By KATE PAYNE and ED WHITE, Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, finished 1 1/2 days of interviews with Justice Department officials on Friday, answering questions “about 100 different people,” her attorney said.

“She answered those questions honestly, truthfully, to the best of her ability,” David Oscar Markus told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida, where Maxwell met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

“She never invoked a privilege. She never refused to answer a question, so we’re very proud of her,” Markus said.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence and is housed at a low-security federal prison in Tallahassee. She was sentenced three years ago after being convicted of helping Epstein, a wealthy, well-connected financier, sexually abuse underage girls.

Officials have said Epstein killed himself in his New York jail cell while awaiting trial in 2019, but his case has generated endless attention and conspiracy theories because of his and Maxwell’s links to famous people, such as royals, presidents and billionaires, including Donald Trump.

In a social media post this week, Blanche said Maxwell would be interviewed because of President Trump’s directive to gather and release any credible evidence about others who may have committed crimes.

Trump has denied prior knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and claimed he cut off their relationship long ago. But he faces ongoing questions about the Epstein case, overshadowing his administration’s achievements. On Friday, reporters pressed the Republican president about pardoning Maxwell, but he deflected, emphasizing his administration’s successes.

Markus said Maxwell “was asked maybe about 100 different people.”

“The deputy attorney general is seeking the truth,” Markus said. “He asked every possible question, and he was doing an amazing job.”

Markus said he didn’t ask for anything for Maxwell in return, though he acknowledged that Trump could pardon her.

“Listen, the president this morning said he had the power to do so. We hope he exercises that power in the right and just way,” Markus said.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department said it would not release more files related to the Epstein investigation, despite promises that claimed otherwise from Attorney General Pam Bondi. The department also said an Epstein client list does not exist.

Maxwell is appealing her conviction, based on the government’s pledge years ago that any potential Epstein co-conspirators would not be charged, Markus said. Epstein struck a deal with federal prosecutors in 2008 that shifted his case to Florida state court, where he pleaded guilty to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution.

Epstein in 2019 and Maxwell in 2020 were charged in federal court in New York.

White reported from Detroit.

By MARTHA BELLISLE, Associated Press

The Trump administration said Friday it’s investigating the Oregon Department of Education after receiving a complaint from a conservative nonprofit group alleging the state was violating civil rights law by allowing transgender girls to compete on girls sports teams.

It’s the latest escalation in the Republican administration’s effort to bar transgender athletes from women’s sports teams nationwide. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February to block trans girls from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

The administration says transgender athlete policies violate Title IX, the 1972 federal law that bans discrimination in education based on sex. Proponents of Trump’s ban say it restores fairness in athletic competitions, but opponents say bans are an attack on transgender youth.

The U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights opened the Oregon investigation based on a complaint by the America First Policy Institute that alleges high-school aged female athletes had lost medals and competitive opportunities to transgender athletes. It follows a probe launched earlier this year into Portland Public Schools and the state’s governing body for high school sports over alleged violations of Title IX for allowing trans girls to compete in girls sports.

Earlier this month, the administration sued the California Department of Education for allowing transgender girls to compete on girls sports teams, alleging the policy violates federal law. Trump also filed a lawsuit in April alleging Maine violated Title IX by allowing trans girls and women to compete against other female athletes.

Oregon law allows trans students to compete on sex-segregated sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a release Friday that the administration won’t let educational institutions receive federal funds “to continue trampling upon women’s rights.”

“If Oregon is permitting males to compete in women’s sports, it is allowing these males to steal the accolades and opportunities that female competitors have rightfully earned through hard work and grit, while callously disregarding women’s and girls’ safety, dignity, and privacy,” Trainor said.

Messages seeking comment from the Oregon education officials were not immediately returned.

Nate Lowery, spokesman for the Oregon School Activities Association, said they were reviewing the administration’s notice with its legal counsel and doesn’t have additional comments at this time.

Three high school track-and-field athletes filed a lawsuit against Oregon in early July that seeks to overturn all sports records set by transgender girl athletes and prevent them from participating in girls sporting events.

The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Oregon alleges the state policy prohibiting schools from excluding student athletes from events that align with their gender identity violates Title IX. The students say it has harmed them through loss of competition, placements, and opportunities to advance to higher-level events.

Jessica Hart Steinmann, executive general counsel at the America First Policy Institute, said the investigation is a step toward restoring equal opportunities for women’s athletics.

“Title IX was meant to protect girls — not to undermine them — and we’re hopeful this signals a return to that original purpose,” Steinmann said in a release.

More than two dozen states have enacted laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions. Some policies have been blocked in court.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case over state restrictions on which sports teams transgender athletes can join.

By CHRIS MEGERIAN and ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite the sun bearing down on him and the sweat beading across his face, President Donald Trump still lingered with reporters lined up outside the White House on Friday. He was leaving on a trip to Scotland, where he would visit his golf courses, and he wanted to talk about how his administration just finished “the best six months ever.”

But over and over, the journalists kept asking Trump about the Jeffrey Epstein case and whether he would pardon the disgraced financier’s imprisoned accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

“People should really focus on how well the country is doing,” Trump insisted. He shut down another question by saying, “I don’t want to talk about that.”

It was another example of how the Epstein saga — and his administration’s disjointed approach to it — has shadowed Trump when he’s otherwise at the height of his influence. He’s enacted a vast legislative agenda, reached trade deals with key countries and tightened his grip across the federal government. Yet he’s struggled to stamp out the embers of a political crisis that could become a full-on conflagration.

Trump faces pressure from his own supporters

The Republican president’s supporters want the government to release secret files about Epstein, who authorities say killed himself in his New York jail cell six years ago while awaiting trial for sex trafficking. They believe him to be the nexus of a dark web of powerful people who abused underage girls. Administration officials who once stoked conspiracy theories now insist there’s nothing more to disclose, a stance that has stirred skepticism because of Trump’s former friendship with Epstein.

Trump has repeatedly denied prior knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and claimed he cut off their relationship long ago. For a president skilled at manipulating the media and controlling the Republican Party, it has been the most challenging test of his ability to shift the conversation in his second term.

“This is a treadmill to nowhere. How do you get off of it?” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist. “I genuinely don’t know the answer to that.”

Trump has demanded his supporters drop the matter and urged Republicans to block Democratic requests for documents on Capitol Hill. But he has also directed the Justice Department to divulge some additional information in hopes of satisfying his supporters.

A White House official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal strategy, said Trump is trying to stay focused on his agenda while also demonstrating some transparency. After facing countless scandals and investigations, the official said, Trump is on guard against the typical playbook of drip-drip disclosures that have plagued him in the past.

It’s clear Trump sees the Epstein case as a continuation of the “witch hunts” he’s faced over the years, starting with the investigation into Russian interference during his election victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton nearly a decade ago. The sprawling inquiry led to convictions against some top advisers but did not substantiate allegations Trump conspired with Moscow.

Trump’s opponents, he wrote on social media on Thursday, “have gone absolutely CRAZY, and are playing another Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax but, this time, under the guise of what we will call the Jeffrey Epstein SCAM.”

During the Russia investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors were a straightforward foil for Trump to rail against. Ty Cobb, the lawyer who served as the White House’s point person, said the president “never felt exposed” because “he thought he had a legitimate gripe.”

The situation is different this time now that the Justice Department has been stocked with loyalists. “The people that he has to get mad at are basically his people as opposed to his inquisitors and adversaries,” Cobb said.

It was Trump’s allies who excavated the Epstein debacle

In fact, Trump’s own officials are the most responsible for bringing the Epstein case back to the forefront.

FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, regularly stoked conspiracy theories about Epstein before assuming their current jobs, floating the idea the government had covered up incriminating and compelling information that needed to be brought to light. “Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are,” Patel said in a 2023 podcast.

Attorney General Pam Bondi played a key role, too. She intimated in a Fox News Channel interview in February that an Epstein “client list” was sitting on her desk for review — she would later say she was referring to the Epstein files more generally — and greeted far-right influencers with binders of records from the case that consisted largely of information already in the public domain.

Tensions spiked earlier this month when the FBI and the Justice Department, in an unsigned two-page letter, said that no client list existed, that the evidence was clear Epstein had killed himself and that no additional records from the case would be released to the public. It was a seeming backtrack on the administration’s stated commitment to transparency. Amid a fierce backlash from Trump’s base and influential conservative personalities, Bongino and Bondi squabbled openly in a tense White House meeting.

Since then, the Trump administration has scrambled to appear transparent, including by seeking the unsealing of grand jury transcripts in the case — though it’s hardly clear that courts would grant that request or that those records include any eye-catching details anyway. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has taken the unusual step of interviewing the imprisoned Maxwell over the course of two days at a courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida, where her lawyer said she would “always testify truthfully.”

All the while, Trump and his allies have resurfaced the Russia investigation as a rallying cry for a political base that has otherwise been frustrated by the Epstein saga.

Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who just weeks ago appeared on the outs with Trump over comments on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, seemed to return to the president’s good graces this week following the declassification and release of years-old documents she hoped would discredit long-settled conclusions about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The developments allowed Trump to rehash longstanding grievances against President Barack Obama and his Democratic advisers. Trump’s talk of investigations into perceived adversaries from years ago let him, in effect, go back in time to deflect attention from a very current crisis.

“Whether it’s right or wrong,” Trump said, “it’s time to go after people.”

By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is releasing billions of dollars in grants to schools for adult literacy, English language instruction and other programs, the Education Department said Friday.

President Donald Trump’s administration had withheld $6 billion in funding on July 1 as part of a review to ensure spending aligned with the White House’s priorities.

The funding freeze had been challenged by several lawsuits as educators, Congress members from both parties and others called for the administration to release money schools rely on for a wide range of programs.

Last week, the department said it would release $1.3 billion of the money for after-school and summer programming. Without the money, school districts and nonprofits such as the YMCA and Boys and Girls Club of America had said they would have to close or scale back educational offerings this fall.

The release of that money came days after 10 Republican senators sent a letter imploring the administration to allow frozen education money to be sent to states.

The Education Department said Friday the Office of Management and Budget had completed its review of the programs and will begin sending the money to states next week.

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., was among the Congress members calling for the release of the grants. She said it is important to protect the programs.

“The programs are ones that enjoy longstanding, bipartisan support like after-school and summer programs that provide learning and enrichment opportunities for school aged children, which also enables their parents to work and contribute to local economies, and programs to support adult learners working to gain employment skills, earn workforce certifications, or transition into postsecondary education,” she said.

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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 standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By CHRISTINA LARSON

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s almost time for summer’s meteor shower duet.

The Southern Delta Aquariid and the Alpha Capricornid meteor showers peak at the same time — in the early morning of July 30.

Without too much interference from moonlight — the waxing moon will be only about a quarter full — the meteors should appear bright and clear in regions away from city lights.

With each shower expected to produce up to a dozen visible meteors per hour under dark skies, the doubleheader means the total number of meteors “do add up,” said Thaddeus LaCoursiere, planetarium program coordinator at the Bell Museum in St. Paul, Minnesota.

“Look for flashes of light in the night sky,” he said, adding that both are “very nice classic meteor showers.”

The Alpha Capricornids — produced by slower-moving meteors — may have tails that linger slightly longer in the sky, said Nick Moskovitz of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Viewing of each shower lasts through August 12.

What is a meteor shower?

As the Earth orbits the sun, several times a year it passes through debris left by passing comets and sometimes asteroids.

The source of the Delta Aquariids is debris from comet 96P/Machholz. The Alpha Capricornids stem from the comet 169P/NEAT.

When these fast-moving space rocks enter Earth’s atmosphere, the debris encounters new resistance from the air and becomes very hot, eventually burning up.

Sometimes the surrounding air glows briefly, leaving behind a fiery tail — the end of a “shooting star.”

You don’t need special equipment to see the various meteor showers that flash across annually, just a spot away from city lights.

How to view a meteor shower

The best time to watch a meteor shower is in the early predawn hours when the moon is low in the sky.

Competing sources of light — such as a bright moon or artificial glow — are the main obstacles to a clear view of meteors. Cloudless nights when the moon wanes smallest are optimal viewing opportunities.

And keep looking up, not down. Your eyes will be better adapted to spot shooting stars if you aren’t checking your phone.

When is the next meteor shower?

The next major meteor shower, the Perseids, peaks in mid August.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed a bill Thursday canceling about $9 billion that had been approved for public broadcasting and foreign aid as Republicans look to lock in cuts to programs targeted by the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The bulk of the spending being clawed back is for foreign assistance programs. About $1.1 billion was destined for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances NPR and PBS, though most of that money is distributed to more than 1,500 local public radio and television stations around the country.

The White House had billed the legislation as a test case for Congress and said more such rescission packages would be on the way.

Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda. Democrats unanimously rejected the cuts but were powerless to stop them.

The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense. Conservatives particularly directed their ire at NPR and PBS. Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced grave concern about what the cuts to public broadcasting could mean for some local public stations in their state. Some stations will have to close, they warned.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the stations are “not just your news — it is your tsunami alert, it is your landslide alert, it is your volcano alert.”

On the foreign aid cuts, the White House argued that they would incentivize other nations to step up and do more to respond to humanitarian crises and that the rescissions best served the American taxpayer.

Democrats argued that the Republican administration’s animus toward foreign aid programs would hurt America’s standing in the world and create a vacuum for China to fill. They also expressed concerns that the cuts would have deadly consequences for many of the world’s most impoverished people.

“With these cuts, we will cause death, spread disease and deepen starvation across the planet,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.

By MATT O’BRIEN, Associated Press

Tech companies looking to sell their artificial intelligence technology to the federal government must now contend with a new regulatory hurdle: prove their chatbots aren’t “woke.”

President Donald Trump’s sweeping new plan to counter China in achieving “global dominance” in AI promises to cut regulations and cement American values into the AI tools increasingly used at work and home.

But one of Trump’s three AI executive orders signed Wednesday — the one “preventing woke AI in the federal government” — also mimics China’s state-driven approach to mold the behavior of AI systems to fit its ruling party’s core values.

Several leading providers of the AI language models targeted by the order — products like Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot — have so far been silent on Trump’s anti-woke directive, which still faces a study period before it gets into official procurement rules.

While the tech industry has largely welcomed Trump’s broader AI plans, the anti-woke order forces the industry to leap into a culture war battle — or try their best to quietly avoid it.

“It will have massive influence in the industry right now,” especially as tech companies “are already capitulating” to other Trump administration directives, said civil rights advocate Alejandra Montoya-Boyer, senior director of The Leadership Conference’s Center for Civil Rights and Technology.

The move also pushes the tech industry to abandon years of work to combat the pervasive forms of racial and gender bias that studies and real-world examples have shown to be baked into AI systems.

“First off, there’s no such thing as woke AI,” she said. “There’s AI technology that discriminates and then there’s AI technology that actually works for all people.”

Molding the behaviors of AI large language models is challenging because of the way they’re built. They’ve been trained on most of what’s on the internet, reflecting the biases of all the people who’ve posted commentary, edited a Wikipedia entry or shared images online.

“This will be extremely difficult for tech companies to comply with,” said former Biden official Jim Secreto, who was deputy chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, an architect of many of Biden’s AI industry initiatives. “Large language models reflect the data they’re trained on, including all the contradictions and biases in human language.”

Tech workers also have a say in how they’re designed, from the global workforce of annotators who check their responses to the Silicon Valley engineers who craft the instructions for how they interact with people.

Trump’s order targets those “top-down” efforts at tech companies to incorporate what it calls the “destructive” ideology of diversity, equity and inclusion into AI models, including “concepts like critical race theory, transgenderism, unconscious bias, intersectionality, and systemic racism.”

For Secreto, the order resembles China’s playbook in “using the power of the state to stamp out what it sees as disfavored viewpoints.”

The method is different, with China relying on direct regulation through its Cyberspace Administration, which audits AI models, approves them before they are deployed and requires them to filter out banned content such as the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 1989.

Trump’s order doesn’t call for any such filters, relying on tech companies to instead show that their technology is ideologically neutral by disclosing some of the internal policies that guide the chatbots.

“The Trump administration is taking a softer but still coercive route by using federal contracts as leverage,” Secreto said. “That creates strong pressure for companies to self-censor in order to stay in the government’s good graces and keep the money flowing.”

The order’s call for “truth-seeking” AI echoes the language of the president’s one-time ally and adviser Elon Musk, who frequently uses that phrase as the mission for the Grok chatbot made by his company xAI. But whether Grok or its rivals will be favored under the new policy remains to be seen.

Despite a “rhetorically pointed” introduction laying out the Trump administration’s problems with DEI, the actual language of the order’s directives shouldn’t be hard for tech companies to comply with, said Neil Chilson, a Republican former chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission.

“It doesn’t even prohibit an ideological agenda,” just that any intentional methods to guide the model be disclosed, said Chilson, who is now head of AI policy at the nonprofit Abundance Institute. “Which is pretty light touch, frankly.”

Chilson disputes comparisons to China’s cruder modes of AI censorship.

“There is nothing in this order that says that companies have to produce or cannot produce certain types of output,” he said. “It says developers shall not intentionally encode partisan or ideological judgments. That’s the exact opposite of the Chinese requirement.”

So far, tech companies that have praised Trump’s broader AI plans haven’t said much about the order.

OpenAI on Thursday said it is awaiting more detailed guidance but believes its work to make ChatGPT objective already makes the technology consistent with what the order requires.

Microsoft, a major supplier of email, cloud computing and other online services to the federal government, declined to comment Thursday.

Musk’s xAI, through spokesperson Katie Miller, a former Trump official, pointed to a company comment praising Trump’s AI announcements as a “positive step” but didn’t respond to a follow-up question about how Grok would be affected.

Anthropic, Google, Meta, and Palantir didn’t immediately respond to emailed requests for comment Thursday.

AI tools are already widely used in the federal government, including AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini for internal agency support to summarize the key points of a lengthy report.

The ideas behind the order have bubbled up for more than a year on the podcasts and social media feeds of Trump’s top AI adviser David Sacks and other influential Silicon Valley venture capitalists, many of whom endorsed Trump’s presidential campaign last year. Much of their ire centered on Google’s February 2024 release of an AI image-generating tool that produced historically inaccurate images before the tech giant took down and fixed the product.

Google later explained that the errors — including one user’s request for American Founding Fathers that generated portraits of Black, Asian and Native American men — was the result of an overcompensation for technology that, left to its own devices, was prone to favoring lighter-skinned people because of pervasive bias in the systems.

Trump allies alleged that Google engineers were hard-coding their own social agenda into the product, and made it a priority to do something about it.

“It’s 100% intentional,” said prominent venture capitalist and Trump adviser Marc Andreessen on a podcast in December. “That’s how you get Black George Washington at Google. There’s override in the system that basically says, literally, ‘Everybody has to be Black.’ Boom. There’s squads, large sets of people, at these companies who determine these policies and write them down and encode them into these systems.”

Sacks credited a conservative strategist for helping to draft the order.

“When they asked me how to define ‘woke,’ I said there’s only one person to call: Chris Rufo. And now it’s law: the federal government will not be buying WokeAI,” Sacks wrote on X.

Rufo responded that, in addition to helping define the phrase, he also helped “identify DEI ideologies within the operating constitutions of these systems.”

By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s milestone settlement with Columbia promises to bring stability to a university in crisis. It also delivers a crucial win to President Donald Trump in his campaign to reshape higher education.

And at colleges around the country, the deal clarifies the stakes for anyone weighing whether to fight the administration’s demands or concede.

Columbia agreed Wednesday to pay more than $220 million to the federal government to restore federal research money that was canceled in the name of combating antisemitism on campus. That decision offers a contrast to the path taken by Harvard University, which has lost billions of dollars in government funding as its legal battle escalates with no end in sight.

Yet the Columbia deal also raises questions about university independence as the school submits to closer federal oversight.

No sooner had Trump announced the deal than he sent a warning: Numerous other universities, he said, “are upcoming.”

The deal is the first to settle a federal antisemitism investigation since Trump returned to office. It’s also the first agreement with a university touching on so many elements of the president’s agenda, from admissions and campus protests to women’s sports and diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Columbia agreed to some provisions similar to those that Harvard rejected and called a dangerous precedent. The settlement requires the hiring of new faculty in Jewish studies and a review of academics to ensure “balance.” Columbia will be placed under the watch of an independent monitor and ordered to disclose hiring, admission and discipline data to be audited for compliance.

In what Columbia described as a victory for university autonomy, the agreement includes a clause saying the government has no authority to dictate hiring, admissions decisions or the content of academic speech. Acting University President Claire Shipman said it was “carefully crafted to protect the values that define us” while restoring the university’s federal research funding.

Where some see pragmatism, others see capitulation

Some at Columbia called it the best feasible outcome. Some called it capitulation. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., a Columbia graduate whose district includes the Manhattan campus, called it a “cowardly” agreement.

Columbia has effectively waved “the white flag of surrender in its battle at the heart of the Trump Administration’s war on higher education and academic freedom,” Nadler said.

Columbia had been threatened with the potential loss of billions of dollars in government support, including more than $400 million in research grants canceled earlier this year.

David Pozen, a law professor at Columbia, said the settlement raises legal questions about Trump’s strategy of regulation by dealmaking. Instead of applying a single standard across all of higher education, Pozen said, Trump is relying on one-off deals with individual universities as a condition to regain federal funding.

“In short, the agreement gives legal form to an extortion scheme,” he said.

The American Council on Education, which represents hundreds of university presidents, exhorted the administration to “return to following the rule of law.”

“This cannot be a template for the government’s approach to American higher education,” said Ted Mitchell, the group’s president. “Columbia was put in an untenable position by the outrageous actions of the executive branch of the government.”

Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary and former president of Harvard, called the settlement an “excellent template” for agreements with Harvard and other universities. He said it preserves Columbia’s independence while addressing antisemitism and renewing a focus on merit.

“This may be the best day higher education has had in the last year,” Summers wrote on the social media platform X.

Dozens of colleges are facing federal investigations

With the deal, Trump has new momentum in his expanding campaign to bring the nation’s universities in line with his vision. Dozens of campuses are under federal investigation for allegations related to antisemitism, DEI and transgender athletes in women’s sports. Trump has saved his strongest rebuke for elite private universities, yet his administration has also recently turned attention to big public universities including George Mason University.

Among Trump’s backers, the Columbia agreement is seen as a first step to counteract the liberal bias they say has permeated college campuses.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon called Columbia’s reforms a roadmap for universities looking to regain public trust. “I believe they will ripple across the higher education sector and change the course of campus culture for years to come,” McMahon said in a statement.

The settlement follows smaller wins for the administration, including a recent deal with the University of Pennsylvania over transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. Penn agreed to modify school records held by Thomas and to apologize to female athletes “disadvantaged” by Thomas’ participation.

Just days earlier, the president of the University of Virginia agreed to resign amid a Justice Department investigation over DEI policies.

Many university presidents have rallied behind Harvard in its fight against the Trump administration, seeing their own independence jeopardized by the government’s sanctions against the Ivy League school. Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, is often seen as a bellwether for other institutions, and some regard it as the best hope to repel the Trump administration’s pressure campaign.

Now even more rides on Harvard’s case. Earlier this month, Trump said a deal with Harvard appeared imminent, only to lash out at the university this week following a court hearing in one of Harvard’s legal battles.

“A big part of it is going to be how much Harvard gets in the future,” Trump told reporters this week. “And they’re not going to get very much.”

More universities are pulling back from DEI

Even before Trump took office, more universities had been pulling back on DEI and taking other steps to backtrack on what some see as a leftward political drift. Yet if the Columbia agreement becomes a model, it could force an even deeper reckoning.

The agreement requires full compliance with the administration’s interpretation of Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination in education. Trump officials have used the law to force the removal of transgender athletes from women’s sports. The deal also requires regular reports to ensure Columbia does not “promote unlawful DEI goals.”

On admissions, the settlement pushes Columbia to limit the consideration of race even beyond the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision ending affirmative action. That decision left open the possibility that universities could consider an applicant’s discussion of how their race affected their life, including in college application essays. The Columbia deal appears to bar such considerations.

It also orders the school to take steps to “decrease financial independence” on international students. Columbia has one of the largest international student populations in the nation, making up about 40% of its enrollment.

How much Columbia ceded in exchange may not be clear for years. There’s also no guarantee that the school is fully in the clear — the agreement leaves open the possibility of future “compliance reviews, investigations, defunding or litigation” by the government.

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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 standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By MARK SHERMAN and JACK DURA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a lower-court ruling in a redistricting dispute in North Dakota that would gut a landmark federal civil rights law for millions of people.

The justices indicated in an unsigned order that they are likely to take up a federal appeals court ruling that would eliminate the most common path people and civil rights groups use to sue under a key provision of the 60-year-old Voting Rights Act.

The case could be argued as early as 2026 and decided by next summer.

Three conservative justices, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, would have rejected the appeal.

The court also has a separate redistricting case over a second majority Black congressional district in Louisiana. The justices heard arguments in March, but took the rare step of calling for a new round of arguments in their term that begins in October. They have yet to spell out what issues they want discussed.

In the North Dakota case, the Spirit Lake Tribe and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, with reservations 60 miles apart, argued that the state’s 2021 legislative map violated the act by diluting their voting strength and ability to elect their own candidates.

The case went to trial in 2023, and a federal judge later ordered the use of a map of the area, including the reservations that led to the election last year of three Native Americans, all Democrats, to the Republican-supermajority Legislature.

But in a 2-1 ruling issued in May, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that only the Justice Department can bring such lawsuits under the law’s Section 2.

The 8th Circuit also had ruled in an Arkansas case in 2023 that private individuals can’t sue under the same provision.

More than 90 percent of Section 2 cases have been brought through private enforcement, UCLA law professor Richard Hasen wrote on the Election Law blog.

The 8th Circuit rulings conflict with decades of decisions by appellate courts that have affirmed the rights of private individuals to sue under Section 2.

The Supreme Court often will step in when appeals courts around the country come to different decisions on the same legal issue.

The 8th Circuit covers seven states: Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. In the wake of the Arkansas decision, Minnesota and other states moved to shore up voting rights with state-level protections.

Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota.

By JOHN O’CONNOR and SARAH RAZA, Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture will move thousands of employees out of the nation’s capital in a reorganization the agency says will put them closer to customers while saving money, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Thursday.

Around 2,600 workers — more than half the Washington, D.C. workforce — will be moved to five hubs stretching from North Carolina to Utah, Rollins said. The union representing federal workers immediately criticized the plan as a ploy to cut federal jobs, pointing out that some 95% of the department’s employees already work outside Washington.

The move is part of President Donald Trump’s effort to make the federal government slimmer and more efficient, which received a Supreme Court boost this month.

“American agriculture feeds, clothes, and fuels this nation and the world, and it is long past time the department better serve the great and patriotic farmers, ranchers, and producers we are mandated to support,” Rollins said in a statement.

The goal is to re-size the department so that costs don’t outstrip available finances, as well as eliminate layers of management and consolidate redundant functions, the statement said. The department expects the plan to take several months.

The five hubs are in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Fort Collins, Colorado; Indianapolis and Salt Lake City.

Although it’s important to be closer to farmers and ranchers, Chad Hart, a professor of agricultural economics at Iowa State University, said taking those employees out of Washington risks losing an important connection to Congress.

“You want that balance” to ensure effective farm policy, Hart said.

Much of the government savings could come from employees who choose not to relocate, Hart said. He added that the agricultural community is concerned about a “bumpy transition” reminiscent of similar action during Trump’s first term, when it took relocated Agriculture offices months to get up and running again.

Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the labor union representing federal workers, had a sharper critique. He said about 85% of all federal employees already work outside the capital, but insisted Washington “is the center of our nation’s government for a reason.”

Workers at headquarters help coordinate between senior leaders and field offices, Kelley said, and they ensure the agency has a “seat at the table” when lawmakers and the White House make decisions that affect farmers nationwide.

“I’m concerned this reorganization is just the latest attempt to eliminate USDA workers and minimize their critical work,” the union leader said.

The Agriculture Department reported that its headcount grew by 8% over the past four years, with salaries increasing by 14.5%. The statement from Rollins said the 4,600 employees in and around Washington are “underutilized and redundant” and housed in underused buildings with billions of dollars in deferred maintenance.

In the Washington region, the department will vacate three buildings and examine the best use of three others. One building set to be abandoned has $1.3 billion in needed but delayed maintenance and has room for 6,000 employees while only housing 1,900.

Wages will fall too, Rollins promised. The capital region is among the nation’s costliest to live, and department employees there are paid a surcharge of 34% to keep ahead of the cost of living. The surcharges range from 17.1% in Salt Lake City to 30.5% in Fort Collins.

Raza reported from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

By MIKE SCHNEIDER

The data nerds are fighting back.

After watching data sets be altered or disappear from U.S. government websites in unprecedented ways after President Donald Trump began his second term, an army of outside statisticians, demographers and computer scientists have joined forces to capture, preserve and share data sets, sometimes clandestinely.

Their goal is to make sure they are available in the future, believing that democracy suffers when policymakers don’t have reliable data and that national statistics should be above partisan politics.

“There are such smart, passionate people who care deeply about not only the Census Bureau, but all the statistical agencies, and ensuring the integrity of the statistical system. And that gives me hope, even during these challenging times,” Mary Jo Mitchell, director of government and public affairs for the research nonprofit the Population Association of America, said this week during an online public data-users conference.

The threats to the U.S. data infrastructure since January have come not only from the disappearance or modification of data related to gender, sexual orientation, health, climate change and diversity, among other topics, but also from job cuts of workers and contractors who had been guardians of restricted-access data at statistical agencies, the data experts said.

“There are trillions of bytes of data files, and I can’t even imagine how many public dollars were spent to collect those data. … But right now, they’re sitting someplace that is inaccessible because there are no staff to appropriately manage those data,” Jennifer Park, a study director for the Committee on National Statistics, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, said during the conference hosted by the Association of Public Data Users (APDU).

‘Gender’ switched to ‘sex’

In February, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s official public portal for health data, data.cdc.gov, was taken down entirely but subsequently went back up. Around the same time, when a query was made to access certain public data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s most comprehensive survey of American life, users for several days got a response that said the area was “unavailable due to maintenance” before access was restored.

Researchers Janet Freilich and Aaron Kesselheim examined 232 federal public health data sets that had been modified in the first quarter of this year and found that almost half had been “substantially altered,” with the majority having the word “gender” switched to “sex,” they wrote this month in The Lancet medical journal.

One of the most difficult tasks has been figuring out what’s been changed since many of the alterations weren’t recorded in documentation.

Beth Jarosz, senior program director at the Population Reference Bureau, thought she was in good shape since she had previously downloaded data she needed from the National Survey of Children’s Health for a February conference where she was speaking, even though the data had become unavailable. But then she realized she had failed to download the questionnaire and later discovered that a question about discrimination based on gender or sexual identity had been removed.

“It’s the one thing my team didn’t have,” Jarosz said at this week’s APDU conference. “And they edited the questionnaire document, which should have been a historical record.”

Among the groups that have formed this year to collect and preserve the federal data are the Federation of American Scientists’ dataindex.com, which monitors changes to federal data sets; the University of Chicago Library’s Data Mirror website, which backs up and hosts at-risk data sets; the Data Rescue Project, which serves as a clearinghouse for data rescue-related efforts; and the Federal Data Forum, which shares information about what federal statistics have gone missing or been modified — a job also being done by the American Statistical Association.

The outside data warriors also are quietly reaching out to workers at statistical agencies and urging them to back up any data that is restricted from the public.

“You can’t trust that this data is going to be here tomorrow,” said Lena Bohman, a founding member of the Data Rescue Project.

Experts’ committee unofficially revived

Separately, a group of outside experts has unofficially revived a long-running U.S. Census Bureau advisory committee that was killed by the Trump administration in March.

Census Bureau officials won’t be attending the Census Scientific Advisory Committee meeting in September, since the Commerce Department, which oversees the agency, eliminated it. But the advisory committee will forward its recommendations to the bureau, and demographer Allison Plyer said she has heard that some agency officials are excited by the committee’s re-emergence, even if it’s outside official channels.

“We will send them recommendations but we don’t expect them to respond since that would be frowned upon,” said Plyer, chief demographer at The Data Center in New Orleans. “They just aren’t getting any outside expertise … and they want expertise, which is understandable from nerds.”

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social

By MICHELLE L. PRICE and JOSEPH KRAUSS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is cutting short Gaza ceasefire talks and bringing its negotiating team home from Qatar for consultations after the latest response from Hamas “shows a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza,” President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said Thursday.

“While the mediators have made a great effort, Hamas does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith,” Witkoff said in a statement. “We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza.”

It was unclear what “alternative options” the U.S. was considering. The White House had no immediate comment, and the State Department did not immediately respond to messages.

A breakthrough in talks on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has eluded Trump’s administration for months as conditions worsen in Gaza. The territory recently had its deadliest day yet for aid-seekers in over 21 months of war, with at least 85 Palestinians killed while trying to reach food Sunday.

The sides have held weeks of talks in Qatar, reporting small signs of progress but no major breakthroughs. Officials have said a main sticking point is the redeployment of Israeli troops after any ceasefire takes place.

Witkoff said the U.S. is “resolute” in seeking an end to the conflict in Gaza and it was “a shame that Hamas has acted in this selfish way.”

Earlier Thursday, Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s office recalled his country’s negotiating team back to Israel in light of Hamas’ response. In a brief statement, the prime minister’s office expressed its appreciation for the efforts of Witkoff and mediators Qatar and Egypt, but it gave no further details.

The deal under discussion is expected to include an initial 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting ceasefire.

The talks have been bogged down over competing demands for ending the war. Hamas says it will only release all hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal and end to the war. Israel says it will not agree to end the war until Hamas gives up power and disarms, a condition the militant group rejects.

Hamas is believed to be holding the hostages in different locations, including tunnels, and says it has ordered its guards to kill them if Israeli forces approach.

The breakdown in talks is the latest setback for Trump as he’s tried to position himself as peacemaker and made little secret of the fact he wants to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. The Republican president also had promised to quickly negotiate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, but little progress has been made there, either.

With the war in Gaza, Trump earlier this month met with Netanyahu at the White House, putting his weight behind a push to reach a breakthrough and a ceasefire agreement.

But despite his newly strengthened partnership with Netanyahu following their countries’ joint strikes on Iran, the Israeli leader left Washington without any announced breakthrough.

The State Department said earlier in the week that Witkoff would be traveling to the Middle East for talks, but U.S. officials later said that Witkoff would instead travel to Europe. It was unclear if he was holding meetings there Thursday.

The apparent derailing of the talks comes as Israel’s blockade and military offensive have driven Gaza to the brink of famine, according to aid groups. The U.N. food agency says nearly 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe, acute malnutrition, and the Gaza Health Ministry has reported a rise in hunger-related deaths.

Israel has come under mounting pressure, with 28 Western-aligned countries calling for an end to the war and harshly criticizing Israel’s blockade and a new aid delivery model it has rolled out.

More than 100 charity and human rights groups released a similar letter, saying that even their own staff are struggling to get enough food.

The U.S. and Israel rejected the allegations and blamed Hamas for prolonging the war by not accepting their terms for a ceasefire.

Israel says it is allowing in enough aid and blames U.N. agencies for not distributing it. But those agencies say it is nearly impossible to safely deliver it because of Israeli restrictions and a breakdown of law and order, with crowds of thousands unloading food trucks as soon as they move into Gaza.

A separate Israeli-backed system run by an American contractor has also been marred by chaos.

Krauss reported from in Ottawa, Ontario. Associated Press writers Josef Federman and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — Hulk Hogan, the mustachioed, headscarf-wearing icon in the world of professional wrestling, has died at the age of 71, Florida police and WWE said Thursday.

In Clearwater, Florida, authorities responded to a call Thursday morning about a cardiac arrest. Hogan was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said in a statement on Facebook.

Hogan, whose real name was Terry Bollea, was perhaps the biggest star in WWE’s long history. He was the main draw for the first WrestleMania in 1985 and was a fixture for years, facing everyone from Andre The Giant and Randy Savage to The Rock and even company chairman Vince McMahon.

He won at least six WWE championships and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005.

In 2016, a Florida jury awarded Hogan $115 million in his sex tape lawsuit against Gawker Media and then added $25 million in punitive damages. Hogan sued after Gawker in 2012 posted a video of him having sex with his former best friend’s wife. He contended the post violated his privacy.

Hogan smiled and wore black throughout the three-week trial.

“Everywhere I show up, people treat me like I’m still the champ,” he said of the support from fans.

WWE posted a note on X saying it was saddened to learn about Hogan’s death.

“One of pop culture’s most recognizable figures, Hogan helped WWE achieve global recognition in the 1980s. WWE extends its condolences to Hogan’s family, friends, and fans,” it said.

WWE posted a note on X saying it was saddened to learn the WWE Hall of Famer had passed away.

“One of pop culture’s most recognizable figures, Hogan helped WWE achieve global recognition in the 1980s. WWE extends its condolences to Hogan’s family, friends, and fans,” it said.

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The revelation that Attorney General Pam Bondi told President Donald Trump that his name was in the Jeffrey Epstein files has focused fresh attention on the president’s relationship with the wealthy financier and the Justice Department’s announcement this month that it would not be releasing any additional documents from the case.

But at least some of the information in the briefing to Trump, which The Wall Street Journal said took place in May, should not have been a surprise.

The president’s association with Epstein is well-established and his name was included in records that his own Justice Department released back in February as part of an effort to satisfy public interest in information from the sex-trafficking investigation.

Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and the mere inclusion of someone’s name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise. Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial, also had many prominent friends in political and celebrity circles besides Trump.

Trump’s ties to Epstein

It should have been no shock to Trump that his name would be found in records related to Epstein.

The February document dump from the Justice Department included references to Trump in Epstein’s phone book and his name was also mentioned in flight logs for Epstein’s private plane.

Over the years, thousands of pages of records have been released through lawsuits, Epstein’s criminal dockets, public disclosures and Freedom of Information Act requests. In January 2024, a court unsealed the final batch of a trove of documents that had been collected as evidence in a lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre.

Records made public also include 2016 deposition in which an accuser recounted spending several hours with Epstein at Trump’s Atlantic City casino but didn’t say if she actually met Trump and did not accuse him of any wrongdoing. Trump has also said that he once thought Epstein was a “terrific guy,” but that they later had a falling out.

“I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,” Trump said in 2019 when video footage unearthed by NBC News following Epstein’s federal indictment showed the two chatting at a party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 1992, when the now president was newly divorced. ”He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling-out with him a long time ago. I don’t think I’ve spoken to him for 15 years.”

The department’s decision to not release additional files from the case

The Justice Department stunned conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and elements of Trump’s base this month when it released a two-page letter saying that a so-called Epstein “client list” that Bondi had once intimated was on her desk did not exist and that officials did not plan to release any additional documents from its investigation despite an earlier commitment to provide transparency.

Whether Bondi’s briefing to Trump in May influenced that decision is unclear.

The Justice Department did not comment directly on her meeting with Trump but Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a joint statement that a review of the Epstein files showed that there was nothing warranting further investigation or prosecution.

“As part of our routine briefing,” the statement said, “we made the President aware of our findings.”

By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia announced it will reduce restrictions on U.S. beef imports in a move U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration claimed as a major victory over “non-scientific trade barriers.”

Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said Thursday that relaxing the restrictions designed to keep Australia free of mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, would not compromise biosecurity.

“Australia stands for open and free trade — our cattle industry has significantly benefited from this,” Collins said in a statement.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins responded to Australia’s annoucement by congratulating Trump on a “major trade breakthrough that gives greater access to U.S. beef producers selling to Australia.”

She issued a statemeant under the leadline: Make Agriculture Great Again Trade Wins.

“American farmers and ranchers produce the safest, healthiest beef in the world. It’s absurd that non-scientific trade barriers prevented our beef from being sold to consumers in Australia for the last 20 years,” Rollins said.

“Gone are the days of putting American farmers on the sidelines. This is yet another example of the kind of market access the President negotiates to bring America into a new golden age of prosperity, with American agriculture leading the way,” she added.

Australia has allowed imports of beef grown in the United States since 2019. But Australia has not allowed imports from the U.S. of beef sourced from Canada or Mexico because of the disease risk.

But the U.S. has recently introduced additional movement controls that identify and trace all cattle from Mexico and Canada to their farms of origin.

US cattle import controls satisfy Australian authorities

Australian authorities were “satisfied the strengthened control measures put in place by the U.S. effectively manage biosecurity risks,” Collins said.

The timing of the new, reduced restrictions has not been finalized.

Trump attacked Australian import restrictions on U.S. beef when he announced in April that tariffs of at least 10% would be placed on Australian imports, with steel and aluminum facing a 50% tariff.

“Australia bans — and they’re wonderful people, and wonderful everything — but they ban American beef,” Trump told reporters then.

“Yet we imported $3 billion of Australian beef from them just last year alone. They won’t take any of our beef. They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers and, you know, I don’t blame them, but we’re doing the same thing right now,” Trump added.

Lawmaker fears appeasing Trump endangers Australian cattle industry

Opposition lawmaker David Littleproud suspected the government was endangering Australia’s cattle industry to appease Trump.

“I want to see the science and it should be predicated on science. I’m suspicious of the speed at which this has been done,” Littleproud told reporters.

“We need to give confidence to the industry, but also to you (the public): this is not just about animal welfare, this is about human welfare, this is about BSE potentially coming into this country and having a human impact, so I think it’s important the government’s very transparent about the science and I don’t think it’s even beyond the question to have an independent panel review that science to give confidence to everybody,” he added.

Around 70% of Australian beef is exported. Producers fear that export market would vanish overnight if diseases including mad cow or foot-and-mouth disease infected Australian cattle.

Will Evans, chief executive of Cattle Australia who represents more than 52,000 grass-fed beef producers across the nation, said he was confident the agriculture department had taken a cautious approach toward U.S. imports.

“The department’s undertaken a technical scientific assessment and we have to put faith in them. They’ve made this assessment themselves. They’ve said: ‘We’ve looked at this, we’ve looked at the best science, this is a decision that we feel comfortable with,’” Evans said.

“When you have a $75 billion (Australian $50 billion) industry relying on them not making this mistake, I’m sure they’ve been very cautious in their decision-making,” he added.

US beef prices rise because of drought and a domestic cattle shortage

Beef prices have been rising in the U.S. due to factors that include drought and shrinking domestic herd numbers.

The average price of a pound of ground beef in the U.S. rose to $6.12 in June, up nearly 12% from a year ago, according to U.S. government data. The average price of all uncooked beef steaks rose 8% to $11.49 per pound.

Australian demand for U.S. beef is likely to remain low for reasons including a relatively weak Australian dollar.

Australia’s opposition to any U.S. tariffs will be high on the agenda when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese secures his first face-to-face meeting with Trump.

Albanese and Trump were to hold a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of a Group of Seven summit in Canada last month, but the U.S. president left early.

Albanese expects the pair will meet this year, although no date has been announced.

The two countries have had a bilateral free trade deal for 20 years and the U.S. has maintained a trade surplus with Australia for decades.

By DAVID FISCHER, Associated Press

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A man charged with attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump last year at his Florida golf course will return to court Thursday to once again explain why he wants to fire his court-appointed lawyers and represent himself.

Ryan Routh previously made the request earlier this month during a hearing in Fort Pierce before U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon. She did not rule during the hearing but said she would issue a written order later. But now Routh, 59, is set to be back in front of Cannon, a day after his court-appointed federal public defenders asked to be taken off the case.

Routh is scheduled to stand trial in September, a year after prosecutors say a U.S. Secret Service agent thwarted his attempt to shoot Trump as he played golf. Routh has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and several firearm violations.

The judge told Routh earlier this month that she doesn’t intend to delay the Sept. 8 start date of his trial, even if she lets him represent himself. Routh, who has described the extent of his education as two years of college after earning his GED certificate, told Cannon that he understood and would be ready.

In a June 29 letter to Cannon, Routh said that he and his attorneys were “a million miles apart” and that they were refusing to answer his questions. He also suggested in the same letter that he could be used in a prisoner exchange with Iran, China, North Korea or Russia.

“I could die being of some use and save all this court mess, but no one acts; perhaps you have the power to trade me away,” Routh wrote.

On Wednesday, the federal public defender’s office filed a motion for termination of appointment of counsel, claiming that “the attorney-client relationship is irreconcilably broken.” Attorneys said Routh refused to meet with them for a scheduled in-person meeting Tuesday morning at the federal detention center in Miami. They said Routh has refused six attempts to meet with their team.

“It is clear that Mr. Routh wishes to represent himself, and he is within his Constitutional rights to make such a demand,” the motion said.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that criminal defendants have a right to represent themselves in court proceedings, as long as they can show a judge they are competent to waive their right to be defended by an attorney.

Prosecutors have said Routh methodically plotted to kill Trump for weeks before aiming a rifle through the shrubbery as Trump played golf on Sept. 15 at his West Palm Beach country club. A Secret Service agent spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Routh allegedly aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and flee without firing a shot.

Law enforcement obtained help from a witness who prosecutors said informed officers that he saw a person fleeing. The witness was then flown in a police helicopter to a nearby interstate where Routh was arrested, and the witnesses confirmed it was the person he had seen, prosecutors have said.

Routh has another, unrelated hearing in Cannon’s courtroom scheduled for Friday on the admissibility of certain evidence and testimony that can be used for the trial.

In addition to the federal charges, Routh also has pleaded not guilty to state charges of terrorism and attempted murder.

By CHRIS MEGERIAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to step foot in the Federal Reserve on Thursday as his allies scrutinize its expensive building renovations, a highly personal and confrontational escalation of his campaign to pressure the central bank to slash interest rates.

Trump administration officials have used concerns about the building overhaul to cast doubt on Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s decision-making. They were scheduled to inspect the site on Thursday, and the White House announced late Wednesday that the president would also be visiting.

The visit reflects Trump’s disregard for the traditional independence of the Fed, which plays a foundational role in the American economy by setting monetary policy that is supposed to be free of political influence.

While previous presidents have criticized the Fed’s decisions, Trump’s sustained campaign is an unusual and, his critics say, dangerous departure from the norm. He has called on Powell to resign, insulted him repeatedly and suggested he could be fired.

More recently, Trump has said he has no plans to oust Powell, which could be illegal. Pushing Powell out also would send shockwaves through global markets, potentially having the opposite effect that Trump wants as he pushes for lower borrowing costs.

Trump, a Republican, appointed Powell during his first term, and President Joe Biden, a Democrat, extended his tenure. Powell’s term doesn’t end until next May, and he’s previously insisted that he will serve until then.

Not everyone in Trump’s administration agrees with the president’s contention that Powell needs to resign.

“There’s nothing that tells me that he should step down right now,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whom Trump has floated as a potential replacement for Powell, in a recent interview with Fox Business. “He’s been a good public servant.”

Trump has criticized Powell for months because the chair has kept the short-term interest rate the Fed controls at 4.3% this year, after cutting it three times last year. Powell says the Fed wants to see how the economy responds to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imports, which Powell says could push up inflation.

Powell’s caution has infuriated Trump, who has demanded the Fed cut borrowing costs to spur the economy and reduce the interest rates the federal government pays on its debt.

Trump will likely be disappointed again soon. A key Fed committee is expected to keep rates where they are when it meets next week.

The Fed has been renovating its Washington headquarters and a neighboring building. With some of the construction occurring underground and as building materials have soared in price after inflation spiked in 2021 and 2022, the estimated cost has ballooned from $1.9 billion to about $2.5 billion.

When asked last week if the costly rebuilding could be grounds to fire Powell, Trump said, “I think it sort of is.”

“When you spend $2.5 billion on, really, a renovation,” Trump said, “I think it’s really disgraceful.”

By JILL LAWLESS and KWIYEON HA, Associated Press

TURNBERRY, Scotland (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump ’s trip to Scotland this week will be a homecoming of sorts, but he’s likely to get a mixed reception.

Trump has had a long and at times rocky relationship with the country where his mother grew up in a humble house on a windswept isle.

He will be met by both political leaders and protesters during the visit, which begins Friday and takes in his two Scottish golf resorts. It comes two months before King Charles III is due to welcome him on a formal state visit to the U.K.

“I’m not proud that he (has) Scottish heritage,” said Patricia Sloan, who says she stopped visiting the Turnberry resort on Scotland’s west coast after Trump bought it in 2014. “All countries have good and bad that come out of them, and if he’s going to kind of wave the flag of having Scottish heritage, that’s the bad part, I think.”

A daughter of Scotland

Trump’s mother was born Mary Anne MacLeod in 1912 near the town of Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, one of the Outer Hebrides off Scotland’s northwest coast.

“My mother was born in Scotland — Stornoway, which is serious Scotland,” Trump said in 2017.

She was raised in a large Scots Gaelic-speaking family and left for New York in 1930, one of thousands of people from the islands to emigrate in the hardscrabble years after World War I.

MacLeod married the president’s father, Fred C. Trump, the son of German immigrants, in New York in 1936. She died in August 2000 at the age of 88.

Trump still has relatives on Lewis and visited in 2008, spending a few minutes in the plain gray house where his mother grew up.

A long golf course battle

Trump’s ties and troubles in Scotland are intertwined with golf.

He first proposed building a course on a wild and beautiful stretch of the North Sea coast north of Aberdeen in 2006.

The Trump International Scotland development was backed by the Scottish government. But it was fiercely opposed by some local residents and conservationists, who said the stretch of coastal sand dunes was home to some of the country’s rarest wildlife, including skylarks, kittiwakes, badgers and otters.

Local fisherman Michael Forbes became an international cause celebre after he refused the Trump Organization’s offer of $690,000 at the time to sell his family’s rundown farm in the center of the estate. Forbes still lives on his property, which Trump once called “a slum and a pigsty.”

“If it weren’t for my mother, would I have walked away from this site? I think probably I would have, yes,” Trump said in 2008 during the planning battle over the course. “Possibly, had my mother not been born in Scotland, I probably wouldn’t have started it.”

The golf course was eventually approved and opened in 2012. Some of the grander aspects of the planned development, including 500 houses and a 450-room hotel, have not been realized, and the site has never made a profit.

A second 18-hole course at the resort is scheduled to open this summer. It’s named the MacLeod Course in honor of Trump’s mother.

There has been less controversy about Turnberry on the other side of Scotland, a long-established course that Trump bought in 2014.

“He did bring employment to the area,” said local resident Louise Robertson. “I know that in terms of the hotel and the lighthouse, he spent a lot of money restoring it, so again, that was welcomed by the local people. But other than that, I can’t really say positive things about it.”

Trump has pushed for the British Open to be held at the course for the first time since 2009.

Turnberry is one of 10 courses on the rotation to host the Open. But organizers say there are logistical issues about “road, rail and accommodation infrastructure” that must be resolved before it can return.

Protests and politicians

Trump has had a rollercoaster relationship with Scottish and U.K. politicians.

More than a decade ago, the Scottish government enlisted Trump as an unpaid business adviser with the GlobalScot network, a group of business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives with a connection to Scotland. It dumped him in 2015 after he called for Muslims to be banned from the U.S. The remarks also prompted Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen to revoke an honorary doctorate in business administration it had awarded Trump in 2010.

This week Trump will meet left-leaning Scottish First Minister John Swinney, an erstwhile Trump critic who endorsed Kamala Harris before last year’s election — a move branded an “insult” by a spokesperson for Trump’s Scottish businesses.

Swinney said it’s “in Scotland’s interest” for him to meet the president.

Some Scots disagree, and a major police operation is being mounted during the visit in anticipation of protests. The Stop Trump Scotland group has encouraged demonstrators to come to Aberdeen and “show Trump exactly what we think of him in Scotland.”

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is also expected to travel to Scotland for talks with Trump. The British leader has forged a warm relationship with Trump, who said this month “I really like the prime minister a lot, even though he’s a liberal.” They are likely to talk trade, as Starmer seeks to nail down an exemption for U.K. steel from Trump’s tariffs.

There is no word on whether Trump and Starmer — not a golfer — will play a round at one of the courses.

Lawless reported from London

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and HALLIE GOLDEN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s order seeking to end birthright citizenship is unconstitutional, affirming a lower-court decision that blocked its enforcement nationwide.

The ruling from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after Trump’s plan was also blocked by a federal judge in New Hampshire. It marks the first time an appeals court has weighed in and brings the issue one step closer to coming back quickly before the Supreme Court.

The 9th Circuit decision keeps a block on the Trump administration enforcing the order that would deny citizenship to children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily.

“The district court correctly concluded that the Executive Order’s proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,” the majority wrote.

The 2-1 ruling keeps in place a decision from U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle, who blocked Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship and decried what he described as the administration’s attempt to ignore the Constitution for political gain. Coughenour was the first to block the order.

The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

The Supreme Court has since restricted the power of lower court judges to issue orders that affect the whole country, known as nationwide injunctions.

But the 9th Circuit majority found that the case fell under one of the exceptions left open by the justices. The case was filed by a group of states who argued that they need a nationwide order to prevent the problems that would be caused by birthright citizenship only being the law in half of the country.

“We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the States complete relief,” Judge Michael Hawkins and Ronald Gould, both appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote.

Judge Patrick Bumatay, who was appointed by Trump, dissented. He found that the states don’t have the legal right, or standing, to sue. “We should approach any request for universal relief with good faith skepticism, mindful that the invocation of ‘complete relief’ isn’t a backdoor to universal injunctions,” he wrote.

Bumatay did not weigh in on whether ending birthright citizenship would be constitutional.

The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment says that all people born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, are citizens.

Justice Department attorneys argue that the phrase “subject to United States jurisdiction” in the amendment means that citizenship isn’t automatically conferred to children based on their birth location alone.

The states — Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon — argue that ignores the plain language of the Citizenship Clause as well as a landmark birthright citizenship case in 1898 where the Supreme Court found a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a citizen by virtue of his birth on American soil.

Trump’s order asserts that a child born in the U.S. is not a citizen if the mother does not have legal immigration status or is in the country legally but temporarily, and the father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. At least nine lawsuits challenging the order have been filed around the U.S.

Associated Press writer Rebecca Boone contributed to this story.