested in doing the smart thing,” said Bernie Porn, a longtime Michigan pollster. “He is what I would call an in-your-face president. ‘This is what I’m going to do.'”

Trump is also visiting Selfridge, which was established after the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, and the community college campus in Warren. Both are near the Canadian border and home to many people with deep business and personal ties to that country.

“Michigan always feels very, very positively toward Canada,” said the pollster, who noted that its voters “can’t be reacting well to the kinds of things he’s done.”

Typically, presidents use the 100-day mark to launch multiple rallies. But Trump is doing only the Michigan stop before giving the commencement address at the University of Alabama on Thursday.

Administration officials say the Republican president is at his most effective staying at the White House, having meetings and speaking to reporters nearly every day. Indeed, Trump’s Macomb Community College speech will be one of the few large in-person crowds he’s addressed since Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.

Except for a trip to tour hurricane damage in North Carolina and wildfire devastation in Southern California and a Las Vegas speech that included briefly chatting with gamblers on a casino floor, Trump’s early months have been characterized by little domestic travel.

The exceptions have been flying most weekends to golf in Florida or attend sporting events, including the Super Bowl and the Daytona 500, where Trump relished the crowds but didn’t speak to them. The limited travel to see supporters is a major departure from his first term, when Trump held major rallies in Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky before celebrating 100 days in office with a Pennsylvania speech in 2017.

Also in the spotlight will be Whitmer, who is frequently mentioned as a future presidential candidate. Long a Trump critic, Whitmer has sought to find common ground with the president lately, visiting him at the White House and discussing the future of Selfridge specifically.

Whitmer is concerned about the A-10 aircraft stationed at the base being phased out, though Trump recently said he hoped to keep Selfridge “open, strong, thriving.”

The Michigan pollster noted that Whitmer has continued to criticize Trump on key issues like the environment. But, he added, “She does, I think, more so than a lot of other Democrats, realize that the guy’s in office, and it probably makes sense to try and — to the extent possible on those things where they agree — work together with him.”

General Motors posted strong financial results for its first quarter Tuesday, but says it will reassess its expectations for 2025 due to auto tariffs.

The automaker is pushing back its conference call to discuss its guidance and quarterly results until Thursday, so that it can assess potential tariff changes.

Late Monday The Wall Street Journal reported that President Donald Trump will possibly be dialing back on automotive tariffs, with anonymous sources claiming that he’ll stop duties on foreign-made cars from piling on top of other tariffs he implemented and easing some levies on foreign parts used to make cars in the U.S.

General Motors earned $2.78 billion, or $3.35 per share, for the three months ended March 31. A year earlier it earned $2.98 billion, or $2.56 per share.

Removing one-time charges and benefits, GM earned $2.78 per share, topping the $2.68 per share that Wall Street had expected, according to a survey by FactSet.

Revenue climbed to $44.02 billion from $43.01 billion.

GM’s stock declined more than 2% before the market opened.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has frozen, stalled or otherwise disrupted some $430 billion in federal funds — from disease research to Head Start for children to disaster aid — in what top Democrats say is an “unprecedented and dangerous” assault on programs used by countless Americans.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut on Tuesday released an online tracker that is compiling all the ways President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency are interrupting the flow of federal funds, often going up against the law.

“Instead of investing in the American people, President Trump is ignoring our laws and ripping resources away,” said Murray and DeLauro, who are the top Democrats on the Appropriations committees in Congress.

“No American president has ever so flagrantly ignored our nation’s spending laws or so brazenly denied the American people investments they are owed,” they said.

The tally is far from complete or exhaustive, the lawmakers said, but a snapshot in time. It comes in a rapidly changing political and legal environment as the Trump administration faces dozens of lawsuits from state and local governments, advocacy organizations, employees and others fighting to keep programs intact.

At 100 days into Trump’s return to the presidency, the project showcases the extent to which the White House is blocking money that Congress has already approved, touching off a constitutional battle between the executive and legislative branches that has real world ramifications for the communities the lawmakers serve.

The White House and its Republican allies in Congress have said they are working to root out waste, fraud and abuse in government. The Trump administration is in court fighting to keep many of the administration’s cuts even as Musk, whose own popularity has dropped, says he will be cycling off DOGE’s day-to-day work.

And Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget intends to soon send Congress a $9 billion rescissions package, to claw back funds through cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and others.

Murray and DeLauro said they want to “shine a light on President Trump’s vast, illegal funding freeze and how it is hurting people in every zip code in America.” They said it’s time for Trump and Musk “to end this unprecedented and dangerous campaign.”

While Republicans have also stirred with concerns about Trump’s spending cuts, many are reluctant to do so publicly as they try to avoid Trump’s reactions. Instead, they tend to work behind the scenes to restore federal dollars to their home states or other constituencies that have been put at risk by Trump’s actions.

The powerful Appropriations committees in the House and the Senate, where Republicans have majority control of both chambers, draft the annual funding bills that are ultimately approved by Congress and sent to the president’s desk for his signature to become law.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Voters in Wisconsin could be seeing double on Election Day if the practice of fusion voting — which allows the same candidate to appear on the ballot under multiple party lines — makes a comeback in the battleground state.

A lawsuit filed Tuesday seeks to legalize the practice, saying it would empower independent voters and lesser-known political parties at a time of increasingly bitter partisanship between Republicans and Democrats. The lawsuit comes just four weeks after the Wisconsin Supreme Court election that broke records for spending and saw massive involvement from the two parties and partisan interests.

Common in the 1800s, fusion voting means a candidate could appear on the ballot as nominated by Republican or Democratic parties and one or more lesser-known political parties. Critics argue it complicates the ballot, perhaps confusing the voter, while also giving minor parties disproportionate power because major-party candidates must woo them to get their endorsements.

Currently, full fusion voting is only happening in Connecticut and New York. There are efforts to revive the practice in other states, including Michigan, Kansas and New Jersey.

The lawsuit by the newly formed group United Wisconsin seeks a ruling affirming that minor parties can nominate whoever they like — even if that person was nominated by the Republican or Democratic parties. Under fusion voting, “John Doe, Democrat” could appear on the same ballot with “John Doe, Green Party.” All of the votes that candidate receives are combined, or fused, for their total.

United Wisconsin wants to become a fusion political party that will cross-nominate a major party candidate, said Dale Schultz, co-chair of the group and a former Republican Senate majority leader. But first, he said, “we’d like to see the state courts affirm that we have a constitutional right to associate with whomever we want.”

The lawsuit filed against the Wisconsin Elections Commission in Dane County Circuit Court argues the state’s nearly 130-year-old prohibition on candidates appearing on the ballot more than once for the same office is unconstitutional.

Schultz is one of five named plaintiffs, which include a former Democratic county sheriff and a retired judge who was also a Republican state lawmaker.

Attorney Jeff Mandell, president of Law Forward, which is representing United Wisconsin in the lawsuit, said voters want more choices and called the current two-party system “calcified and deeply unstable.”

Fusion voting was common in the United States in the 1800s, a time when political parties nominated their preferred candidates without restriction. The practice helped lead to the creation of the Republican Party in 1854, when antislavery Whigs and Democrats, along with smaller parties, joined forces at a meeting in Wisconsin to create the GOP.

Less than 50 years later, in 1897, that same Republican Party enacted a prohibition on fusion voting in Wisconsin to weaken the Democratic Party and restrain development of additional political parties, the lawsuit contends. That’s in violation of the state constitution’s equal protection guarantee, United Wisconsin argues.

Similar anti-fusion laws began to take hold nationwide early in the early 1900s as the major political parties moved to reduce the influence and competition from minor parties.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — U.S. Rep. Angie Craig on Tuesday became the latest Minnesota Democrat to enter the increasingly competitive race for a U.S. Senate seat currently held by the retiring Sen. Tina Smith.

In her , Craig vows to “break through the chaos” and fight back against “a president trampling our rights and freedoms as he profits for personal gain, and a cowardly Republican Party rolling over and letting it all happen.”

The 53-year-old entered the Senate race after holding town hall meetings last week in all four congressional districts held by Minnesota Republicans, including Majority Whip Tom Emmer, to highlight the differences between Democrats and President Donald Trump and his supporters in Congress.

Smith, a Democrat, announced in February that she would not run again, setting off a scramble in her party for what will be an open seat that could help determine which party controls the Senate after 2026.

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan was first out of the gate and has been actively campaigning across the state. She has already piled up a long list of endorsements, including from Attorney General Keith Ellison, former U.S. Sen. Al Franken and several legislators. She raised over $450,000 in the first quarter.

Former state Sen Melisa López Franzen joined the race in March and is also making appearances statewide. López Franzen has endorsements from several current and former legislators and local officials. She raised more than $260,000 in her first three weeks.

But Craig is in the strongest financial position. Her House campaign raised over $1.2 million in the first quarter, and she can now spend that on the Senate race.

Craig is a former medical device company executive and former newspaper reporter. Craig and her wife, Cheryl, have four adult sons. Craig was targeted with death threats and forced to move after fighting off a mentally disturbed attacker in the elevator of her Washington apartment building in 2023.

She has represented the suburban-to-rural 2nd District south of Minneapolis and St. Paul since unseating Republican Jason Lewis in the 2018 election. While her territory was once considered a swing district, it has trended Democratic in recent years. Running as a centrist, she won reelection by a 13-point margin in 2024. But that district could conceivably become competitive again with her out.

Republicans actively raising money in the Senate race include antiestablishment grassroots candidate Royce White, a former NBA player who lost to U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2024, and former congressional candidate Adam Schwarze, a veteran of the Marine Corps and the Iraq War.

ATLANTA (AP) — After leading Atlanta out of the COVID-19 pandemic and a coinciding crime spike, Mayor Andre Dickens believes he deserves a second term as the city hosts its most high-profile event since the 1996 Olympics.

Dickens recently launched his reelection campaign with $1.4 million in the bank and support from Atlanta’s business and political elite including civil rights hero and former mayor Andrew Young and Jason Carter, Jimmy Carter’s grandson.

Atlanta’s next mayor will preside as visitors flood the city for eight matches of the 2026 World Cup. No prominent challengers have emerged for the fall election. If that holds through candidate qualifying in August, Dickens’ second mayoral bid could forgo the drama of 2021, when the then-city councilman won a surprise victory over two better-known rivals.

Dickens says he’s fulfilling promises to lower crime and boost affordable housing. And he shrugs off criticism from activists who say he’s alienated the city’s progressives — most notably for his support of a $115 million police and firefighter training center derided by opponents as “Cop City.”

“The city got stabilized during my term, unified during my term, and is on a path that everybody can want to come here to raise a family,” Dickens told The Associated Press in an interview.

Emory University law professor Fred Smith said Dickens has been an “energizing force,” adding he rallied support for building affordable housing and helped thwart efforts for Atlanta’s wealthiest neighborhood to break away from the city.

“In terms of where he has done less well, I think a lot of folks who pay close attention to Atlanta government don’t feel heard, especially on issues related to transit and the public training center,” Smith said.

Big days ahead

Atlanta is one of 16 cities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico hosting the World Cup, with a preview this summer when it hosts six matches of the FIFA Club World Cup, another international soccer tournament.

The games will bring more traffic to the increasingly packed city. Like recent mayors, Dickens has been slow to expand public transportation. He backed from plans to start building a light rail line along the city’s Beltline trail, announcing other projects expected to take years to complete. He argues the shift will help higher-need areas.

Regardless, Dickens insisted Atlanta will have a “very festive time” during the World Cup with repaved roads and upgraded lighting.

“I want people to leave knowing our culture, having supported our small businesses, having experienced Atlanta so that they might want to come back as a vacation or bring their business here, open an office here,” Dickens said.

Housing boosts

Dickens promised to build over 20,000 affordable housing units over two terms.

Over half or are under construction. Most are rentals and more than three-quarters are for people making 60% or less of the midpoint household income, which was $85,880 according to 2023 Census Bureau figures. Some are on government-owned land and part of mixed-income housing redevelopments.

Even as it builds, Atlanta is losing affordable units as wealthier people move in and push poorer, longtime residents out, a pattern accelerated after the Olympics.

“Is the need being met to the level that is there? Probably not,” said Vicki Lundy Wilbon, an executive with Integral Group, an Atlanta developer. “But the mayor is doing everything that he, as the mayor of the city, can do.”

Despite investing millions to reduce homelessness, Dickens’ administration was criticized in January when a man died after being crushed in his tent by a bulldozer clearing a homeless camp ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. holiday events.

Dickens called for rethinking how the city clears encampments, but said they are unsafe for people living there and neighbors.

Crime and controversy

Another priority for Dickens was reducing crime, which spiked in Atlanta and other U.S. cities during the pandemic and later fell. In 2024, Atlant’s violent crime fell by 46% and youth crime fell by 23%, law enforcement officials said at a recent press conference with Dickens.

Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum credited Dickens with raising officers’ pay and letting them take home patrol cars, saying the moves retained more officers and halved 911 response times. Dickens also launched sports and job programs for thousands of young people to take a “holistic” approach to crime.

Then there’s “Cop City.”

Dickens has supported the training center since he was a council member, saying Atlanta would benefit from better-trained police.

But the project became a flashpoint for progressive activists who argued it would further militarize police and damage the environment of an adjacent Black neighborhood. Tensions rose when a protester was killed by police who argued he had shot at them.

Efforts to “diminish and vilify” the training center’s critics have created a “deep, deep, deep mistrust between people who could have been this mayor’s greatest allies” and Dickens’ office, said Rohit Malhotra of the Center for Civic Innovation, a progressive group that sought a voter referendum to reject the training center.

Water woes and an oversight fight

Last May, a burst pipe deprived many Atlantans of water for days and Dickens was slammed for poor communication. He now says plans are underway to fix the city’s aging water and sewer system.

The city’s inspector general resigned in February following a long-running feud with Dickens. She accused him of trying to thwart her oversight of City Hall. He said her methods broke the law.

Dickens said he hopes to mend relationships with his critics.

“The unifier in me is going to use the power of being a second-term mayor to bring everybody into the group project,” Dickens said.

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Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: .

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party has won Canada’s federal election, capping a stunning turnaround in fortunes fueled by U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to Canada’s economy and sovereignty.

The Liberals are projected to win more of Parliament’s 343 seats than the Conservatives in Monday’s contest. It isn’t clear yet if they will win an outright majority, at least 172, or will need to rely on one or more smaller parties to pass legislation.

Trump’s threats of tariffs and suggestions that Canada should become the 51st state upended the race, as polls showed Pierre Poilievre and his Conservative Party with comfortable leads only months ago.

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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Catholic Church in Oklahoma wants taxpayers to fund an online charter school that “is faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ.” The Supreme Court could well approve.

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would be the nation’s first religious charter school. A ruling from the high court allowing public money to flow directly to a religious school almost certainly would lead to others.

Opponents warn it would blur the separation between church and state, sap money from public schools and possibly upend the rules governing charter schools in almost every state.

The court hears arguments Wednesday in one of the term’s most closely watched cases.

The case comes to the court amid efforts, mainly in conservative-led states, to insert religion into public schools. Those include a challenged Louisiana requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms and a mandate from Oklahoma’s state schools superintendent that the Bible be placed in public school classrooms.

Conservative justices in recent years have delivered a series of decisions allowing public money to be spent at religious institutions, leading liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor to lament that the court “continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build.”

The justices are reviewing an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision last year in which a lopsided majority invalidated a state board’s approval of an application filed jointly by two Catholic dioceses in Oklahoma.

The K-12 online school had planned to start classes for its first 200 enrollees last fall, with part of its mission to evangelize its students in the Catholic faith.

Oklahoma’s high court determined the board’s approval violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.”

The state board and the school, backed by an array of Republican-led states and religious and conservative groups, argue that the court decision violates a different part of the First Amendment that protects religious freedom. The Free Exercise Clause has been the basis of the recent Supreme Court decisions.

“A State need not subsidize private education,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in one of those decisions in 2020. “But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

The case has divided some of the state’s Republican leaders, with Gov. Kevin Stitt and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters supporting the concept of using public funds for religious schools, while Attorney General Gentner Drummond has opposed the idea and sued to overturn the virtual charter school board’s approval of St. Isidore.

A key issue in the case is whether the school is public or private. Charter schools are deemed public in Oklahoma and the other 45 states and the District of Columbia where they operate.

They are free and open to all. Just under 4 million American schoolchildren, about 8%, are enrolled in charter schools.

“Charter schools no doubt offer important educational innovations, but they bear all the classic indicia of public schools,” lawyers for Drummond wrote in a Supreme Court filing.

Those include that they receive state funding, must abide by antidiscrimination laws and must submit to oversight of curriculum and testing. But the schools also are run by independent boards that are not part of local public school systems.

“Charter schools are called public schools, but they’re totally different entities,” said Nicole Garnett, a University of Notre Dame law professor who is a leading proponent of publicly funded religious charter schools. Other Notre Dame professors are part of the St. Isidore legal team.

If the court finds the school is public, or a “state actor,” it could lead to a ruling against St. Isidore. If instead it determines that the school is private, the court is more likely to see this case as it did the earlier ones in which it found discrimination against religious institutions.

That the court even agreed to take on the issue now might suggest that a majority is inclined to side with St. Isidore.

The Oklahoma court is the only one that has ruled on religious charter schools and only eight justices are hearing the case. Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself without explanation. Barrett previously taught law at Notre Dame and is close friends with Garnett.

The current court is very familiar with private and, especially, religious education. Six justices attended Catholic schools as children and almost all the children of the justices go or went to private schools, including some religious ones.

Walters, the state schools superintendent, sees the St. Isidore case as “the next frontier” in school choice for parents. He has been an unabashed critic of the separation of church and state and sought to infuse more religion into public schools.

“I see it very clearly, that there’s been a war on Christianity and our schools have been at the epicenter of that,” said Walters, a former high school history teacher elected in 2022 on a platform of fighting “woke ideology” in public schools and banning certain books from school libraries.

“We’re going to give parents more rights in education than anywhere in the country, and that means a free ability to choose the school of your choice, whether it’s a religious education, whether it’s a charter school, public school, home school, all of the above.”

The idea of using public money to fund religious schools is antithetical to the Constitution, said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“This is religious public education, fully and directly funded by taxpayers. It’s as abject a violation of religious freedom as they come, because it forces taxpayers to fund the heart of religion, religious education for religion that’s not their own,” Laser said.

A group of Oklahoma parents, faith leaders and a public education nonprofit that also sued to block the school argue that religious charter schools in their state would lead to a drop in funding for rural public schools.

St. Isidore would lead to other religious charter schools, said Erika Wright, a mother whose two school-age children attend a rural school district in Cleveland County. “And all of those schools would be pulling from the same limited pot of money that we have for our current brick-and-mortar schools across the state.”

A decision is expected by early summer.

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Murphy reported from Oklahoma City.

LONDON (AP) — President Donald Trump is pushing Ukraine to cede territory to Russia to end the war, threatening to walk away if a deal becomes too difficult — and causing alarm bells in Europe about how to fill the gap.

Ukraine’s European allies view the war as fundamental to the continent’s security, and pressure is now mounting to find ways to support Kyiv militarily — regardless of whether Trump pulls out.

Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accusing him of prolonging the “killing field” by pushing back on his demand that Ukraine hand over occupied Crimea to Moscow.

Trump’s land-for-peace plan would mark a significant shift in the post-World War II order, ripping up conventions that have long held that borders should not be redrawn by force.

“It took a World War to roll back de jure annexations and 60 million people died,” said François Heisbourg, special adviser at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, referring to the pre-war annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany.

“Europeans will not accept it” and Ukraine will not either, he said.

Can Ukraine fight without U.S. support?

Diplomats and experts described various scenarios if the U.S. decides to walk. They range from the U.S. ceasing direct aid to Ukraine — but allowing European nations to pass on critical American intelligence and weapons to Kyiv — to Trump banning transfers of any American technology, including components or software in European weapons.

Any withdrawal of U.S. military aid to Ukraine could create serious difficulties for Europe, analysts and diplomats told The Associated Press. Kyiv’s ability to keep fighting would depend on European political will to muster money and weapons — and how quickly the gaps left by Washington can be filled.

If it were easy, Europe would “already be doing things without America,” said a European diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Where would the money come from?

No new U.S. aid package for Ukraine has been approved since Trump came into office, even as European nations have collectively provided Ukraine with more aid than Washington, according to the Keil Institute.

Europe has contributed around $157 billion, some $26 billion more than the U.S., although Washington slightly outpaces Europe when it comes to military aid, the Germany-based institute said.

It will be hard, but there are ways Europe can find cash to fund Ukraine — including seizing frozen Russian assets — but “money isn’t what you shoot bullets with,” Heisbourg said.

Europe’s “big mistake” was undertaking major military downsizing following the Cold War and thinking “this war started in February 2022 and not in February 2014,” when Moscow invaded and then annexed Crimea, said Thomas Gomart, director of IFRI, a French international affairs think tank.

Europeans are scrambling to acquire weapons for themselves and for Ukraine, while confronting constraints on production capacity, a fragmented defense industry and a decades-long reliance on the U.S.

Some extra production capacity could come from Ukraine, which has ramped up manufacturing of ammunition and drones since Russia’s invasion. Much harder to replace, experts said, are advanced American weapons, including air defenses.

Can U.S. weapons systems be replaced?

Russia has attacked Ukraine almost nightly since Putin’s forces invaded in February 2022, flooding the skies with missiles and drones, including dummy attack drones to exhaust Ukraine’s limited air defenses. In April, at least 57 people were killed in multiple strikes.

The death toll from the Russian attacks would “inevitably” be higher without the American Patriot air-defense missile systems protecting Ukraine’s skies, said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

The Patriots can track and intercept Russian missiles, including the hypersonic Kinzhal, which Putin has boasted was unstoppable. Kyiv uses them to protect critical infrastructure, including the country’s energy grid.

Earlier this month, Zelenskyy asked to buy 10 Patriots, a request Trump dismissed. “You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles,” he said, a day after a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy killed 35 people.

France and Italy have given Ukraine their Aster SAMP/T air-defense system but the issue is not “quality, it’s quantity,” Barrie said, pointing to the larger U.S. defense industrial base and greater U.S. stockpiles.

Although Trump criticized Putin over the weekend for his missile strikes and suggested imposing more sanctions on Russia, for Europe it remains a wait-and-see game.

The whiplash of Trump’s aggressive foreign policy means nothing is off the cards, experts said.

A worst-case scenario could see a ban on American weapons exports and transfers to Ukraine, which would bar European nations from buying U.S. weapons to give to Kyiv or transferring weapons with American components or software, Barrie said.

That could mean countries, including Germany, that have already given American Patriots to Ukraine would be prohibited from doing so. Such a move would seriously hamper Europe’s ability to support Kyiv and mark a fundamental shift in America’s relationship with its allies.

“It’s one thing for the U.S. to cease to be an ally, it is another for the U.S. to be an enemy,” Heisbourg said, noting that such a step could also damage the U.S. defense sector if weapons purchases were perceived to be unusable on Trump’s political order.

Filling the gap on intelligence sharing

In March, the Trump administration suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine in a bid to force Zelenskyy to accept a truce with Russia. The about weeklong suspension impacted Ukraine’s ability to track and target Russian troops, tanks and ships.

There are certain capabilities, including “higher-end” surveillance and reconnaissance using satellites that “only the United States can provide,” said Matthew Kroenig, vice president of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security in Washington.

While the extent of intelligence sharing between the U.S. and Ukraine is not known, experts said it likely shows Kyiv near real-time buildup of Russian troop deployments and helps target long-range strikes.

Ukraine’s allies do not have as much satellite capability as the U.S. but could launch more, or Ukraine could use commercial systems if Trump cuts off intelligence again, experts said. The latter would likely have to come from a European provider — in March, the American satellite imagery company Maxar Technologies confirmed it temporarily suspended access to unclassified satellite images following the administration’s decision to pull intelligence sharing.

Ukraine also needs an alternative to Elon Musk’s satellite network Starlink, which is critical for Ukrainian defensive and civilian communications. European defense companies are discussing creating a satellite alliance but don’t currently have an alternative on the same scale.

Would Ukraine collapse without U.S. support?

If Trump walks away, or if Kyiv rejects a deal and keeps fighting with European support, it won’t necessarily mean “the collapse of Ukraine” although more people will almost certainly die if the U.S. pulls its air defenses and intelligence-sharing capabilities, Heisbourg said.

Trump has jolted European leaders into awareness that they need to take responsibility for their own defense, regardless of who occupies the White House, experts said.

That means European nations need to invest more in defense, work together to scale up military production and build trust to share intelligence.

“This issue is not a question about the next two months or the next two years. This issue is about the next two decades,” Gomart said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Asian shares were mostly higher on Tuesday after U.S. stocks drifted to a mixed, quiet finish ahead of a busy week of corporate earnings and economic data that could bring more bouts of volatility.

U.S. futures edged higher and oil prices fell. Tokyo’s markets were closed for a holiday.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was nearly unchanged at 21,969.67, while the Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% lower, to 3,285.68.

In South Korea, the Kospi jumped 0.7% to 2,565.42. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 also rose 0.9%, to 8,070.60.

Taiwan’s Taiex gained 1%, while the Sensex in India edged less than 0.1% higher.

A recent relative lull in trading has brought a respite from the sharp swings that have rocked markets for weeks, as hopes rose and fell that President Donald Trump may back down on his trade war.

The Trump administration appears to have made little headway in finding a way forward with Beijing, with both sides insisting the other needs to make the first move. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, speaking on CNBC, said he believed China wants a “de-escalation” in the trade war.

“I do have an escalation letter in my back pocke, and we’re very anxious not to have to use itt.”

“Maybe they’ll call me one day,” Bessent told Fox news.

Trump has ordered increases in tariffs on Chinese exports that combined add up to 145%. China has struck back with import duties on U.S. goods of up to 125%, though it has exempted some items.

Many investors believe Trump’s tariffs could cause a recession if left unaltered. Coming into Monday, the S&P 500 had roughly halved its drop that had taken it nearly 20% below its record set earlier this year.

On Monday, the S&P 500 inched up by 0.1%, to 5,528.75, extending its winning streak to a fifth day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3% to 40,227.59, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.1% to 17,366.13.

Mixed trading for some influential tech stocks ahead of their earnings reports this week pulled the S&P 500 back and forth between modest gains and losses for much of Monday.

Amazon fell 0.7%, Microsoft dipped 0.2%, Meta Platforms added 0.4% and Apple rose 0.4%.

Outside of Big Tech, executives from Caterpillar, Exxon Mobil and McDonald’s may also offer clues this week about how they’re seeing economic conditions play out. Several companies across industries have already slashed their estimates for upcoming profit or pulled their forecasts entirely because of uncertainty about what will happen with Trump’s tariffs.

A fear is that Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs may be pushing households and businesses to alter their spending and freeze plans for long-term investment because of how quickly conditions can change, seemingly by the hour.

So far, economic reports seem to show the U.S. economy is still growing, though at a weaker pace. On Wednesday, economists expect a report to say U.S. economic growth slowed to a 0.8% annual rate in the first three months of this year, down from a 2.4% pace at the end of last year.

Most reports so far have focused on data from before Trump’s “Liberation Day” on April 2, when he announced tariffs that could affect imports from countries worldwide. That could raise the stakes for upcoming reports on the U.S. job market, including Friday’s, which will show how many workers employers hired during all of April.

Economists expect it to show a slowdown in hiring down to 125,000 from 228,000 in March.

The most jarring economic data recently have come from surveys showing U.S. consumers are getting much more pessimistic about the economy’s future because of tariffs. The Conference Board’s latest reading on consumer confidence is due on Tuesday.

In the bond market, Treasury yields fell further. They’ve been sinking since an unsettling, unusual spurt higher in yields earlier this month rattled both Wall Street and the U.S. government. That rise had suggested investors worldwide may have been losing faith in the U.S. bond market’s reputation as a safe place to park cash.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury was steady at 4.21% early Tuesday.

In other dealings, benchmark U.S. crude oil lost 54 cents to $61.51 per barrel. Brent crude gave up 51 cents to $64.28 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar bought 142.49 Japanese yen, up from 142.02 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1387 from $1.1422.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — More than 50,000 Los Angeles county workers began a two-day strike Monday evening, closing libraries and disrupting administrative operations across the nation’s most populous county.

The two-day strike was initiated in response to failed negotiations with the county for a new contract after the last one expired in March, according to Service Employees International Union Local 721 leaders.

The union represents more than 55,000 workers including public health professionals, social workers, parks and recreation staff, custodians, clerical workers, and more serving a county of 10 million residents. It will be the first time all of its members go on strike, the union said.

“This is the workforce that got LA County through emergency after emergency: the January wildfires, public health emergencies, mental health emergencies, social service emergencies and more,” said union leader David Green in a statement. “That’s why we have had it with the labor law violations and demand respect for our workers.”

The strike is set to last until 7 p.m. Wednesday. During this time, libraries, some healthcare clinics, beach bathrooms, and public service counters at the Hall of Administration are expected to be closed. Some other services in the medical examiner’s office and public works department may also be affected, .

The union has accused the county of 44 labor law violations during contract negotiations, including surveillance and retaliation against workers engaging in union activity and contracting out positions represented by the union.

LA County says it’s facing “unprecedented stresses” on its budget, including a tentative $4 billion settlement of thousands of childhood sexual assault claims, a projected $2 billion in impacts related to the LA wildfires in January, and the potential loss of hundreds of millions in federal funding.

“We do not want to negotiate ourselves into a structural deficit—which could lead to layoffs and service reductions,” spokesperson Elizabeth Marcellino said in a statement from the chief executive office. “We are trying to strike a balance: fair compensation for our workforce while sustaining services and avoiding layoffs in the midst of some of the worst financial challenges we have ever experienced.”

The city of LA is facing similar financial woes — Mayor Karen Bass’s recently proposed budget includes 1,600 layoffs of city workers amid a nearly $1 billion deficit.

BANGKOK (AP) — They’d watched overnight as the bombardments grew closer, and observed through binoculars as the last U.S. Marines piled into a helicopter on the roof of the embassy to be whisked away from Saigon.

So when the reporters who had stayed behind heard the telltale squeak of the rubber sandals worn by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops in the stairs outside The Associated Press office, they weren’t surprised, and braced themselves for possible detention or arrest.

But when the two young soldiers who entered showed no signs of malice, the journalists just kept reporting.

Offering the men a Coke and day-old cake, Peter Arnett, George Esper and Matt Franjola started asking about their march into Saigon. As the men detailed their route on a bureau map, photographer Sarah Errington emerged from the darkroom and snapped what would become an iconic picture, published around the world.

Fifty years later, Arnett recalled the message he fed into the teletype transmitter to AP headquarters in New York after the improbable scene had played out.

“In my 13 years of covering the Vietnam War, I never dreamed it would end as it did today,” he remembers writing. “A total surrender following a few hours later with a cordial meeting in the AP bureau with an armed and battle-garbed North Vietnamese officer with his aide over warm Coke and pastries? That is how the Vietnamese war ended for me today.”

The message never made it: After a day of carrying alerts and stories on the fall of Saigon and the end of a 20-year war that saw more than 58,000 Americans killed and many times that number of Vietnamese, the wire had been cut.

The fall of Saigon ended an era

The fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 was the end of an era for the AP in Vietnam. Arnett left in May, and then Franjola was expelled, followed by Esper, and the bureau wouldn’t be reestablished until 1993.

The AP opened its first office in Saigon in 1950 as the fight for independence from France by Viet Minh forces under communist leader Ho Chi Minh intensified.

The Viet Minh’s decisive victory over the U.S.-supported French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 marked the end of French Indochina and sparked major changes in the region with the partitioning of Vietnam into Communist North Vietnam and U.S.-aligned South Vietnam. The official U.S. military engagement began in 1955 and slowly escalated.

Malcolm Browne took over as AP bureau chief in Saigon in November 1961 and was joined in June 1962 by Arnett and photo chief Horst Faas.

The trio soon won consecutive Pulitzer Prizes: Browne in 1964, Faas in 1965 and Arnett in 1966 — the first of five the AP would receive for its coverage from Vietnam.

Four AP photographers were killed covering the war, and at least 16 other AP journalists were injured, some multiple times, as they reported from the front lines, seeking to record the news as completely and accurately as possible.

From the start, a lot of the reporting contradicted the official version from Washington, revealing a deeper American commitment than admitted, a lack of measurable success against the Viet Cong guerillas, and a broad dislike of the ineffective and corrupt American-backed South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, Arnett said.

That prompted managers in New York to wonder why the Saigon staffers’ stories were sometimes “180 degrees” different from those AP reporters wrote from press conferences at the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon and the White House, he recalled.

“We had a strategic advantage because we were 12,000 miles away from our administration critics, with our boots on the ground,” said Arnett, 90, who lives in California today. “Within a year, our reporting was vindicated.”

At the height of the war there were roughly 30 staffers assigned to the bureau, divided between news, photos and administration, and the AP made regular use of freelancers as well, usually photographers. It was a diverse group that included people from 11 different countries, including many local Vietnamese.

During upticks in the fighting, staffers would rotate in from from other bureaus to help.

When the U.S. government took umbrage with AP’s coverage in 1966 and claimed its staffers were young and inexperienced, AP’s General Manager Wes Gallagher penned a salty reply, noting their combined decades as reporters.

“Three covered World War II and Korea. Two, Pulitzer Prize winners Peter Arnett and Horst Faas, have been in Vietnam four years each, which is longer than Ambassador (Henry Cabot) Lodge, General (William) Westmoreland and nine-tenths of the Americans over there,” Gallagher wrote.

In an attempt to manage the news reports out of Vietnam, the U.S. established a daily news conference in Saigon to feed information to the growing American press corps. They came to be colloquially known as the “Five O’clock Follies” because, as Esper reflected, “they were such a joke.”

Esper said in a 2005 interview that sometimes he’d show up to evening briefings the same day he had covered a battle firsthand and was left puzzled by the official version.

“I’m thinking to myself, ‘Is this the same battle I just witnessed?’” said Esper, who died in 2012. “So there was some confrontation at the ‘follies’ because we would question the briefer’s reports, and they also withheld tremendous amounts of information.”

Esper said it helped that Gallagher took a personal hand in Vietnam coverage, frequently calling and visiting in support of his journalists.

“He took a lot of heat from the Pentagon, from the White House, but he never faltered,” Esper said. “He always said to us: ‘I support you 100%. You know the press is under scrutiny, just make sure you’re accurate, just make sure your stories are fair and balanced,’ and we did.”

Reporting from the streets and rooftops

In 1969, the American commitment in Vietnam had grown to more than a half million troops, before being drawn down to a handful after the 1973 Paris Peace Accords in which U.S. President Richard Nixon agreed to a withdrawal, leaving the South Vietnamese to fend for themselves.

By 1975, the AP’s bureau had shrunk as well, and as the North Vietnamese Army and its allied Viet Cong guerrilla force in the south pushed toward Saigon, most staff members were evacuated.

Arnett, Esper and Franjola volunteered to stay behind, anxious to see through to the end what they had committed so many years of their lives to covering — and conspiring to ignore New York if any of their managers got the jitters and ordered them to leave at the last minute.

“I saw it from the beginning, I wanted to see the end,” Esper said. “I was a bit apprehensive and frightened, but I knew that if I left, the rest of my life I would have been second guessing myself.”

On April 30, 1975, the monsoon rains had arrived and Arnett watched in the early morning hours from the slippery roof of the AP’s building as helicopters evacuated Americans and selected Vietnamese from the embassy four blocks away.

After catching a few hours of sleep, he awoke at 6:30 a.m. to the loud voices of looters on the streets. An hour later, from the rooftop of his hotel, he watched through binoculars as a small group of U.S. Marines that had accidentally been left behind clambered aboard a Sea Knight helicopter from the roof of the embassy — the last American evacuees.

He called it in to Esper in the office, and the story was in newsrooms around the world before the helicopter had cleared the coast.

Franjola and Arnett then took to the streets to see what was going on, while Esper manned the desk. When they got to the U.S. Embassy, a mob of people were grinning and laughing as they looted the building — a sharp contrast to the desperation of people the day before hoping to be evacuated.

“On a pile of wet documents and broken furniture on the back lawn, we find the heavy bronze plaque engraved with the names of the five American soldiers who died in the attack on the Embassy in the opening hours of the Tet Offensive in 1968,” Arnett recalled in an email detailing the day’s events. “Together we carry it back to the AP office.”

At 10:24 a.m. Arnett was writing the story of the embassy looting when Esper heard on Saigon Radio that South Vietnam had surrendered and immediately filed an alert.

“Esper rushes to the teleprinter and messages New York, and soon receives the satisfying news that AP is five minutes ahead of UPI with the surrender story,” Arnett said, citing AP’s biggest rival at the time, United Press International. “In war or peace, the wire services place a premium on competition.”

Esper then dashed outside to try and gather some reaction from South Vietnamese soldiers to the news of the capitulation, and came across a police colonel standing by a statue in a main square.

“He was waving his arms, ‘fini, fini,’ you know, ‘it’s all over, we lost,” Esper remembered. “And he was also fingering his holstered pistol and I figured, this guy is really crazy, he will kill me, and after 10 years here with barely a scratch, I’m going to die on this final day.”

Suddenly, the colonel did an about-face, saluted the memorial statue, drew his pistol and shot himself in the head.

Shaken, Esper ran back to the bureau, up the four flights of stairs to the office and punched out a quick story on the incident, his hands trembling as he typed.

Stories flow as Saigon falls

Back on the streets, Franjola, who died in 2015, was nearly sideswiped by a Jeep packed with men brandishing Russian rifles and wearing the black Viet Cong garb. Arnett then saw a convoy of Russian trucks loaded with North Vietnamese soldiers driving down the main street and scrambled back into the office.

“’George,’ I shout, ‘Saigon has fallen. Call New York,’” Arnett said. “I check my watch. It’s 11:43 a.m.”

Over the next few hours, more soldiers, supported by tanks, pushed into the city, engaging in sporadic fighting while the AP reporters kept filing their copy.

It was about 2:30 p.m. when they heard the rubber sandals outside the office, and the two NVA soldiers burst in, one with an AK-47 assault rifle swinging from his shoulder, the other with a Russian pistol holstered on his belt. To their shock, the soldiers were accompanied by Ky Nhan, a freelance photographer who worked for the AP, who proudly announced himself as a longtime member of the Viet Cong.

“I have guaranteed the safety of the AP office,” Arnett recalled the normally reserved photographer saying. “You have no reason to be concerned.”

As Arnett, Esper and Franjola pored over the map with the two NVA soldiers, they chatted through an interpreter about the attack on Saigon, which had been renamed Ho Chi Minh City as soon as it fell.

The interview with the two soldiers turned to the personal, and the young men showed the reporters photos of their families and girlfriends, telling them how much they missed them and wanted to get home.

“I was thinking in my own mind these are North Vietnamese, there are South Vietnamese, Americans — we’re all the same,” Esper said.

“People have girlfriends, they miss them, they have the same fears, the same loneliness, and in my head I’m tallying up the casualties, you know nearly 60,000 Americans dead, a million North Vietnamese fighters dead, 224,000 South Vietnamese military killed, and 2 million civilians killed. And that’s the way the war ended for me.”

___

Komor, the retired director of AP Corporate Archives, reported from New York.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York state would ban cellphones in public schools “bell to bell” beginning with the next school year under an agreement announced late Monday by Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“We’ve protected our kids before from cigarettes, alcohol, and drunk driving, and now we’re protecting them from addictive technology designed to hijack their attention,” Hochul said in announcing the plan as part of a tentative budget agreement with state lawmakers.

Hochul, a Democrat, did not immediately detail plans for the ban. Her office has previously said that schools would have some flexibility over how to implement it, with districts deciding how to store students’ devices during the school day. There would be exemptions for students who need access for medical reasons, to help with learning disabilities or because they don’t speak fluent English, she has said.

If approved, New York would join at least eight states — California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia — that have enacted measures banning or restricting students’ use of cellphones in schools. Nationally, most schools say they prohibit cellphone use except for academic purposes, but educators say the rules are difficult to enforce when students are allowed to have the devices in hallways and at lunch.

“Bell-to-bell” bans like the one Hochul described are meant to remove the distraction altogether by restricting access during school hours, often over the objection of parents who say they want to be able to reach their kids during emergency situations.

New York City, which has the largest school district in the country, last year abandoned discussions for a cellphone ban because of parent concerns.

Lawmakers are expected to begin voting on the $254 billion state budget this week.