Congress has overwhelmingly approved bipartisan legislation to enact stricter penalties for the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery, sometimes called “revenge porn.” Known as the Take It Down Act, the bill is now headed to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.

The measure was introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, and later gained the support of First Lady Melania Trump. Critics of the bill, which addresses both real and artificial intelligence-generated imagery, say the language is too broad and could lead to censorship and First Amendment issues.

What is the Take It Down Act?

The bill makes it illegal to “knowingly publish” or threaten to publish intimate images without a person’s consent, including AI-created “deepfakes.” It also requires websites and social media companies to remove such material within 48 hours of notice from a victim. The platforms must also take steps to delete duplicate content. Many states have already banned the dissemination of sexually explicit deepfakes or revenge porn, but the Take It Down Act is a rare example of federal regulators imposing on internet companies.

Who supports it?

The Take It Down Act has garnered strong bipartisan support and has been championed by Melania Trump, who lobbied on Capitol Hill in March saying it was “heartbreaking” to see what teenagers, especially girls, go through after they are victimized by people who spread such content. President Trump is expected to sign it into law.

Cruz said the measure was inspired by Elliston Berry and her mother, who visited his office after Snapchat refused for nearly a year to remove an AI-generated “deepfake” of the then 14-year-old.

Meta, which owns and operates Facebook and Instagram, supports the legislation.

“Having an intimate image – real or AI-generated – shared without consent can be devastating and Meta developed and backs many efforts to help prevent it,” Meta spokesman Andy Stone said last month.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a tech industry-supported think tank, said in a statement Monday that the bill’s passage “is an important step forward that will help people pursue justice when they are victims of non-consensual intimate imagery, including deepfake images generated using AI.”

“We must provide victims of online abuse with the legal protections they need when intimate images are shared without their consent, especially now that deepfakes are creating horrifying new opportunities for abuse,” Klobuchar said in a statement after the bill’s passage late Monday. “These images can ruin lives and reputations, but now that our bipartisan legislation is becoming law, victims will be able to have this material removed from social media platforms and law enforcement can hold perpetrators accountable.”

What are the censorship concerns?

Free speech advocates and digital rights groups say the bill is too broad and could lead to the censorship of legitimate images including legal pornography and LGBTQ content, as well as government critics.

“While the bill is meant to address a serious problem, good intentions alone are not enough to make good policy,” said the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group. “Lawmakers should be strengthening and enforcing existing legal protections for victims, rather than inventing new takedown regimes that are ripe for abuse.”

The takedown provision in the bill “applies to a much broader category of content — potentially any images involving intimate or sexual content” than the narrower definitions of non-consensual intimate imagery found elsewhere in the text, EFF said.

“The takedown provision also lacks critical safeguards against frivolous or bad-faith takedown requests. Services will rely on automated filters, which are infamously blunt tools,” EFF said. “They frequently flag legal content, from fair-use commentary to news reporting. The law’s tight time frame requires that apps and websites remove speech within 48 hours, rarely enough time to verify whether the speech is actually illegal.”

As a result, the group said online companies, especially smaller ones that lack the resources to wade through a lot of content, “will likely choose to avoid the onerous legal risk by simply depublishing the speech rather than even attempting to verify it.”

The measure, EFF said, also pressures platforms to “actively monitor speech, including speech that is presently encrypted” to address liability threats.

The , a nonprofit that helps victims of online crimes and abuse, said it has “serious reservations” about the bill. It called its takedown provision unconstitutionally vague, unconstitutionally overbroad, and lacking adequate safeguards against misuse.”

For instance, the group said, platforms could be obligated to remove a journalist’s photographs of a topless protest on a public street, photos of a subway flasher distributed by law enforcement to locate the perpetrator, commercially produced sexually explicit content or sexually explicit material that is consensual but falsely reported as being nonconsensual.

There’s a new pour from Starbucks: Its first 3D printed store in the U.S.

The Seattle-based coffee giant with more than 17,000 locations nationwide has never had a store quite like the one opening this week in the Texas city of Brownsville, along the U.S.-Mexico border, where a computer-controlled robotic arm did much of the work by pouring one layer of concrete atop another.

The location — which is drive-thru only — is set to open Friday and makes Starbucks one of the nation’s few big retailers that have tinkered with 3D printing for commercial construction. Builders have mostly used the technology in residential construction as they look to innovate to tackle an affordable housing crisis.

Starbucks isn’t saying whether more stores like it are on the horizon or why the company chose Brownsville, which has about 190,000 residents and at least four other locations in the area. At first glance, the compact rectangular building with the Starbucks logo looks like any other, but a close look reveals ridged walls that resemble stacked tubes.

Construction experts say the store is an example of an industry figuring out ways to use the technology.

“It’s early days yet,” said James Rose, director of the Institute for Smart Structures at the University of Tennessee. “I’m happy to see people doing all of these different things with it, and I think at some point we’ll figure out what its best use is. But right now I think you’re going to see lots of experimentation, and I think that’s a good thing.”

The shop is on a busy thoroughfare where Faviola Maldonado was among those who watched the construction gradually take shape.

“It was just different,” said Maldonado, who operated a jewelry store next door before recently moving. “It was super high technology.”

Starbucks confirmed this is its first 3D printed store in the U.S. but declined an interview request.

Andrew McCoy, associate director of research and innovation at the Myers-Lawson School of Construction at Virginia Tech, called the new store “leading edge.”

In general, construction using 3D technology still costs more than traditional wood framing, McCoy said. But, he said, it helps address a labor shortage and can be a way to get something built faster. He expects it will eventually become more cost competitive.

“You are starting to see the technology is getting faster, smaller,” McCoy said. “It’s getting easier to use.”

BALTIMORE (AP) — A former high school athletics director accused of using artificial intelligence to create a racist and antisemitic deepfake of a Maryland principal has been sentenced to four months in jail as part of a plea deal for disrupting school operations.

Dazhon Darien, 32, accepted the deal Monday in Baltimore County Circuit Court, records show. He entered an Alford plea to the single misdemeanor charge, which means he acknowledged the evidence against him without directly admitting guilt. His original charges included theft, stalking and retaliating against a witness.

According to police and prosecutors, Darien used AI software to generate a fake recording of former Pikesville High School principal Eric Eiswert’s voice expressing frustration with Black students and their test-taking abilities. The recording, which was disseminated throughout the school community and shared widely on social media last January, also purported to capture the principal disparaging Jewish people, authorities said.

Not long before the recording surfaced, Eiswert had informed Darien that his contract wouldn’t be renewed the following semester because of concerns over poor job performance, according to court documents. The concerns included allegations that Darien paid his roommate $1,900 in school funds under the pretense of coaching the girls’ soccer team, police said.

Experts who analyzed the recording concluded it was AI-generated.

Despite receiving a relatively short sentence, Darien could remain incarcerated longer as he faces a separate federal case in which he’s accused of sexual exploitation of children and possession of child sexual abuse material. Authorities said they discovered evidence of those crimes while searching Darien’s phone and other devices.

While fake recordings of political figures and celebrities have surfaced in recent years as the technology becomes more widespread, officials have said the case is among the first examples of AI being used to embarrass someone for personal gain.

The subset of artificial intelligence known as generative AI can create hyperrealistic images, videos and audio clips. As it becomes cheaper and easier to use, anyone with an internet connection can access its capabilities. Even a short recording of someone’s voice allows users to generate cloned speech from a script.

Other examples of AI-generated audio include robocalls impersonating former President Joe Biden that tried to dissuade Democrats from voting in last year’s New Hampshire primary election. People have also cloned the voices of purportedly kidnapped children over the phone to get ransom money from parents, experts say.

In response, many states have enacted laws in recent years targeting the use of AI, especially targeting media intended to influence election results and digitally created or altered child sexual abuse imagery.

During this year’s legislative session, Maryland lawmakers considered a bill that would have prohibited the use of AI to falsely impersonate people. Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger advocated in favor of the law change, but it ultimately didn’t pass.

Darien’s bogus audio sent shockwaves through the suburban Pikesville community as angry phone calls inundated the school and hate-filled messages accumulated on social media. Authorities said police were sent to patrol Eiswert’s home in response to threats.

Eiswert, who is now principal of another Baltimore County school, said from the beginning that he believed the recording was fake. He has since filed a lawsuit against the school district, alleging Darien never should have been hired in the first place.

Darien joined the district in spring 2023, when he started teaching social studies at a different high school, according to the lawsuit. He was later promoted to Pikesville athletic director.

Eiswert’s complaint cites reporting from The Baltimore Banner that revealed a host of false claims on Darien’s job application, including multiple degrees he hadn’t obtained. Florida education officials also denied Darien a teaching certificate in 2016 based on “test of document fraud” and flagged his name in a national database, the Banner found. Eiswert argues Baltimore County school officials failed to properly vet his application materials and investigate his background.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The trial of a former Michigan police officer charged with second-degree murder in the killing of a 26-year-old Black man is set to begin in Grand Rapids, three years after the case sparked weeks of protest and national outrage.

Patrick Lyoya, a Congolese immigrant who sought refuge with his family in the U.S. to flee violence in his home country, was fatally shot by former officer Christopher Schurr, who is white.

Lyoya was shot in the back of the head while facedown on the ground following a traffic stop. Schurr’s attorneys argue he acted in self-defense.

Opening statements in the trial begin Monday in downtown Grand Rapids and the trial is expected to last at least a week.

Here is what to know.

What happened?

Schurr pulled over a vehicle driven by Lyoya over improper license plates on a rainy morning April 4, 2022, in a Grand Rapids residential neighborhood.

Body camera footage and dash camera footage shows Lyoya run from Schurr after the officer asks for his driver’s license. Schurr tackles Lyoya and a struggle ensues as Schurr attempts to shoot his Taser at Lyoya.

Schurr’s body camera footage appears to show Lyoya reaching for the officer’s Taser. The body camera footage goes out before the shooting.

A passenger of the vehicle recorded a video. The cellphone footage shows the officer tell Lyoya to let go of the Taser multiple times.

While Lyoya is facedown on the ground and Schurr is on top of him, the officer takes out his firearm and shoots Lyoya in the back of the head.

Who was Patrick Lyoya?

Lyoya’s family has said he came to the U.S. to get away from prolonged civil unrest involving several rebel groups vying for control of territories in the mineral-rich eastern Congo. He was raising two children in Grand Rapids, a city of around 200,000 people located about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Detroit.

After fleeing violence back home, Lyoya ultimately joined a list of names of Black immigrants who sought better lives in the U.S. only to suffer abuse or death at the hands of law enforcement.

Before him, there was Botham Jean, Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima, all men whose cases increased awareness around the global impact of systemic racism in policing.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader who eulogized Lyoya at his 2022 funeral, noted then that Lyoya was killed on April 4, the anniversary of the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Lyoya came to America in search of a better life and “ran into an America that we know too well,” Sharpton said.

Lyoya’s killing prompted weeks of protest in the west Michigan city and calls to reform the police department.

Who is Christopher Schurr?

Schurr, now 34, was fired by the police department shortly after he was charged with one count of second-degree murder in June 2022.

He had worked for the department for seven years.

Schurr has said he acted in self-defense while prosecutors say the use of lethal force was unnecessary and excessive. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

How significant is the Taser?

The role of the Taser is likely to play a significant role in Schurr’s defense. Prosecutors have argued the Taser already had been deployed and therefore did not pose a threat to Schurr.

Tasers are generally considered non-lethal by police but the narrative often flips when handled by someone who is not law enforcement, said Ian Adams, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina.

Whether Schurr gave proper warning of his use of lethal force also will likely be of note to the jury, Adams said.

“In the video, you can hear the officer say, ‘Drop the taser,’ which is a command,” Adams said. “But whether or not it’s a warning that an officer is about to use lethal force is going to be contested.”

“This is a highly salient case in U.S. policing right now,” Adams said.

Charles Joe Key, who has testified as a consulting witness in police use of force in a different Michigan case, said the Taser can still cause pain and could have incapacitated Schurr even after it had been discharged. Key expected the physical struggle the two engaged in will likely be another factor of Schurr’s defense.

“Given the officer’s continued attempts to have the person quit, let go of the Taser, etcetera, then it would be a reasonable analysis by the officer that the person would continue to fight,” Key said.

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Associated Press writer Fernanda Figueroa in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Authorities released more videos Friday related to their investigation of the deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, including images of agents returning to the couple’s Santa Fe home days after they were found to look for more evidence.

The bodies of Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, 65, were discovered Feb. 26 after maintenance and security workers called police.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office has been releasing redacted records on a rolling basis since a recent court order allowing them to be made public as long as any images of the dead couple are obscured. More are expected.

The latest release includes over three hours of police body camera video and builds what has already been made public, including a lengthy investigative report, photos and hours of body camera and security video showing the initial police response.

The new videos show authorities interviewing workers and returning to the home to search for more evidence early on in the investigation before they knew how Hackman and Arakawa died.

One hourlong video shows detectives searching the home in early March for Arakawa’s laptop and any other clues. Representatives of Arakawa’s family let them inside the house and led them to the bathroom where her body was found.

In another video a man who does pest control on the property tells officers that he has not seen Hackman in at least a month, but that it is normal to not see or talk to the couple during his monthly visits.

The last time he saw Hackman, he says, they waved to each other but did not speak.

“He was looking frail,” the worker says. “He was bent over with a cane. His hair was sort of wild.”

Authorities say Arakawa died of the rare hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rodent-borne disease that can cause a range of symptoms including flu-like illness, headaches, dizziness and severe respiratory distress. Hackman is believed to have died about a week later of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

One of the couple’s three dogs also was found dead in a crate near Arakawa’s body, while two other dogs were found alive. A state veterinary lab attributed the dog’s death to dehydration and starvation.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon’s environmental agency won’t say if a group of hackers stole data in a cyberattack that was first announced earlier this month.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality on Friday declined to confirm or deny reports that ransomware group Rhysida was behind the cyberattack and stole department data, including sensitive employee information, .

The department said in a news release Friday that the claims referenced in recent media coverage were part of its investigation.

Department spokesperson Lauren Wirtis declined to comment on whether Rhysida had contacted the department or asked for a ransom, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

The department said it had not “engaged” in ransom discussions “with any entity claiming to have information stolen from DEQ for sale.” It added that it would provide more details when it has verified information.

The department, which regulates air, water and land quality, first announced the cyberattack roughly two weeks ago. Services, including vehicle smog inspections and agency emails, were interrupted.

Most servers are back online and hundreds of staff are now working on laptops, Wirtis said in an email Friday. The department had said last week that most employees didn’t have laptops and were working from their phones.

Potentially impacted servers and all employee computers have to be rebuilt in order to ensure no infected files remain, the department said.

Multiple cyberattacks have been attributed to Rhysida in recent years, including ones last year targeting the operator of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Ohio’s capital city of Columbus.

NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors at Sean “Diddy” Combs ‘ upcoming federal sex trafficking trial can show jurors video of the hip-hop mogul hitting and kicking one of his accusers in a Los Angeles hotel hallway, a judge ruled at a hearing Friday.

U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian said Combs’ lawyers failed to convince him that the explosive security camera footage should be excluded. Its relevance to the case outweighs any potential prejudice to the 55-year-old defendant, the judge said.

Subramanian ruled on the video as he set ground rules for the May 5 trial in New York City.

Combs sat between his lawyers in a yellow jail suit, his formerly jet black hair now almost fully gray because dye isn’t allowed at the Brooklyn federal lockup where he’s been held since his arrest last September.

Prosecutors disclosed that Combs was offered a plea deal, which he rejected.

The video shows Combs — wearing only a white towel — punching, shoving and dragging his former protege and girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie, and throwing a vase in her direction on March 5, 2016, at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles’ Century City district.

The video wasn’t public until CNN obtained and aired it in May 2024. The network turned the footage over to prosecutors in response to a subpoena.

Prosecutors say it’s “critical to the case.”

Combs’ indictment alleges he tried to bribe a hotel security staffer to stay mum about the video. Cassie, in a since-settled November 2023 lawsuit alleging years of abuse, claimed he paid $50,000 for the footage.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, did.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges alleging he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.

Federal prosecutors allege the Bad Boy Records founder used his “power and prestige” as a music star to induce female victims into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances with male sex workers in events dubbed “freak offs.”

Earlier this month, prosecutors obtained a new indictment that added two charges to Combs’ case and accused him of using force, fraud or coercion to compel a woman to engage in commercial sex acts from at least 2021 to 2024.

Prosecutors say they expect four accusers to testify against Combs.

They contend the assault on Cassie depicted in the 2016 video happened during a “freak off.” Combs’ lawyers have argued that the footage was nothing more than a “glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship.”

Combs apologized after CNN aired the footage, saying in a that he was “truly sorry” and that his actions were “inexcusable.”

“I take full responsibility for my actions,” Combs said, adding that he “was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.”

In seeking to exclude the video from the trial, Combs’ lawyer Marc Agnifilo argued that the footage was “deceptive and not in accordance with the actions that took place.”

Agnifilo said certain portions of the video were sped up by as much as 50% or taken out of order, making it a “misleading piece of evidence.”

Prosecutors told Subramanian that they were working with Combs’ lawyers to come up with a suitable version that can be shown by jurors. They said that includes having a video expert review the footage and slow down the clips to reflect the speed at which the event shown actually transpired.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. preorders for the Nintendo Switch 2 kicked off shortly after the clock struck midnight Thursday. But chaos soon ensued amid high demand.

Scores of consumers hoping to be among the first to own Nintendo’s latest gaming console — which is set to officially launch June 5 — jumped online to try and snag a preorder. And while some lucky buyers found success, many others ran into frustrating delays or saw the product’s early listings appear to quickly sell out at participating retailers like Target, Walmart and Best Buy in the wee hours of the night.

Among the headaches, social media users shared painfully-long wait times, screenshots of error messages and carts that suddenly appeared empty — or, in some cases, received confirmation emails that were soon followed by notices about the orders being canceled.

Nintendo acknowledged the “very high demand” in about those interested in purchasing the Switch 2 from its own My Nintendo Store. The company said it would be “working diligently to fulfill orders as product becomes available,” but noted that delivery by June 5 was not guaranteed — urging those who want to increase their chances of getting the Switch 2 at the launch date to visit a participating retailer.

Nintendo did not immediately respond to a request for further information about Thursday’s preorder demand.

GameStop also begun accepting preorders for the Switch 2 Thursday — hours following the late night launches at other retailers. Online preorders from GameStop went live at , but its listing appeared to be unavailable within minutes.

“We’re seeing overwhelming demand for Switch 2, which is causing some site issues,” GameStop Help on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, shortly after 11:30 a.m. ET. But the company added that its previously-announced in-store preorders “are open and running smoothly.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what that capacity GameStop and other retailers had for Switch 2 preorders. The Associated Press reached out to GameStop — as well as Target, Walmart and Best Buy — for comments Thursday.

The sizeable (and speedy) demand for Nintendo’s Switch 2 isn’t surprising. The new gaming console has been marketed as bigger and better than its predecessor of eight years past — with highly-anticipated features including an interactive chat, larger screen and new games.

Still, the Switch 2’s rollout arrives at an uncertain time for much of the industry due to new tariffs implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump and responding retaliation from targeted countries, notably China. Economists have warned that the steeper levies will result in higher prices on a range of consumer goods relying on a global supply chain today, including electronics.

The Switch 2’s baseline launch price is $449.99 — significantly higher than the original Switch’s $299 price tag. While new bells and whistles may account for a sizeable portion of that hike, experts have previously noted that the new import taxes are also a contributor.

And U.S. preorders for the Switch 2 were already delayed earlier this month — ahead of Trump’s steepest levies, most of which have now been postponed, going into effect.

Preorders were originally slated to go live on April 9, an update from Nintendo notes, but were pushed back to “assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions.” Nintendo later that some Switch 2 accessories would see price adjustments — but maintained that its previously-announced baseline price for the console would remain the same.

Super Mario creator Nintendo Co. is banking on the Switch 2 to revive demand for its gaming consoles, with its older predecessor recently losing momentum. In February, the Kyoto, Japan-based company said it expected to sell 11 million Switch consoles for its full fiscal year ending in March, lower than its initial projection of 12.5 million.

Nintendo reported profit of 237 billion yen ($1.5 billion) for the first nine months of its latest fiscal year, down 42% from the same period the year prior.

Ashley Dayer’s dream of winning a National Science Foundation grant to pursue discoveries in bird conservation started when she was an early-career professor with an infant in her arms and a shoestring laboratory budget.

Competition is intense for NSF grants, a key source of funding for science research at U.S. universities. It took three failed applications and years of preliminary research before the agency awarded her one.

Then came a Monday email informing Dayer that President Donald Trump’s administration was cutting off funding, apparently because the project investigating the role of bird feeders touched on themes of diversity, equity and inclusion.

“I was shocked and saddened,” said Dayer, a professor at Virginia Tech’s department of fish and wildlife conservation. “We were just at the peak of being able to get our findings together and do all of our analysis. There’s a lot of feelings of grief.”

Hundreds of other university researchers had their National Science Foundation funding abruptly canceled Friday to comply with Trump’s directives to end support of research on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as the study of misinformation. It’s the latest front in Trump’s anti-DEI campaign that has also gone after university administrations, medical research and the private sector.

More than 380 grant projects have been cut so far, including work to combat internet censorship in China and Iran and a project consulting with Indigenous communities to understand environmental changes in Alaska’s Arctic region. One computer scientist was studying how artificial intelligence tools could mitigate bias in medical information, and others were trying to help people detect AI-generated deepfakes. A number of terminated grants sought to broaden the diversity of people studying science, technology and engineering.

NSF, founded in 1950, has a $9 billion budget that can be a lifeline for resource-strapped professors and the younger researchers they recruit to their teams. It has shifted priorities over time but it is highly unusual to terminate so many midstream grants.

Some scientists saw the cuts coming, after Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz last year flagged thousands of NSF-funded projects he says reflected a “woke DEI” or Marxist agenda, including some but not all of the projects cut Friday.

Still, Dayer said she was “incredibly surprised” that her bird project was axed. A collaboration with other institutions, including the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, it tapped into Project Feedwatch, a website and app for sharing bird observations.

Dayer’s team had collected data from more 20,000 Americans on their birdwatching habits, fielding insights on how outdoor feeders were affecting wildlife, but also people’s mental well-being.

The only mention of the word “diversity” in the grant award is about bird populations, not people. But the project explicitly sought to engage more disabled people and people of color. That fit with NSF’s longtime requirement that funded projects must have a broad impact.

“We thought, if anything, maybe we’d be told not to do that broader impacts work and to remove that from our project,” Dayer said. “We had no expectation that the entire grant would be unfunded.”

NSF and DOGE say they were “wasteful DEI grants”

On the day the grants were terminated, Sethuraman Panchanathan, the NSF’s director since 2020, said on the agency’s website that it still supported “research on broadening participation” but those efforts “should not preference some groups at the expense of others, or directly/indirectly exclude individuals or groups.”

The NSF declined to share the total number of canceled grants, but Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, run by billionaire Elon Musk, posted on X that NSF had canceled “402 wasteful DEI grants” amounting to $233 million. It didn’t say how much of that had already been spent. Grants typically last for several years.

Caren Cooper, a North Carolina State University professor of forestry and natural resources, said she expected her work would be targeted after it made Cruz’s list. Her grant project also sought to include people of color and people with disabilities in participatory science projects, in collaboration with the Audubon Society and with the aim of engaging those who have historically been excluded from natural spaces and birdwatching groups.

One doctoral student had left her job and moved her family to North Carolina to work with Cooper on a stipend the grant helped to fund.

“We’ve been trying to make contingency plans,” Cooper said. “Nonetheless, it’s an illegal thing. It’s violating the terms and conditions of the award. And it really harms our students.”

Cutting misinformation work

Along with eliminating DEI research, NSF said it will no longer “support research with the goal of combating ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation’ that could be used to infringe on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advances a preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.”

Several researchers said they weren’t sure why their funding was terminated, other than that their abstracts included terms like “censorship” or “misinformation.”

“The lack of transparency around this process is deeply concerning,” said Eric Wustrow, an engineering professor at the University of Colorado Boulder whose grant aims to study and combat internet censorship in countries like China and Iran. “Did they just Ctrl+f for certain words, ignoring context?”

NSF said on its website that “there is not a list of words” to avoid, but that misinformation research is no longer aligned with NSF’s priorities.

Wustrow said his research supports free speech and access to information around the world, and he plans to appeal the decision to terminate the funding. Meanwhile, he’s looking at potentially working for free this summer without a grant to fund his salary.

Even for those who did intend to address misinformation, the cuts seemed to miss the point.

Casey Fiesler, of the University of Colorado Boulder, had a project focused on dispelling AI misconceptions and improving AI literacy — also a priority of Trump’s education department. Cornell University’s Drew Margolin said his work set out to help people find ways to combat social media harassment, hate speech and misinformation without the help of content moderators or government regulators.

“The irony is it’s like a free speech way of addressing speech,” Margolin said.

Are more cuts coming?

The NSF declined to say if more cuts are coming. The terminated funding mirrors earlier cuts to medical research funding from the National Institutes of Health.

A group of scientists and health groups sued the NIH earlier this month, arguing that those cuts were illegal and threatened medical cures.

The cuts at NSF so far are a tiny portion of all of the agency’s grants, amounting to 387 projects, said Scott Delaney, a research scientist at Harvard University’s school of public health who is helping to track the cuts to help researchers advocate for themselves. Some received termination letters even though their projects had already ended.

“It is very chaotic, which is very consistent with what is happening at NIH,” Delaney said. “And it’s really unclear if this is everything that’s going to get terminated or if it’s just the opening salvo.”

Dayer is still figuring out what to do about the loss of funding for the bird feeder project, which cuts off part of summer funding for four professors at three universities and their respective student teams. She’s particularly worried about what it means for the next generation of American scientists, including those still deciding their career path.

“It’s just this outright attack on science right now,” Dayer said. “It’s going to have lasting impacts for American people and for science and knowledge in our country. I’m also just afraid that people aren’t going to go into the field of science.”

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Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has ordered sharper scrutiny of America’s colleges and the accreditors that oversee them, part of his escalating campaign to end what he calls ” wokeness ” and diversity efforts in education.

In a series of executive actions signed Wednesday, Trump targeted universities that he views as liberal adversaries to his political agenda. One order called for harder enforcement of a federal law requiring colleges to disclose their financial ties with foreign sources, while another called for a shakeup of the accrediting bodies that decide whether colleges can accept federal financial aid awarded to students.

Colleges’ financial ties with foreign sources have long been a concern among Republicans, especially ties with China and other countries with adversarial relationships with the U.S. It became a priority during Trump’s first term and reemerged last week as the White House grasped for leverage in its escalating battle with Harvard University.

The White House said it needed to take action because Harvard and other colleges have routinely violated a federal disclosure law, which has been unevenly enforced since it was passed in the 1980s. Known as Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, the law requires colleges to disclose foreign gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more.

In the executive order, Trump calls on the Education Department and the attorney general to step up enforcement of the law and take action against colleges that violate it, including a cutoff of federal money.

The Trump administration intends to “end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions” and protect against “foreign exploitation,” the order said.

It was applauded by Republicans, including Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan, chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. He accused China of exploiting academic ties to steal research and “indoctrinate students.”

Another order aims at accrediting bodies that set standards colleges must meet to accept federal financial aid from students. Trump campaigned on a promise to overhaul the industry, saying it was “dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics.”

Often overlooked as an obscure branch of college oversight, accreditors play an important role in shaping colleges in many aspects, with standards that apply all the way from colleges’ governing boards to classroom curriculum.

Trump’s executive order is the opening salvo in what could be a lengthy battle to overhaul the accrediting industry. Chief among his priorities is to strip accreditors of diversity, equity and inclusion requirements imposed on colleges. Some accreditors have already dropped or stopped enforcing such standards amid Trump’s DEI crackdown.

Trump’s order calls on the government to suspend or terminate accreditors that discriminate in the name of DEI. Instead, it calls on accreditors to focus more squarely on the student outcomes of colleges and programs they oversee.

The president wants to make it easier for new accreditors to compete with the 19 that are now authorized to work on behalf of the federal government. As it stands, new accreditors looking to be recognized by the government must undergo an arduous process that traditionally takes years. Trump’s order said it should be “transparent, efficient, and not unduly burdensome.”

“Instead of pushing schools to adopt a divisive DEI ideology, accreditors should be focused on helping schools improve graduation rates and graduates’ performance in the labor market,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s for working with philanthropies, a of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The State Bar of California has disclosed that some multiple-choice questions in a problem-plagued bar exam were developed with the aid of artificial intelligence.

The legal licensing body said in a Monday that it will ask the to adjust test scores for those who took its February bar exam.

“The debacle that was the February 2025 bar exam is worse than we imagined,” Mary Basick, assistant dean of academic skills at the University of California, Irvine, Law School, the Los Angeles Times. “I’m almost speechless. Having the questions drafted by non-lawyers using artificial intelligence is just unbelievable.”

In February, the new exam led to complaints after many test-takers were unable to complete their bar exams. The online testing platforms repeatedly crashed before some applicants even started. Others struggled to finish and save essays, experienced screen lags and error messages and could not copy and paste text, the Times earlier.

According to a recent by the State Bar, 100 of the 171 scored multiple-choice questions were made by Kaplan and 48 were drawn from a first-year law students exam. A smaller subset of 23 scored questions were made by ACS Ventures, the State Bar’s psychometrician, and developed with artificial intelligence.

“We have confidence in the validity of the (multiple-choice questions) to accurately and fairly assess the legal competence of test-takers,” Leah Wilson, the State Bar’s executive director, told the newspaper in a statement.

Katie Moran, an associate professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law who specializes in bar exam preparation, told the newspaper, “It’s a staggering admission.”

“The State Bar has admitted they employed a company to have a non-lawyer use AI to draft questions that were given on the actual bar exam,” she said. “They then paid that same company to assess and ultimately approve of the questions on the exam, including the questions the company authored.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The H-1B visa has long been a highly coveted employment visa for foreign citizens with specialized skills to live and work in the U.S., and recent requests from the Trump administration have put greater attention on the program.

The requests for more information from people applying for or renewing H-1B visas come amid heightened tensions over immigration as President Donald Trump seeks to make good on his vow of mass deportations of people in the country illegally.

Much of Trump’s agenda has been focused on arresting people in the country illegally or reversing Biden-era temporary deportation protections. There has been less attention on employment-based visas or other parts of the legal immigration system — though more than 1,000 international students have had their visas or legal status revoked.

The requests for information come as the H-1B visa program is already a source of division within Trump’s Republican Party.

Here’s a look at what the H-1B visa program is, what critics and supporters say about it, and how the administration’s recent questions have raised concerns.

What is an H-1B visa?

The H-1B was created as part of the 1990 Immigration Act.

It is a type of nonimmigrant visa, meaning it allows for a temporary stay in the U.S. and is not intended for people who want to immigrate permanently. Some eventually do, but only after transitioning to different immigration statuses.

An H-1B allows employers to hire foreign workers who have specialized skills and a bachelor’s degree or equivalent.

Who uses H-1B visas?

The visa is most commonly associated with the tech industry. About 60% or more of the H-1B visas approved every year since 2012 have been for computer-related jobs,

But health care facilities, financial institutions, universities and just about any other employer looking to address workforce shortages can and do apply for H-1B visas.

The number of new visas issued annually has been capped at 65,000, plus an additional 20,000 for people with a master’s degree or higher. Some employers, such as universities and nonprofits, are exempt from the limits.

People from India are by far the biggest users of these visas, according to Pew. The organization said that since 2010, the majority of approvals every year have gone to people born in India.

What makes the H-1B program controversial?

The idea behind the H-1B visa is that it allows employers to hire from abroad for jobs that they haven’t been able to fill in the U.S.

Proponents say the visa is a critical tool for hard-to-fill positions. But critics on both sides of the aisle have said that it undercuts U.S. citizens who could take those jobs. Some on the right have called for the program to be eliminated. And earlier this year, Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, wrote a scathing saying the program’s real purpose was to “replace American workers with lower-paid workers from abroad who often live as indentured servants.”

The debate over the future of H-1B visas is especially pronounced within the GOP.

On one side are wealthy members of the tech world who support the visas to help bring in more highly skilled workers. On the other side are people of Trump’s Make America Great Again base who championed his immigration policies and say these visas allow employers to pay foreigners lower wages than if they hired Americans.

The issue played out in a very public spat late last year after Trump tapped Sriram Krishnan, who favors bringing in more skilled immigrants into the U.S., as an adviser on artificial intelligence policy.

What’s going on with reports of unusual letters over H-1B visas?

In recent days, some immigration lawyers have reported receiving unusual requests about clients applying for or renewing H-1B visas or other types of employment-related visas.

Kevin Miner, a partner at global immigration law firm Fragomen, said dozens of members from the American Immigration Lawyers Association, or AILA, received the requests in letters over roughly the last two weeks.

He cited two versions: One says the immigration service has identified “adverse information” related to the visa applicant, and they must schedule an appointment to collect biometrics for the case to proceed.

The second, he said, just says that biometrics are needed without any mention of “adverse information.” Miner said these requests have generally been asked of people applying for or renewing an H-1B visa or an I-140, which is an employee-sponsored green card.

Miner pointed to two things that make these requests unusual: Generally, biometrics aren’t required for these types of visas and, usually, when the government wants more information, its requests are specific.

“It’s usually a back-and-forth process,” said Miner, who chairs a policy and benefits committee for the nonpartisan AILA. “This is different.”

Miner also said that if the government is going to add additional steps to the process, officials would usually go through the notice-and-comment period, which alerts lawyers and applicants of approaching changes.

“That’s not something that they’ve done here,” Miner said.

A spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, said in an emailed statement that they are increasing screening and vetting of all foreign citizens filing for immigration benefits as part of the Trump administration’s “commitment to restoring integrity to our immigration system” and said those efforts had “lapsed” under the previous administration.

“Collecting beneficiary information and biometric data is a necessary part of USCIS’s efforts to promote national security and public safety and to mitigate fraud by conducting screening and vetting in all immigration programs and the agency is proud to be returning to this important work,” agency spokesman Matthew Tragesser said.

What is happening with immigration policy?

The Trump administration has promised mass deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally, tried to strip hundreds of thousands of people of their deportation protections and is revoking visas of international students.

More than 1,000 international students have had their visas or legal status revoked since early April, according to an Associated Press review of university statements, correspondence with school officials and court records.

The revocations often come with little notice to either students or their schools, and are being initiated by the government, a departure from past precedent — university officials have largely made administrative updates to the database when a student graduated or fell out of good academic standing.

Miner said people are concerned that similar actions might follow for those on employment-related visas.

“There’s just so much unknown,” he said.

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Associated Press reporter Annie Ma contributed to this report.

Instagram is beginning to test the use of artificial intelligence to determine if kids are lying about their ages on the app, parent company Meta Platforms said on Monday.

Meta has been using AI to determine people’s ages for some time, the company said, but photo and video-sharing app will now “proactively” look for teen accounts it suspects belong to teenagers even if they entered an inaccurate birthdate when they signed up.

If it is determined that a user is misrepresenting their age, the account will automatically become a teen account, which has more restrictions than an adult account. Teen accounts are private by default. Private messages are restricted so teens can only receive them from people they follow or are already connected to. “Sensitive content,” such as videos of people fighting or those promoting cosmetic procedures, will be limited, Meta said. Teens will also get notifications if they are on Instagram for more than 60 minutes and a “sleep mode” will be enabled that turns off notifications and sends auto-replies to direct messages from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m.

Meta says it to look for signals, such as the type of content the account interacts, profile information and when the account was created, to determine the owner’s age.

The heightened measures arrive as social media companies face increased scrutiny over how their platform affects the mental health and well-being of younger users. A growing number of states are also trying to pass age verification laws, although they have faced court challenges.

Meta and other social media companies support putting the onus on app stores to verify ages amid criticism that they don’t do enough to make their products safe for children — or verify that no kids under 13 use them.

Instagram will also send notifications to parents “with information about how they can have conversations with their teens on the importance of providing the correct age online,” the company said.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — As Big Tech kicks off its quarterly earnings season this week, the industry’s bellwether companies have been thrust into a cauldron of uncertainty and turmoil that they didn’t anticipate when Donald Trump re-entered the White House nearly 100 days ago.

Since President Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, Big Tech stocks have been on a see-sawing ride that has eviscerated trillions of dollars in shareholder wealth amid an onslaught of tariffs and other potentially detrimental actions.

It’s the polar opposite of what Apple CEO Tim Cook, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos hoped for when they assembled behind Trump as he was sworn in.

That display of unity reflected a belief that Trump’s second stint in the White House would be a refreshing change from the heavy-handed regulation of President Joe Biden’s administration while unleashing even more lucrative opportunities in artificial intelligence and deal-making.

But the Trump administration’s policies so far have vexed Big Tech’s “Magnificent Seven” companies — a group consisting of Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook parent Meta Platforms. Since Trump’s inauguration, the Magnificent Seven’s combined market value has plunged by $3.8 trillion, or 22%, as of April 20.

The financial damage was even more severe a few days after Trump’s April 2 unveiling of sweeping reciprocal tariffs that would have exacted a heavy toll on Big Tech’s supply chains in China and other key markets around the globe. A temporary freeze on the majority of the most punitive tariffs and an exemption from most of the fees on electronics coming in from China has provided some relief, but Trump has made it clear the reprieve may be short-lived.

That has left the specter of Trump’s ongoing trade war hanging over Big Tech, whose influence extends around the world.

“The mass confusion created by this constant news flow out of the White House is dizzying for the industry and investors and creating massive uncertainty and chaos for companies trying to plan their supply chain, inventory, and demand,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives

Besides the upheaval triggered by Trump’s tariffs, his administration is also in the midst of trying to prove regulators’ allegations that Meta has been running an illegal monopoly in social networking, and working to persuade a federal judge to break up Google after its search engine last year was found to be illegally abusing its power. Trump also has given no indication of abandoning antitrust lawsuits filed by the Biden administration that aim to hobble Apple and Amazon.

And Nvidia absorbed a significant setback last week when the Trump administration banned it from selling one of its popular AI chips to China, prompting the company to record a $5.5 billion charge to account for the stockpile of processors that it intended to export to that country.

Tech CEOs will get a chance to discuss the fallout from the trade war and other challenges still ahead during analyst conference calls that will be held as part of their companies’ financial reports for the January-March quarter.

The ritual will kick off Tuesday when Tesla is scheduled to release its full financial report after already revealing that its first-quarter car sales dropped by 13% from the same time last year.

The decline occurred against a backdrop of vandalism, widespread protests and calls for a consumer boycott amid a backlash to Musk’s high-profile role in the White House overseeing a cost-cutting purge of U.S. government agencies.

After Musk discusses his strategy for reversing a XX% decrease in Tesla’s market value since he joined Trump in the White House, Google parent Alphabet Inc. is scheduled to announce its results on Thursday. Then four of the Magnificent Seven will get their turn next week: Amazon on April 29; Meta and Microsoft on April 30; and Apple on May 1.

Nvidia, which operates on a fiscal year ending in January, is scheduled to wrap things up on May 28 with the release of its quarterly results.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hackers linked to Russia’s government launched a cyberattack last spring against municipal water plants in rural Texas. At one plant in Muleshoe, population 5,000, water began to overflow. Officials had to unplug the system and run the plant manually.

The test the vulnerabilities of America’s public infrastructure. It was also a warning: In the 21st century, it takes more than oceans and an army to keep the United States safe.

A year later, countries around the world are preparing for greater digital conflict as increasing global tensions and a looming trade war have raised the stakes — and the chances that a cyberattack could cause significant economic damage, disrupt vital public systems, reveal sensitive business or government secrets, or even escalate into military confrontation.

The confluence of events has national security and cyber experts warning of heightened cyberthreats and a growing digital arms race as countries look to defend themselves.

At the same time, President Donald Trump has upended America’s digital defenses by firing the four-star general who led the National Security Agency, shrinking cybersecurity agencies and slashing election cybersecurity initiatives.

Businesses now are increasingly concerned about cyberattacks, and governments have moved to a war footing, according to a this month by NCC Group, a British cybersecurity firm.

“The geopolitical dust is still settling,” said Verona Johnstone-Hulse, a London-based expert on government cybersecurity polices and the report’s co-author. “What the new normal looks like is still not yet set.”

Many in the U.S. are already calling for a more muscular approach to protecting the digital frontier.

“Hybrid war is here to stay,” said Tom Kellermann, senior vice president of cyberstrategy at Contrast Security. “We need to stop playing defense — it’s time to make them play defense.”

Digital life means more targets for hackers

Vulnerabilities have grown as people and businesses use connected devices to count steps, manage finances and operate facilities such as water plants and ports. Each network and connection is a potential target for foreign governments or the hacking groups that sometimes do their bidding.

Espionage is one motive, demonstrated in a recent incursion linked to hackers in China. The campaign known as Salt Typhoon sought to crack the phones of officials, including Trump, before the 2024 election.

These operations seek entry to sensitive corporate or government systems to steal secrets or monitor personal communications. Such information can be hugely valuable by providing advantages in trade negotiations or military planning. These hackers try to remain hidden for as long as possible.

More obvious intrusions can serve as a warning or deterrent, such as the cyberattacks targeting the Texas water plants. Iran also has shown a willingness to use cyberattacks to make political points.

The cyberattacks that frighten experts the most burrow deeply into telephone or computer networks, inserting backdoors or malware for later use.

National security experts say this was the motivation behind a recent attack from China called Volt Typhoon that compromised telephone networks in the U.S. in an effort to gain access to an unknown number of critical systems.

China could potentially use these connections to disable key infrastructure — power plants, communication networks, pipelines, hospitals, financial systems — as part of a larger conflict or before an invasion of Taiwan, national security experts said.

“They can position their implants to be activated at a date and time in the future,” said Sonu Shankar, a former researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory who is now chief strategy officer at Phosphorus Cybersecurity.

National security officials will not discuss details, but experts interviewed by The Associated Press said the U.S. no doubt has developed similar offensive capabilities.

China has rejected U.S. allegations of hacking, accusing America of trying to “ smear ” Beijing while conducting its own cyberattacks.

Global tensions tick up

Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Trade disputes. Shifting alliances. The risk of cyberattacks goes up in times of global tension, and experts say that risk is now at a high.

U.S. adversaries China, Russia, Iran and North Korea also have shown signs of cybercooperation as they forge tighter economic, military and political relationships.

Speaking to Congress, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard noted that Iran has supplied drones in exchange for Russian intelligence and cybercapabilities.

“Russia has been the catalyst for much of this expanded cooperation, driven heavily by the support it has needed for its war effort against Ukraine,” Gabbard told lawmakers.

Amid global fears of a trade war after the tariffs that Trump has imposed, supply chains could be targeted in retaliation. While larger companies may have a robust cyberteam, small suppliers that lack those resources can give intruders easy access.

And any tit-for-tat cycles of cyberconflict, in which one country hacks into a sensitive system as retaliation for an earlier attack, come with “great risk” for all involved, Shankar said. “It would put them on the path to military conflict.”

The Trump effect

At a time when national security and cybersecurity experts say the U.S. should be bolstering its defenses, Trump has called for reductions in staffing and other changes to the agencies that protect American interests in cyberspace.

For example, Trump recently fired Gen. Timothy Haugh, who oversaw the NSA and the Pentagon’s Cyber Command.

The U.S. faces “unprecedented cyber threats,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He has asked the White House to explain Haugh’s departure. “How does firing him make Americans any safer?” Warner said.

Also under Trump, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency placed on leave staffers who worked on election security and cut millions of dollars in funding for cybersecurity programs for local and state elections. His administration eliminated the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which tracked and exposed foreign disinformation online.

The CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies also have seen reductions in staffing.

The administration faced more questions over how seriously it takes cybersecurity after senior officials used the popular messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive information about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. Gabbard later called the episode a mistake.

The officials in charge of America’s cybersecurity insist Trump’s changes will make the U.S. safer, while getting rid of wasteful spending and confusing regulations.

The Pentagon, for instance, has invested in efforts to harness artificial intelligence to improve cyberdefenses, according to a report by Lt. Gen. William J. Hartman, acting commander of the NSA and Cyber Command.

The changes at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency come as its leaders consider how best to execute their mission in alignment with the administration’s priorities, a CISA statement said.

“As America’s Cyber Defense Agency, we remain steadfast in our mission to safeguard the nation’s critical infrastructure against all cyber and physical threats,” the statement read. “We will continue to collaborate with our partners across government, industry, and with international allies to strengthen global cybersecurity efforts and protect the American people from foreign adversaries, cybercriminals, and other emerging threats.”

Representatives for Gabbard’s office and the NSA didn’t respond to questions about how Trump’s changes will affect cybersecurity.

Signs of progress?

Despite shifting alliances, a growing consensus about cyberthreats could prompt greater global cooperation.

More than 20 nations recently signed on to an international framework on the use of commercial spyware. The U.S. has signaled it will join the nonbinding agreement.

There’s also broad bipartisan agreement in the U.S. about the need to help private industry bolster defenses.

Federal estimates say the cybersecurity industry needs to hire an additional 500,000 professionals to meet the challenge, said Dean Gefen, former chief of cybertraining for Israel’s Defense Intelligence Technological Unit. He’s now the CEO of NukuDo, a cybersecurity training company.

“Companies need effective guidance from the government — a playbook,” Gefen said. “What to do, what not to do.”

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — America’s only rare earths mine heard from anxious companies soon after China responded to President Donald Trump’s tariffs this month by limiting exports of those minerals used for military applications and in many high-tech devices.

“Based on the number of phone calls we’re receiving, the effects have been immediate,” said Matt Sloustcher, a spokesperson for MP Materials, the company that runs the Mountain Pass mine in California’s Mojave Desert.

The trade war between the world’s two biggest economies could lead to a critical shortage of rare earth elements if China maintains its export controls long-term or expands them to seek an advantage in any trade negotiations. The California mine can’t meet all of the U.S. demand for rare earths, which is why Trump is trying to clear the way for new mines.

Rare earth elements are important ingredients in electric vehicles, powerful magnets, advanced fighter jets, submarines, smartphones, television screens and many other products. Despite their name, the 17 elements aren’t actually rare, but it’s hard to find them in a high enough concentration to make a mine worth the investment.

Tariffs will impact ore supply and costs

MP Materials, which acquired the idle Mountain Pass site in 2017, said Thursday it would stop sending its ore to China for processing because of the export restrictions and 125% tariffs on U.S. imports China imposed. The company said it would continue processing nearly half of what it mines on site and store the rest while it works to expand its processing capability.

“Selling our valuable critical minerals under 125% tariffs is neither commercially rational nor aligned with America’s national interests,” MP Materials said in a .

Experts say the manufacturers that rely on rare earth elements and other critical minerals will see price increases, but there is likely enough of a global supply available to keep factories operating for now.

The California mine yields neodymium and praseodymium, the light rare earths that are the main components of the permanent rare earth magnets in EVs and wind turbines. But small amounts of some of the heavy rare earths that China has restricted, such as terbium and dysprosium are key to helping the magnets withstand high temperatures.

Already, the price of terbium has jumped 24% since the end of March to reach $933 per kilogram.

“Our estimate suggests that there is enough stockpile in the market to sustain demand for now,” Benchmark Mineral Intelligence rare earths analyst Neha Mukherjee said, adding that shortages may emerge later this year.

China holds power over the market

China has tremendous power over the rare earths market. The country has the biggest mines, producing 270,000 metric tons (297,624 tons) of minerals last year compared to the 45,000 tons (40,823 metric tons) mined in the U.S. China supplies nearly 90% of the world’s rare earths because it also is home to most of the processing capacity.

The restrictions Beijing put in place on April 4 require Chinese exporters of seven heavy rare earths and some magnets to obtain special licenses. The retaliatory controls reinforced what the Trump administration and manufacturers see as a dire need to build additional U.S. mines and reduce the nation’s dependence on China.

Trump has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to strong-arm Greenland and Ukraine into providing more of their rare earths and other critical materials to the United States. Last month, he signed an executive order calling for the federal government to streamline permit approvals for new mines and encourage investments in the projects.

Two companies are trying to develop mines in Nebraska and Montana. Officials at NioCorp and U.S. Critical Minerals said they hoped the push from the White House would help them raise money and obtain the necessary approvals to start digging. NioCorp has worked for years to raise $1.1 billion to build a mine in southeast Nebraska.

“As I sit and I think about how can we deal with this enormous leverage that China has over these minerals that nobody even knows how to pronounce for the most part, we have to deal with this leverage situation,” NioCorp CEO Mark Smith said. “And the best way, I think, is that we need to make our own heavy rare earths here in the United States. And we can do that.”

MP Materials is working to quickly expand its processing capability, partly with the help of some $45 million the company received coming out of the first Trump administration. But after investing nearly $1 billion since 2020, the company doesn’t currently have the ability to process the heavy rare earths that China is restricting. MP Materials said it was working expeditiously to change that.

Big U.S. automakers declined to comment about how dependent they are on rare earths and the impact of China’s export curbs. Major defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which were specifically targeted in China’s restrictions along with more than a dozen other defense and aerospace companies, also remained circumspect.

Military technology is a smaller but important user of rare earths. Trump issued an executive order on Tuesday calling for an investigation into the national security implications of being so reliant on China for the elements.

A spokesperson for Lockheed, which makes the F-22 fighter jet, said the company continuously assesses “the global rare earth supply chain to ensure access to critical materials that support our customers’ missions.”

Manufacturers prepare for price increases

Some battery makers could start to run short of key elements within weeks, according to Steve Christensen, executive director of the Responsible Battery Coalition, an association representing battery and automakers and battery sellers.

Already, manufacturers have seen the price of antimony, an element used to extend the life of traditional lead-acid batteries, more than double since China restricted exports of it last year. The element isn’t one of the 17 rare earths but is among the critical minerals that Trump wants to see produced domestically.

Initially, automakers will likely try to absorb any increase in the cost of their batteries without raising vehicle prices, but that may not be sustainable if China’s restrictions remain in place, Christensen said. A 25% tariff Trump put on all imported automobiles and auto parts cars already was expected to increase costs, although the president hinted this week that he might give the industry a temporary reprieve.

The U.S. fulfilled its rare earths needs with domestic sources until the late 1990s. Production largely ended after low-cost Chinese ores flooded global markets. Robots, drones and other new technologies have rapidly increased demand for the raw materials.

NioCorp recently signed a contract to do more exploratory drilling on its site this summer to help prove to the Export-Import Bank that enough rare earth minerals rest underground near Elk Creek, Nebraska, to justify an $800 million loan to help finance the project.

But a new rare earths mine is years away from operating in the U.S. NioCorp estimates if all goes well with its fundraising, the site where it hopes to mine and process niobium, scandium, titanium and an assortment of rare earths possibly might be running by the end of Trump’s presidency.

U.S. Critical Minerals plans to dig up several tons of ore in Montana this summer so it can test out processing methods it has been developing. The Sheep Creek project isn’t as far along as the Nebraska project, but U.S. Critical Minerals Director Harvey Kaye said the site has promising ore deposits with high concentrations of rare earths.

Google has been branded an abusive monopolist by a federal judge for the second time in less than a year, this time for illegally exploiting some of its online marketing technology to boost the profits fueling an internet empire currently worth $1.8 trillion.

The ruling issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia comes on the heels of a separate decision in August that concluded Google’s namesake search engine has been illegally leveraging its dominance to stifle competition and innovation.

After the U.S. Justice Department targeted Google’s ubiquitous search engine during President Donald Trump’s first administration, the same agency went after the company’s lucrative digital advertising network in 2023 during President Joe Biden’s ensuing administration in an attempt to undercut the power that Google has amassed since its inception in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998.

Although antitrust regulators prevailed both times, the battle is likely to continue for several more years as Google tries to overturn the two monopoly decisions in appeals while forging ahead in the new and highly lucrative technological frontier of artificial intelligence.

The next step in the latest case is a penalty phase that will likely begin late this year or early next year. The same so-called “remedy” hearings in the search monopoly case are scheduled to begin Monday in Washington D.C., where Justice Department lawyers will try to convince U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to impose a sweeping punishment that includes a proposed requirement for Google to sell its Chrome web browser.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A federal judge permanently struck down an Ohio law on Thursday that would have required children and teens under 16 to get parental consent to use social media apps.

U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley’s a lawsuit filed by NetChoice, a trade group representing TikTok, Snapchat, Meta and other major tech companies. The organization’s complaint argued that the law unconstitutionally impedes free speech and is overly broad and vague.

The state contends the law is needed to protect children from the harms of social media. Marbley said that the state’s effort, while laudable, went too far.

“This court finds, however, that the Act as drafted fails to pass constitutional muster and is constitutionally infirm,” he wrote, adding that even the government’s “most noble entreaties to protect its citizenry” must abide by the U.S. Constitution.

Bethany McCorkle, a spokesperson for Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, said, “We’re reviewing the decision and will determine the next steps.”

The law was originally set to take effect Jan. 15, 2024, but Marbley placed an immediate hold on enforcing it that he later extended. It is similar to ones enacted in other states, including California, Arkansas and Utah, where NetChoice lawsuits have also succeeded in blocking such laws, either permanently or temporarily.

The law seeks to require companies to get parental permission for social media and gaming apps and to provide their privacy guidelines so families know what content would be censored or moderated on their child’s profile.

was part of an $86.1 billion state budget bill that Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law in July 2023. The administration pushed the measure as a way to protect children’s mental health, with then-Republican Lt. Gov. Jon Husted saying that social media was “intentionally addictive” and harmful to kids.

Marbley said the law “resides at the intersection of two unquestionable rights: the rights of children to ‘a significant measure of’ freedom of speech and expression under the First Amendment, and the rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children free from unnecessary governmental intrusion.”

But his opinion cited court precedent that such laws don’t enforce parental authority over their children’s speech, they impose governmental authority over children subject to parental veto.

NetChoice praised Thursday’s ruling.

“The decision confirms that the First Amendment protects both websites’ right to disseminate content and Americans’ right to engage with protected speech online, and policymakers must respect constitutional rights when legislating,” Chris Marchese, NetChoice’s director of litigation, said in a statement.

WASHINGTON (AP) — On the rooftop patio of the General Services Administration headquarters, an agency staffer recently discovered something strange: a rectangular device attached to a wire that snaked across the roof, over the ledge and into the administrator’s window one floor below.

It didn’t take long for the employee — an IT specialist — to figure out the device was a transceiver that communicates with Elon Musk’s vast and private Starlink satellite network. Concerned that the equipment violated federal laws designed to protect public data, staffers reported the discovery to superiors and the agency’s internal watchdog.

The Starlink equipment raises a host of questions about what Musk and his efficiency czars are doing at GSA, an obscure agency that is playing an outsized role in the Trump administration’s quest to slash costs and bring the federal government to heel.

Among other clues that GSA is a critical cog in Musk’s stated efforts to slash billions of dollars in federal spending: people with ties to the entrepreneur or his companies hold key jobs at the agency. Its acting administrator is a Silicon Valley tech executive with expertise in rolling out artificial intelligence tools and a wife who once worked for Musk at his social media company, X.

An engineer at Tesla, the billionaire’s electric car company, runs the GSA’s technology division. And one of Musk’s trusted lieutenants is helping to spearhead the work of downsizing the government’s real estate footprint.

GSA oversees many of Uncle Sam’s real estate transactions, collecting and paying rent on behalf of almost every federal agency. It helps manage billions in federal contracts. And it assists other agencies in building better websites and digital tools for citizens.

It is so important because it is “a choke point for all agencies,” said Steven Schooner, a George Washington University law school professor who specializes in government contracting. “They can, in effect, stop all civilian agencies from purchasing, period. That’s everything.”

In a statement in early March, GSA said it planned to get rid of “non-core assets” and welcomed “creative solutions, including sale-lease backs, ground leases and other forms of public/private partnerships.”

The search for those cuts has engulfed the entire 12,000-person agency. At the helm of that push is the GSA’s acting administrator, Stephen Ehikian, the tech executive whose wife worked for X.

“GSA was built for this moment,” Ehikian told employees last month in a meeting, a video of which was viewed by The Associated Press.

“This agency is the backbone of federal government operations,” said Ehikian, who is seeking to expand automation — through the use of artificial intelligence — of many GSA functions. “We literally have an impact on the administration’s mandate right now, which is around efficiency.”

Unloading real estate

Another close Musk adviser — Nicole Hollander — is driving the initiative to unload the government’s real estate. Her husband, Steve Davis, is acting as the of the Musk-inspired Department of Government Efficiency.

Hollander, who studied business and real estate at George Washington University, is a licensed property manager in Washington, according to LinkedIn. Her profile also lists her as an employee of X since 2023.

In early March, the GSA real estate division released a list of hundreds of government-owned or leased properties it sought to sell in a frenzied rush.

The list drew sharp criticism from Democrats and civil society groups because it proposed the sale of the Justice Department headquarters and included at least one undisclosed Central Intelligence Agency facility. GSA quickly withdrew the list.

That did not stall DOGE’s fire sale. In the presentation viewed by the AP, Ehikian said the agency has canceled more than 680 leases, listed or sold at least 32 properties worth $185 million and cut more than $50 billion in contracts.

Hollander has mostly operated behind the scenes. She rarely appears in Zoom meetings, according to employees. Documents obtained by the AP show spreadsheets she creates are stripped of her name and replaced with a more generic “GSA leadership.”

The AP also obtained copies of some event invitations on Hollander’s calendar. They showed Hollander had several meetings with commercial real estate and services firms, including a brokerage firm and a real estate consulting company that helps companies economize their space. She also took meetings with a consortium of Washington technology companies.

Hollander did not respond to a request for comment sent over LinkedIn or through a GSA spokesperson.

It’s not the first time that Hollander has led a cost-cutting campaign for Musk. A in 2023 alleged that Hollander and Davis were part of a “cadre of sycophants” who were particularly zealous in implementing Musk’s mandate overhaul of the social media company.

The the pair, following their boss’ orders, circumvented San Francisco building and safety codes, ignored their obligation to pay vendors and landlords and downsized without regard to the turmoil it caused employees or customers.

The couple, the lawsuit alleged, also lived at Twitter headquarters with their month-old child, mirroring Musk, who has a reputation for living at his company offices. That pattern appears to be repeating at GSA: Hollander has installed cots on the agency’s sixth floor, according to employees.

Attorneys for Musk and X have moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the Delaware federal court lacks jurisdiction and the lawsuit is legally groundless.

‘Move Fast and Make Changes’

Another employee installed by the Trump administration at GSA worked for Musk at Tesla.

Shortly after taking over GSA’s technology unit, Thomas Shedd told his workforce the goal was to “move fast and make changes,” according to a transcript of the February meeting obtained by the AP. That’s a variation on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s motto of moving fast and breaking things.

Shedd soon began demanding access to sensitive systems that enable the public to communicate or interact with government services, according to staffers who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisal.

Shedd’s request prompted pushback from existing GSA staff. One employee resigned rather than give Shedd access,

He also told staff he wanted to consolidate all the government contracts in a centralized database to more easily figure out which ones to eliminate, according to a transcript of the meeting. It’s not clear if he accomplished that goal. Shedd did not reply to emails seeking comment.

He and other GSA officials have also sought to rely more heavily on artificial intelligence. In March, employees were given a demo of a new internal AI chatbot that is designed to more speedily identify contracts and real estate that can be jettisoned. Government agencies like GSA have been hesitant to deploy AI in such ways due to data-security and privacy concerns, according to current and former officials.

Starlink mystery

It’s not known what role — if any — Starlink is playing in GSA’s technological evolution.

On the GSA roof, employees found at least two transceivers, including the one with a wire running to the administrator’s office. It is not clear why the agency is using Starlink. The network provides internet service but is not generally approved for use in most government computer systems.

IT staffers, who reported the discovery to superiors, were concerned that the devices were not authorized to be used at GSA and DOGE might be utilizing them to siphon off agency data, according to internal emails obtained by the AP and a GSA employee who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.

GSA’s IT staff opened an investigation to see if the terminals were a security threat, and an employee filed a complaint with the GSA’s inspector general, the emails show. The status of those probes could not be determined.

The AP obtained photos — taken by a GSA employee — of the transceivers. And an AP staffer, using a telephoto lens, confirmed that a wire runs from the roof to a window to the administrator’s office. that several DOGE staffers working out of GSA had begun using Starlink terminals in February. It’s unclear if they’re the same terminals referred for investigation by IT staff in March.

A GSA spokesman confirmed the presence of Starlink transceivers but said they were not connected “to GSA’s internal network, nor was there a security breach.”

To many veterans of the agency, the irony of DOGE’s slash-and-burn approach to GSA is that it is jeopardizing one of the agency’s longstanding missions: improving government efficiency.

The agency, for example, had an in-house consulting shop that during the first Trump administration focused on improving government services, especially those relying on technology. Among its initiatives, the team helped create systems to allow Americans to file taxes online and was working to improve online passport renewal.

In the early weeks of the second Trump administration, DOGE officials gutted the team. Shedd defended that move, telling employees in a meeting that the team was eliminated because its work was not cost-effective, according to a transcript of his remarks.

Any reduction in headcount could also jeopardize the government’s ability to police contracts once they are issued to keep costs down.

Such decisions have baffled those who have tracked GSA’s work.

Amira Boland, a behavioral scientist at GSA during the first Trump administration, said that trimming government was a good idea but described some of DOGE’s cuts as “reckless.”

“There is certainly bureaucracy that needs to be eliminated,” Boland said, “but you have to know the stakes you’re playing with.”

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Goodman reported from Miami and Burke from San Francisco.

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Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or

BANGKOK (AP) — Shares in computer chip makers slumped in after-hours trading and in Asia after Nvidia said tighter U.S. government controls on exports of computer chips used for artificial intelligence will cost it an extra $5.5 billion.

The company, which announced Monday that it will produce its artificial intelligence super computers in the United States for the first time, said the government told it that its H20 integrated circuits and others of the same bandwidth would be subject to the controls for the “indefinite future.”

In a regulatory filing, the government said the controls addressed risks that the products “may be used in or diverted to, a supercomputer in China.”

Nvidia’s shares fell 6.3% in after-hours trading. Shares in rival chip maker AMD dropped 7.1% after markets closed.

Asian technology giants also saw big declines. Testing equipment maker Advantest’s shares fell 6.7% in Tokyo, Disco Corp. lost 7.6% and Taiwan’s TSMC dropped 2.4%.

Earlier, reports had said the Trump administration had backed away from imposing stricter licensing requirements on the H20 chip. Commerce Department officials were not immediately available for comment early Wednesday.

Nvidia said Monday it has commissioned more than one million square feet of manufacturing space to build and test its specialized Blackwell chips in Arizona and AI supercomputers in Texas — part of an investment the company said will produce up to half a trillion dollars of AI infrastructure in the next four years.

The announcement comes after President Donald Trump and other officials said tariff exemptions on electronics like smartphones and laptops were only a temporary reprieve until officials develop a new tariff approach specific to the semiconductor industry.

Trump claimed that decision as a victory for his effort to expand manufacturing in the U.S.