By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday revived long-running lawsuits against Palestinian authorities from Americans who were killed or wounded in terrorism attacks in the Middle East.

The justices upheld a 2019 law enacted by Congress specifically to allow the victims’ lawsuits to go forward against the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority.

The attacks occurred in the early 2000s, killing 33 people and wounding hundreds more, and in 2018, when a U.S.-born settler was stabbed to death by a Palestinian assailant outside a mall in the West Bank.

The victims and their families assert that Palestinian agents either were involved in the attacks or incited them.

The Palestinians have consistently argued that the cases shouldn’t be allowed in American courts.

The federal appeals court in New York has repeatedly ruled in favor of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, despite Congress’ efforts to allow the victims’ lawsuits to be heard.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals first ruled in 2016 against the victims of the attacks from 20 years ago, tossing out a $654 million jury verdict in their favor. In that earlier ruling, the appeals court held U.S. courts can’t consider lawsuits against foreign-based groups over random attacks that were not aimed at the United States.

The victims had sued under the Anti-Terrorism Act, signed into law in 1992. The law was passed to open U.S. courts to victims of international terrorism, spurred by the killing of American Leon Klinghoffer during a 1985 terrorist attack aboard the Achille Lauro cruise ship.

The jury found the PLO and the Palestinian Authority liable for six attacks and awarded $218 million in damages. The award was automatically tripled under the law.

After the Supreme Court rejected the victims’ appeal in 2018, Congress again amended the law to make clear it did not want to close the courthouse door to the victims.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

By MICHAEL CASEY and REBECCA BOONE

BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from withholding billions of dollars in transportation funds from states that don’t agree to participate in some immigration enforcement actions.

Twenty states sued after they said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened to cut off funding to states that refused to comply with President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. barred federal transportation officials from carrying out that threat before the lawsuit is fully resolved.

“The Court finds that the States have demonstrated they will face irreparable and continuing harm if forced to agree to Defendants’ unlawful and unconstitutional immigration conditions imposed in order to receive federal transportation grant funds,” wrote McConnell, the chief judge for the federal district of Rhode island. “The States face losing billions of dollars in federal funding, are being put in a position of relinquishing their sovereign right to decide how to use their own police officers, are at risk of losing the trust built between local law enforcement and immigrant communities, and will have to scale back, reconsider, or cancel ongoing transportation projects.”

On April 24, states received letters from the Department of Transportation stating that they must cooperate on immigration efforts or risk losing the congressionally appropriated funds. No funding was immediately withheld, but some of the states feared the move was imminent.

Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont filed the lawsuit in May, saying the new so-called “Duffy Directive” put them in an impossible position.

“The States can either attempt to comply with an unlawful and unconstitutional condition that would surrender their sovereign control over their own law enforcement officers and reduce immigrants’ willingness to report crimes and participate in public health programs — or they can forfeit tens of billions of dollars of funds they rely on regularly to support the roads, highways, railways, airways, ferries, and bridges that connect their communities and homes,” the attorneys general wrote in court documents.

But acting Rhode Island U.S. Attorney Sara Miron Bloom told the judge that Congress has given the Department of Transportation the legal right to set conditions for the grant money it administers to states, and that requiring compliance and cooperation with federal law enforcement is a reasonable exercise of that discretion. Allowing the federal government to withhold the funds while the lawsuit moves forward doesn’t cause any lasting harm, Bloom wrote in court documents, because that money can always be disbursed later if needed.

But requiring the federal government to release the money to uncooperative states will likely make it impossible to recoup later, if the Department of Transportation wins the case, Bloom said.

By JOSEPH WILSON

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A group of tourists were sitting at an outdoor table in the Spanish city of Barcelona, trying to enjoy their drinks, when a woman raised a cheap plastic water gun and shot an arc of water at them.

Her weapon of choice — the cheap, squirt-squirt variety — is an increasingly common fixture at anti-tourism protests in the southern European country, where many locals fear that an overload of visitors is driving them from their cherished neighborhoods.

How did the humble water gun become a symbol of discontent?

From refreshing to revolutionary

The phenomenon started last July, when a fringe, left-wing activist group based in Barcelona that promotes the “degrowth” of the city’s successful tourism sector held its first successful rally. Some brought water guns to shoot one another and stay cool in the summer heat.

“What happened later went viral, but in reality it was just kind of a joke by a group of people who brought water guns because it was hot,” Adriana Coten, one of the organizers of Neighborhood Assembly for Tourism Degrowth, told The Associated Press.

Then, some turned their water guns from each other to tourists. The images went around the world, becoming a publicity coup for the anti-tourism cause.

The guns reappeared in April when the same group stopped a tour bus in Barcelona, the Catalan capital.

Guns drawn

On Sunday, around a thousand people marched from a luxury shopping boulevard popular with affluent foreigners before police stopped them from getting closer to Barcelona’s top sight-seeing destination: La Sagrada Familia church.

The marchers spritzed unsuspecting tourists along the way, chanting slogans and carrying protest signs. One read: “One more tourist, one less resident!”

They left a trail of stickers on hotel doors, lampposts and outdoor café tables showing a squirting water gun encircled by a message in English: “Tourist Go Home!”

Still, the number of Barcelona protesters carrying water guns was a minority — and in the gun-toting group, many were only shooting in the air or at each other. One dad was toting his baby in a front-pack, water gun in hand.

Outside the protests, Barcelona locals are not toting water guns or taking aim at tourists. And many in the city still support tourism, which is a pillar of the local economy.

‘A symbol’

Can the water gun really change the minds of tourists, authorities or the businesses that drive the industry? Depends on who you ask.

Protester Lourdes Sánchez and her teenage daughter, each holding a water gun, said the gun “really isn’t to hurt anyone.”

“This is a symbol to say that we are fed up of how tourism industry is transforming our country into a theme park,” Sánchez said.

Another demonstrator, Andreu Martínez, acknowledged it was “to bother the tourists a bit.”

Laurens Schocher, a 46-year-old architect, said he didn’t shoot any suspected tourists but hoped that carrying a water gun would bring more attention to their cause.

“I don’t think the tourists will get it,” he said. “I think this is to send a message to authorities.”

A squirt can hurt your feelings

The marchers had no monster, pump-action water cannons most kids use for backyard battles in the summer. Theirs were the old-school, cheap-o water guns that send a slim jet of water not that far away.

Some tourists who were sprayed took it in stride, even claiming it was refreshing on a day with temperatures pushing up to around 87 Fahrenheit.

But there were moments of tension. When several marchers squirted workers at a large hostel, tempers flared and one worker spat at his attackers as he slammed the hostel door shut.

Nora Tsai, who had just arrived from Taiwan on a short visit, was among those spritzed on Sunday. She said she was a bit frightened and saddened. The “Tourist go home!” chants didn’t help either.

“I still like Barcelona,” she said. “I have met a lot of people who were kind.”

By TOM MURPHY

A small, growing number of employers are putting health insurance decisions entirely in the hands of their workers.

Instead of offering traditional insurance, they’re giving workers money to buy their own coverage in what’s known as Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements, or ICHRAs.

Advocates say this approach provides small companies that couldn’t afford insurance a chance to offer something. It also caps a growing expense for employers and fits conservative political goals of giving people more purchasing power over their coverage.

But ICHRAs place the risk for finding coverage on the employee, and they force them to do something many dislike: Shop for insurance.

“It’s maybe not perfect, but it’s solving a problem for a lot of people,” said Cynthia Cox, of the nonprofit KFF, which studies health care issues.

Here’s a closer look at how this approach to health insurance is evolving.

What’s an ICHRA?

Normally, U.S. employers offering health coverage will have one or two insurance options for workers through what’s known as a group plan. The employers then pick up most of the premium, or cost of coverage.

ICHRAs are different: Employers contribute to health insurance coverage, but the workers then pick their own insurance plans. The employers that use ICHRAs hire outside firms to help people make their coverage decisions.

ICHRAs were created during President Donald Trump’s first administration. Enrollment started slowly but has swelled in recent years.

What’s the big deal about ICHRAs?

They give business owners a predictable cost, and they save companies from having to make coverage decisions for employees.

“You have so many things you need to focus on as a business owner to just actually grow the business,” said Jeff Yuan, co-founder of the New York-based insurance startup Taro Health.

Small businesses, in particular, can be vulnerable to annual insurance cost spikes, especially if some employees have expensive medical conditions. But the ICHRA approach keeps the employer cost more predictable.

Yuan’s company bases its contributions on the employee’s age and how many people are covered under the plan. That means it may contribute anywhere from $400 to more than $2,000 monthly to an employee’s coverage.

How is this approach different?

ICHRAs let people pick from among dozens of options in an individual insurance market instead of just taking whatever their company offers.

That may give people a chance to find coverage more tailored to their needs. Some insurers, for instance, offer plans designed for people with diabetes.

And workers can keep the coverage if they leave — potentially for longer periods than they would be able to with traditional employer health insurance plans. They likely will have to pay the full premium, but keeping the coverage also means they won’t have to find a new plan that covers their doctors.

Mark Bertolini, CEO of the insurer Oscar Health, noted that most people change jobs several times.

“Insurance works best when it moves with the consumer,” said the executive, whose company is growing enrollment through ICHRAs in several states.

What are the drawbacks for employees?

Health insurance plans on the individual market tend to have narrower coverage networks than employer-sponsored coverage.

It may be challenging for patients who see several doctors to find one plan that covers them all.

People shopping for their own insurance can find coverage choices and terms like deductibles or coinsurance overwhelming. That makes it important for employers to provide help with plan selection.

The broker or technology platform setting up a company’s ICHRA generally does this by asking about their medical needs or if they have any surgeries planned in the coming year.

How many people get coverage this way?

There are no good numbers nationally that show how many people have coverage through an ICHRA or a separate program for companies with 50 workers or less.

However, the HRA Council, a trade association that promotes the arrangements, sees big growth. The council works with companies that help employers offer the ICHRAs. It studies growth in a sample of those businesses.

It says about 450,000 people were offered coverage through these arrangements this year. That’s up 50% from 2024. Council Executive Director Robin Paoli says the total market may be twice as large.

Still, these arrangements make up a sliver of employer-sponsored health coverage in the United States. About 154 million people were enrolled in coverage through work last year, according to KFF.

Will growth continue?

Several things could cause more employers to offer ICHRAs. As health care costs continue to climb, more companies may look to limit their exposure to the hit.

Some tax breaks and incentives that encourage the arrangements could wind up in a final version of the Republican tax bill currently under consideration in the Senate.

More people also will be eligible for the arrangements if extra government subsidies that help buy coverage on the Affordable Care Act’s individual marketplaces expire this year.

You can’t participate in an ICHRA if you are already getting a subsidy from the government, noted Brian Blase, a White House health policy adviser in the first Trump administration.

“The enhanced subsidies, they crowd out private financing,” he said.

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 DARLENE SUPERVILLE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump honored Juneteenth in each of his first four years as president, even before it became a federal holiday. He even claimed once to have made it “famous.”

But on this year’s Juneteenth holiday on Thursday, the usually talkative president kept silent about a day important to Black Americans for marking the end of slavery in the country he leads again.

No words about it from his lips, on paper or through his social media site.

Asked whether Trump would commemorate Juneteenth in any way, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “I’m not tracking his signature on a proclamation today. I know this is a federal holiday. I want to thank all of you for showing up to work. We are certainly here. We’re working 24/7 right now.”

Asked in a follow-up question whether Trump might recognize the occasion another way or on another day, Leavitt said, “I just answered that question for you.”

On Wednesday, Black community leaders from across the country, senior Trump administration officials and other individuals met at the White House to discuss improving coordination between the leaders and federal, state and local partners, according to a senior White House official. Housing Secretary Scott Turner and Lynne Patton, director of minority outreach, were among those who attended, said the official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a private gathering.

The Republican president’s silence was a sharp contrast from his prior acknowledgement of the holiday. Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States by commemorating June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas. Their freedom came more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln liberated slaves in the Confederacy by signing the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War.

Trump’s quiet on the issue also deviated from White House guidance that Trump planned to sign a Juneteenth proclamation. Leavitt didn’t explain the change. Trump held no public events Thursday, but he shared statements about Iran, the TikTok app and Fed chairman Jerome Powell on his social media site.

He had more to say about Juneteenth in yearly statements in his first term.

In 2017, Trump invoked the “soulful festivities and emotional rejoicing” that swept through the Galveston crowd when a major general delivered the news that all enslaved people were free.

He told the Galveston story in each of the next three years. “Together, we honor the unbreakable spirit and countless contributions of generations of African Americans to the story of American greatness,” he added in his 2018 statement.

In 2019: “Across our country, the contributions of African Americans continue to enrich every facet of American life.” In 2020: “June reminds us of both the unimaginable injustice of slavery and the incomparable joy that must have attended emancipation. It is both a remembrance of a blight on our history and a celebration of our Nation’s unsurpassed ability to triumph over darkness.”

In 2020, after suspending his campaign rallies because of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump chose Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the place to resume his public gatherings and scheduled a rally for June 19. But the decision met with such fierce criticism that Trump postponed the event by a day.

Black leaders had said it was offensive for Trump to choose June 19 and Tulsa for a campaign event, given the significance of Juneteenth and Tulsa being the place where, in 1921, a white mob looted and burned that city’s Greenwood district, an economically thriving area referred to as Black Wall Street. As many as 300 Black Tulsans were killed, and thousands were temporarily held in internment camps overseen by the National Guard.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal days before the rally, Trump tried to put a positive spin on the situation by claiming that he had made Juneteenth “famous.” He said he changed the rally date out of respect for two African American friends and supporters.

“I did something good. I made it famous. I made Juneteenth very famous,” Trump said. “It’s actually an important event, it’s an important time. But nobody had heard of it. Very few people have heard of it.”

Generations of Black Americans celebrated Juneteenth long before it became a federal holiday in 2021 with the stroke of President Joe Biden’s pen.

Later in 2020, Trump sought to woo Black voters with a series of campaign promises, including establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday.

He lost the election, and that made it possible for Biden to sign the legislation establishing Juneteenth as the newest federal holiday.

Last year, Biden spoke briefly at a holiday concert on the South Lawn that featured performances by Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle. Vice President Kamala Harris danced onstage with gospel singer Kirk Franklin.

Biden was spending this year’s holiday in Galveston, Texas, where he was set to speak at a historic African Methodist Episcopal church.

Associated Press writer Calvin Woodward contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Dodgers organization said Thursday that it asked federal immigration agents to leave the Dodger Stadium grounds after they arrived at a parking lot near one of the gates.

Dozens of federal agents with their faces covered arrived in SUVs and cargo vans to a lot near the stadium’s Gate E entrance. A group of protesters carrying signs against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement started amassing shortly after, local media reported.

“This morning, ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots. They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization,” the team said in a statement posted on X.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted on X that its agent were never there.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said the agents were with Customs and Border Protection and that they were not trying to enter the stadium.

“This had nothing to do with the Dodgers. (Customs and Border Protection) vehicles were in the stadium parking lot very briefly, unrelated to any operation or enforcement,” she said in an email.

The team said the game against the San Diego Padres later Thursday will be played as planned.

Television cameras showed about four agents remained at the lot Thursday afternoon while officers with the Los Angeles Police Department stood between them and dozens of protesters, some carrying signs that read “I Like My Ice Crushed” and chanting “ICE out of LA!”

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez arrived at the stadium and said she had been in communication with Dodger officials and the mayor’s office.

“We’ve been in communication with the mayor’s office, with the Dodgers, with Dodgers security, about seeing if they can get them moved off their private property,” she told KABC-TV. “Public property is different. Private property — businesses and corporations have the power to say, ‘Not on my property,’ And so we’re waiting to see that movement happen here.”

Protests began June 6 after federal immigration raids arrested dozens of workers in Los Angeles. Protesters blocked a major freeway and set cars on fire the following days, and police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.

The team has yet to make a statement regarding the arrests and raids. The Dodgers’ heavily Latino fan base have been pushing for the team to make a public statement and ignited a debate online about its stance on the immigration crackdown happening in Los Angeles.

The Trump administration has activated more than 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines over the objections of city and state leaders. Dozens of troops now guard federal buildings and protect federal agents making arrests.

The demonstrations have been mostly concentrated downtown in the city of around 4 million people. Thousands of people have peacefully rallied outside City Hall and hundreds more protested outside a federal complex that includes a detention center where some immigrants are being held following workplace raids.

Despite the protests, immigration enforcement activity has continued throughout the county, with city leaders and community groups reporting ICE present at libraries, car washes and Home Depots. School graduations in Los Angeles have increased security over fears of ICE action and some have offered parents the option to watch on Zoom.

By MARIA SHERMAN

NEW YORK (AP) — What makes a great song of the summer? Is it an up-tempo pop banger? Something with an earworm chorus? Does it need to feature the words “summer,” “sunshine,” or another synonym — “California” — in the title? How could anyone attempt a song of the summer after the late, great Beach Boy Brian Wilson composed them so expertly, anyway?

It very well may be subject to the eye (well, ear) of the beholder, but The Associated Press views the song of the summer as the one that takes over those warm months between June and August, the kind that blasts out of car speakers and at beach barbecues in equal measure. And that means many different things for many kinds of listeners.

So here are AP’s 2025 song of the summer predictions across categories, with past victors for reference.

Find your song of the summer and then listen to our Spotify playlist, here.

Song of the summer that inexplicably came out in January: “NUEVAYoL,” Bad Bunny

A song of the summer doesn’t actually have to arrive in summer, or even in spring. History has proved this time and time again, lest anyone forget Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license” hit at the top of the year in 2021. But this summer, like every summer, is about Bad Bunny. On his latest album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio pulls from Puerto Rico’s rich musical history and hybridizes it. He does so from the very opener, “NUEVAYoL,” which samples the fittingly named 1975 salsa hit from El Gran Combo, “Un Verano en Nueva York” (“A Summer in New York”).

Past champion: “Boy’s a Liar PT. 2,” PinkPantheress, Ice Spice (2023)

Song of the summer for the chronically online: “Tonight,” PinkPantheress

An internet hero releases another super hit: PinkPantheress’ “Tonight” is an undeniable good time; all bassline house meets hyperpop vocals with a naughty chorus. The 24-year-old British singer-songwriter has proved she’s got so much more to offer than a few viral hits — but her huge songs that blow up online? They tend to stay. That’s more than can be said about past winners in this category.

Past champion: “Million Dollar Baby,” Tommy Richman (2024)

Breakup song of the summer: “What Was That,” Lorde

Lorde’s first new single in four years recalls the clever synth-pop of her 2017 album “Melodrama,” casting aside the folk detour of 2021’s “Solar Power.” “What Was That” is reserved revelation, introspective electropop that takes a measured look at a relationship’s dissolution. It feels good, and bad, which is the point.

Past champion: “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” Bee Gees (1971)

Song of the summer for the girls and all those who love them: “Gnarly,” KATSEYE

KATSEYE, the global girl group born out of K-pop development techniques, are “Gnarly,” and they’d like you to be, too. The song is asymmetrical pop with a cheerleading cadence and extensive, expensive product placement. You’re here for the girls, or you’re not. Gnarly!

Past champion: “Bills, Bills, Bills,” Destiny’s Child (1999)

Song for singles ready to mingle this summer: “WASSUP,” Young Miko

Flirting is central to these hot months; no other season has a fling named after it. Puerto Rican rapper Young Miko knows this better than most, and her track “WASSUP” is all about charisma — and it doesn’t hurt that it interpolates “Lollipop” by Lil Wayne featuring Static Major and “Chulin Culin Chunfly” by Voltio featuring Residente.

Past champion: “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” T-Pain featuring Yung Joc (2007)

Song of the summer for those who love British boy ballads performed by an American: “Ordinary,” Alex Warren

Last year brought Benson Boone’s glossy soft pop-rock; this year, Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” is inescapable. A big, inoffensive ballad with loosely religious themes, it is meticulously designed to the pull at heartstrings. And it does — the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Past champion: “Beautiful Things,” Benson Boone (2024)

Song of the summer for when you lose the beef but still have fight left in ya: “Nokia,” Drake

For the last year, Drake has mostly made headlines for his rivalry with Kendrick Lamar, one of the biggest beefs in modern rap music history. He was no victor, but on “Nokia,” he’s certainly a winner. The song is a return to what Drizzy knows best: a massive rap-R&B-pop song for the ages, one that will live inside the minds of listeners for the whole year. Just, you know, replete with the nostalgic sounds of a Nokia ringtone.

Past champion: The difference here, of course, is that Drake won his beef with Meek Mill. But nonetheless: “Back to Back,” Drake (2015)

The TikTok-approved, blast-of-dopamine song of the summer: “Boots on the Ground,” 803Fresh

Social media is the wild west and inevitably sources its own song of the summer. Usually, there’s an element of humor in the track — like 2023’s “The Margarita Song” by That Chick Angel, Casa Di & Steve Terrell. This year is a bit different: 803Fresh’s “Boots on the Ground” is an organic hit that centers a kind of soulful line dance — it’s country-pop with trap hi-hats and fun for the whole family.

Past champion: “The Spark,” Kabin Crew & Lisdoonvarna Crew (2024)

Song of the summer for it girls: “Fame Is A Gun,” Addison Rae

Charli xcx fans, fear not. Addison Rae’s debut album is stuffed with bejeweled, hypnotic pop songs for the post-“BRAT” crowd. Best of all is the Grimes-esque “Fame Is a Gun,” a sunglasses-in-the-club banger with synthetic vocal textures and an unignorable chorus. For fashionable listeners, and those who aim to become more fabulous.

Past champion: “Bad Girls,” Donna Summer (1979)

Song of the summer of revenge: “Manchild,” Sabrina Carpenter

Does it sound strikingly similar to “Please, Please, Please” at times? Sure. But has Sabrina Carpenter cornered the market on country-tinged, satirical pop songs about heterofatalism, an internet neologism for those who find heterosexuality embarrassing and hopeless? Also, yes. But you know, with a wink, vengeance and a danceable quality. Amen, hey men!

Past champion: “Before He Cheats,” Carrie Underwood (from her 2005 debut album, but released as a single in 2006)

Biggest song of the year, and therefore the default song of the summer: “Luther,” Kendrick Lamar and SZA

Is a song released in November too dated to qualify for song of the summer? Perhaps. But here’s the rub: Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther” held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for 13 weeks in 2025 — over half the year so far. Popularity makes the contender. It doesn’t hurt that “Luther” is also one of the best songs of both this year and last, a tender R&B ballad that samples Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn’s 1982 rendition of “If This World Were Mine.” “Luther” has since been dethroned on the charts, but no other song has come close to its run this year.

Past champion: “Last Night,” Morgan Wallen (2023)

Country crossover song of the summer: “What I Want,” Morgan Wallen and Tate McRae

If terrestrial country radio is your leading metric for selecting the song of the summer, then Morgan Wallen’s “I’m The Problem” is likely your pick. But a catchier track with true country crossover appeal is “What I Want” with Wallen and pop singer Tate McRae. It is the first time Wallen has featured a female vocalist on one of his songs. It’s a rare embrace for the chart topper, who historically prefers to buck country duet tradition and double down on his vocal style — warm, muscular, masculine.

Past champion: “You’re Still the One,” Shania Twain (from her 1997 album, but released as a single in 1998)

Song of the summer released half a decade ago: “party 4 you,” Charli xcx

The data doesn’t lie and what is old is new is old is new again. In the year after “BRAT” summer, desire for more Charli xcx is still strong. As a result, fans have dug up a cut from her 2020 album, “How I’m Feeling Now,” and turned it into their own summer anthem … five years later. So much so, in fact, that Charli released a music video for it in May.

Past champion: “Cruel Summer,” Taylor Swift (released in 2019, crowned song of the summer in 2023)

Song of the summer with a canine-themed title: “Mutt,” Leon Thomas

Look, “Mutt” also arrived in 2024, but in 2025 — bolstered by a deluxe release and a recent Chris Brown remix — makes “Mutt” an easy song of the summer pick for some listeners. It’s difficult to hear that chorus and not sing along: “She said, ‘Take your time, what’s the rush?’ / I said, ‘Baby, I’m a dog, I’m a mutt.’”

Past champion: “Bird Dog,” The Everly Brothers (1958)

By MARK SCOLFORO

GARDNERS, Pa. (AP) — Sam Cooper had just trekked 7 miles through a rain-sodden stretch of the Appalachian Trail when he sat down outside a little country store in Pennsylvania to take on its ice cream challenge.

Nearly 40 minutes and 2,500 calories later, the dairy farmer from Chapel Hill, Tennessee, was polishing off the final titanium sporkful of chocolate chip cookie dough on Tuesday and adding his name to the list of “thru-hikers” who have celebrated the trail’s halfway point by downing a half-gallon of ice cream.

By the end Cooper, 32, whose trail name is Pie Top, was calling the experience “pure misery.”

“I don’t think anybody should be doing this,” Cooper said cheerfully. “This is not healthy at all.”

The ice cream challenge is thought to have begun more than four decades ago at the Pine Grove Furnace General Store in Gardners, a few miles north of the current true halfway point on the 2,197-mile trail. Thru-hikers, as they’re known, are the fraction of the trail’s 3 million annual visitors who attempt to walk its entire length in a single, continuous trip.

As they slog their way north through Virginia and Maryland, the ice cream challenge is a regular topic of conversation among thru-hikers at shelters and campfires, said Stephan Berens, 49, a psychiatric nurse from Nuremberg, Germany.

Berens, whose trail name is Speedy, polished off his black cherry and vanilla in about 25 minutes after completing 17 miles on the trail that day — and with seven more to go that afternoon.

‘The most free I’ve ever felt’

Trail experts say hikers can need up to 6,000 calories a day, a practical challenge when food needs to be carried up and down rocky terrain. The slender Berens figures he’s lost about 20 pounds since starting April 8.

“I thought it would be worse, but it’s OK,” said Berens, smiling and patting his stomach after finishing the half-gallon. “Such a crazy idea.”

Zeke Meddock, trail name Petroglyph, didn’t bother timing himself but finished his choice of a quart and a half carton of chocolate chip cookie dough and a pint of strawberry. The diesel mechanic from North Amarillo, Texas, began his hike on March 27, two months after finishing a stint in the U.S. Army.

“You’re basically walking away from life,” said Meddock, 31. “It’s the most free I’ve ever felt.”

So far this year, about 50 thru-hikers have finished the challenge, earning the honor of having their photos posted on a store bulletin board. In a notebook to record their thoughts, Chicken Louise wrote on May 24: “Life choices?” The next day, Seagull weighed in with, “I feel bad,” and Hyena issued a cry for help: “It was very fun for the first 15 minutes. Now, I (and my family) want to die.”

The ice cream challenge record, less than 4 minutes, was set two years ago by a man with the trail name Squirt. Two decades ago, the mark to beat was about 9 minutes.

Thru-hikers who want to attempt the record may only allow the $12 worth of ice cream to start to melt in the sun for a few minutes. They must be timed by a store employee.

“It’s called the half-gallon challenge,” Cooper said. “Very appropriately named.”

Bragging rights and a spoon

Bruce Thomas, a 41-year-old disability support worker from Medicine Hat in Alberta, Canada, passed on the ice cream challenge, opting instead for a breakfast sandwich and another one for the road.

“It’s early morning and I’m pretty sure I cannot do it,” said Thomas, trail name Not Lazy.

Those who do finish in a single sitting are awarded a commemorative wooden spoon — and bragging rights for the rest of their hike. Some people get sick. Others wash down the ice cream with a hamburger.

The ice cream challenge is one of several quirky traditions and places along the trail. There’s a shelter in Virginia where hikers confess their sins in a logbook, a two-hole outhouse in Maine with a cribbage board between the seats and a free canoe ferry across the Kennebec River that’s considered an official part of the trail. And at Harriman State Park in Tuxedo, New York, hikers encounter the renowned “Lemon Squeezer,” a narrow rock formation.

About one in three people who launch a thru hike take the roughly 5 million steps required to go the distance. They most often walk from south to north, starting in Springer Mountain, Georgia, and wrapping up 13 states later at Maine’s Mount Katahdin.

The trek typically takes six months but the current speed record is about 40 days, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. Meddock said there’s talk that a man on the trail behind him may be on pace to break it.

There’s also been a lot of discussion among hikers about the extensive damage along the trail in southern states from September’s Hurricane Helene. But mostly they think and talk about walking.

“It’s always hard,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be hard. I never think about quitting. I only think about how I can do it.”

By BILL BARROW, OLIVIA DIAZ and MIKE CATALINI

HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (AP) — Abigail Spanberger opened her general election bid for Virginia governor Wednesday using her high school alma mater near Richmond.

“I grew up walking the halls of Tucker High School,” the former congresswoman says as she walks past a bank of lockers in her first ad since securing the Democratic nomination. Later, she notes her experience as a CIA case officer, then in the halls of Congress as a tough-minded, get-things-done lawmaker.

The same kind of message is echoing in New Jersey from Rep. Mikie Sherrill, as she also makes a bid for governor. Both women are selling themselves as Democrats who can rise above the rancor of Donald Trump’s Washington.

For national Democrats who have spent months debating how to counter the president’s aggressive second administration, it’s a reminder of what worked for the party during Trump’s first term. Spanberger and Sherrill were headliners in the 2018 roster of center-left Democrats who helped flip House control from Republicans with balanced appeals to moderates, progressives and even anti-Trump conservatives. Now, they’re leading statewide tickets in races that could offer Democrats a back-to-the-future path forward as they look toward next year’s midterms.

“There are a lot of similarities” in Democrats’ current position and the 2018 campaigns, said Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., who, as a House member, chaired his party’s congressional campaign arm during Trump’s first midterm election cycle.

The 2018 Democratic freshman class yielded a net gain of 40 seats with a lineup that featured record numbers of women and plenty of candidates with national security and business backgrounds. A similar effort yielded a net gain of six governors.

The party’s 2018 winners also included outspoken progressives like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, elected in more liberal, urban districts. But the balance of power shifted on the backs of centrist candidates who carried the nation’s suburbs and improved Democrats’ performance in exurbs and even small-town, GOP-dominated areas.

Among Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s freshman colleagues were Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, another former CIA analyst, who won a suburban Detroit seat before her elevation to the Senate last November; Rep. Jason Crow, a former Army officer, who represents suburban Denver; and Rep. Angie Craig, who flipped a GOP-held seat in greater Minneapolis and now is running for Senate. Crow is now co-chairman of candidate recruitment for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Similar resumes are popping up among new Democratic recruits. In Michigan, for example, Bridget Brink, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, announced her bid for Slotkin’s old 7th Congressional District on Wednesday by leaning into her international experience as a counter to Trump.

Luján said the common thread has been recruiting “real people, regular folks” with “incredible credentials” and an ability to hold “a real conversation with people around economic issues … around the kitchen table” and campaign in any area.

So even as New Jersey’s Sherrill calls her Republican rival Jack Ciattarelli a “Trump lackey” and Spanberger pledges in a fundraising email to “defeat Trump’s agenda at the ballot box,” their wider appeal depends on different arguments.

Sherrill has from the start touted her biography: a Naval Academy graduate, Navy Sea King helicopter pilot, federal prosecutor and mother of four. Her blue and gold yard signs have a chopper hovering above her name. She is also promising an “Affordability Agenda” to address voters’ economic concerns.

Spanberger, part of the Problem Solvers Caucus when she was on Capitol Hill, leans into her deal-making centrism, promises to confront economic gaps and has pledged to campaign in every Virginia congressional district, including where Trump has dominated.

“It’s not the job of the governor of Virginia to cater to President Trump,” Spanberger said in one of her final primary campaign speeches. “It’s not the job of the governor of Virginia to cater to a political party.”

In an Associated Press interview earlier this spring, Spanberger even criticized former President Joe Biden for “posturing” by promising to eliminate student debt — something he could not accomplish by presidential action alone. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said.

She also bristled when asked to describe her place on the political spectrum. She instead said she set goals by asking, “How do I impact the most people in the fastest way possible?”

Jared Leopold, a Democratic strategist who worked as a senior staffer for the Democratic Governors Association during the 2018 cycle, said it’s notable that Spanberger and Sherrill avoid getting mired in the internal party tussle among progressives, liberals and moderates.

“Most voters aren’t really thinking about things along a simple left-right political spectrum,” especially in statewide races, Leopold said. “People are looking for politicians who they think understand them and can get things done to help them.”

He pointed to another 2018 Democratic standout: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Now a potential 2028 presidential candidate, Whitmer first gained national attention as a state legislator who spoke out about abortion rights and her experience of being raped as a college student. But she became a juggernaut in the governor’s race with what Leopold called a “brilliant and simple” slogan: “Fix the damn roads!”

Of course, Democrats do not dispute that a candidate’s military and national security experiences help neutralize routine Republican attacks of all Democrats as too liberal or out of touch.

“These credentials for how they’ve served the country — they’re just sharing who they are,” Luján said.

Said Leopold: “It certainly gives a different definition of what the Democratic Party is to some voters.”

In Virginia, Republican nominee and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who like Spanberger would become the first woman to serve in the state’s top elected office, is trying to tie the Democratic nominee to her national party.

Earle-Sears’ social media accounts frequently share pictures of Spanberger and Biden hugging and wearing masks. She accuses Spanberger of effectively rubber-stamping Biden’s legislative agenda while in Congress.

“Part of the challenge,” Spanberger retorts, “is that either my opponent or people who might be running anywhere, who don’t necessarily have things to run on, are going to try and distract.”

Spanberger, Sherrill and Democrats like them hope that most voters assess the GOP attacks and their own branding efforts like Fred Martucci, a retired glazier who voted early in Trenton, New Jersey.

The 75-year-old expressed a visceral distaste for Trump. As for what impresses him about Sherrill, he said: “She was a Navy helicopter pilot. You can’t be a dummy — she’s sharp.”

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

Barrow reported from Atlanta, Catalini from Trenton, New Jersey.

By SEUNG MIN KIM

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he plans to tap Chad Meredith, a former state solicitor general in Kentucky, for a federal judgeship in the state — and this time, he is facing no objections from Sen. Rand Paul, who opposed his nomination three years ago.

Meredith was the starring player in a bit of judicial nominations drama in the previous administration, when then-President Joe Biden had agreed to nominate Meredith, who was enthusiastically supported by Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former Senate majority leader. It was a curious move at the time, because Meredith had a track record of defending Kentucky’s anti-abortion laws and the nomination would come in the immediate aftermath of the 2022 Supreme Court decision that eliminated a constitutional right to the procedure.

But Paul indicated to the Biden White House at the time that he would block Meredith’s confirmation proceedings from moving forward, so the former president never formally nominated him. Biden’s decision to back off Meredith was also a relief to Democrats and abortion rights groups who had been enraged at the prospect of Biden tapping an anti-abortion lawyer for a lifetime judiciary seat.

This time, Paul recommended Meredith for the judgeship to the White House, and plans to support his confirmation, Paul’s office said Thursday.

In his social media post Wednesday announcing the nomination, Trump called Meredith “highly experienced and well qualified.”

“Chad is a courageous Patriot who knows what is required to uphold the Rule of Law, and protect our Constitution,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday night.

McConnell said in a statement Wednesday that Trump made an “outstanding choice” in choosing Meredith, who also served as chief deputy general counsel for former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin.

“His demonstrated devotion to the rule of law and the Constitution will serve the people of Kentucky well on the federal bench,” McConnell said. “I look forward to the Senate confirming his nomination.”

Three years ago, Paul accused McConnell of cutting a “secret deal” with the White House as a reason why Meredith’s nomination never moved forward under Biden. Paul never made any substantive objections about Meredith himself at the time.

“Unfortunately, instead of communicating and lining up support for him, Senator McConnell chose to cut a secret deal with the White House that fell apart,” Paul said at the time.

Paul had effective veto power over a judicial pick in his home state because the Senate continues to honor the so-called blue slip rule, a decades-old custom that says a judicial nominee won’t move forward if there is opposition from his or her home-state senator. The Biden White House also deferred to that custom, which is why Biden never ended up nominating Meredith.

Though the rule has been eroded in part, namely for appellate court judges whose seat spans several states, the custom has remained intact for district court nominees who are more closely tied to their home states. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has so far made no indication that he would deviate from that longstanding custom.

Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of a fair courts program and an adviser at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, criticized Trump’s selection of Meredith given his “disturbing anti-abortion record.”

“The nomination of Chad Meredith to a lifetime judgeship should trouble everyone,” Zwarensteyn said.

By The Associated Press

A SpaceX rocket being tested in Texas exploded Wednesday night, sending a dramatic fireball high into the sky.

The company said the Starship “experienced a major anomaly” at about 11 p.m. while on the test stand preparing for the tenth flight test at Starbase, SpaceX’s launch site at the southern tip of Texas.

“A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for,” SpaceX said in a statement on the social platform X.

It marked the latest in a series of incidents involving Starship rockets. On Jan. 16, one of the massive rockets broke apart in what the company called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” sending trails of flaming debris near the Caribbean. Two months later, Space X lost contact with another Starship during a March 6 test flight as the spacecraft broke apart, with wreckage seen streaming over Florida.

Following the back-to-back explosions, one of the 403-foot (123-meter) Starship rockets, launched from the southern tip of Texas, tumbled out of control and broke apart on March 27. SpaceX had hoped to release a series of mock satellites following liftoff, but that got nixed because the door failed to open all the way. Then the spacecraft began spinning and made an uncontrolled landing in the Indian Ocean.

At the time, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called the launch “a big improvement” from the two previous demos and promised a much faster launch pace moving forward, with a Starship soaring every three to four weeks for the next three flights.

SpaceX said Wednesday night’s explosion posed no hazards to nearby communities. It asked people not to try to approach the site.

The company said it is working with local officials to respond to the explosion.

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US starts evacuating some diplomats from its embassy in Israel as Iran conflict intensifies

Accused killer in drive-by fatal shooting arraigned; was on probation when slaying occurred

By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Farmers, cattle ranchers and hotel and restaurant managers breathed a sigh of relief last week when President Donald Trump ordered a pause to immigration raids that were disrupting those industries and scaring foreign-born workers off the job.

“There was finally a sense of calm,’’ said Rebecca Shi, CEO of the American Business Immigration Coalition.

That respite didn’t last long.

On Wednesday, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin declared, “There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine (immigration enforcement) efforts. Worksite enforcement remains a cornerstone of our efforts to safeguard public safety, national security and economic stability.’’

The flipflop baffled businesses trying to figure out the government’s actual policy, and Shi says now “there’s fear and worry once more.”

“That’s not a way to run business when your employees are at this level of stress and trauma,” she said.

Trump campaigned on a promise to deport millions of immigrants working in the United States illegally — an issue that has long fired up his GOP base. The crackdown intensified a few weeks ago when Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, gave the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement a quota of 3,000 arrests a day, up from 650 a day in the first five months of Trump’s second term.

Suddenly, ICE seemed to be everywhere. “We saw ICE agents on farms, pointing assault rifles at cows, and removing half the workforce,’’ said Shi, whose coalition represents 1,700 employers and supports increased legal immigration.

One ICE raid left a New Mexico dairy with just 20 workers, down from 55. “You can’t turn off cows,’’ said Beverly Idsinga, the executive director of the Dairy Producers of New Mexico. “They need to be milked twice a day, fed twice a day.’’

Claudio Gonzalez, a chef at Izakaya Gazen in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo district, said many of his Hispanic workers — whether they’re in the country legally or not — have been calling out of work recently due to fears that they will be targeted by ICE. His restaurant is a few blocks away from a collection of federal buildings, including an ICE detention center.

“They sometimes are too scared to work their shift,” Gonzalez said. “They kind of feel like it’s based on skin color.”

In some places, the problem isn’t ICE but rumors of ICE. At cherry-harvesting time in Washington state, many foreign-born workers are staying away from the orchards after hearing reports of impending immigration raids. One operation that usually employs 150 pickers is down to 20. Never mind that there hasn’t actually been any sign of ICE in the orchards.

“We’ve not heard of any real raids,’’ said Jon Folden, orchard manager for the farm cooperative Blue Bird in Washington’s Wenatchee River Valley. “We’ve heard a lot of rumors.’’

Jennie Murray, CEO of the advocacy group National Immigration Forum, said some immigrant parents worry that their workplaces will be raided and they’ll be hauled off by ICE while their kids are in school. They ask themselves, she said: “Do I show up and then my second-grader gets off the school bus and doesn’t have a parent to raise them? Maybe I shouldn’t show up for work.’’

The horror stories were conveyed to Trump, members of his administration and lawmakers in Congress by business advocacy and immigration reform groups like Shi’s coalition. Last Thursday, the president posted on his Truth Social platform that “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.”

It was another case of Trump’s political agenda slamming smack into economic reality. With U.S. unemployment low at 4.2%, many businesses are desperate for workers, and immigration provides them.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, foreign-born workers made up less than 19% of employed workers in the United States in 2023. But they accounted for nearly 24% of jobs preparing and serving food and 38% of jobs in farming, fishing and forestry.

“It really is clear to me that the people pushing for these raids that target farms and feed yards and dairies have no idea how farms operate,” Matt Teagarden, CEO of the Kansas Livestock Association, said Tuesday during a virtual press conference.

Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, estimated in January that undocumented workers account for 13% of U.S. farm jobs and 7% of jobs in hospitality businesses such as hotels, restaurants and bars.

The Pew Research Center found last year that 75% of U.S. registered voters — including 59% of Trump supporters — agreed that undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs that American citizens don’t want. And an influx of immigrants in 2022 and 2023 allowed the United States to overcome an outbreak of inflation without tipping into recession.

In the past, economists estimated that America’s employers could add no more than 100,000 jobs a month without overheating the economy and igniting inflation. But economists Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson of the Brookings Institution calculated that because of the immigrant arrivals, monthly job growth could reach 160,000 to 200,000 without exerting upward pressure on prices.

Now Trump’s deportation plans — and the uncertainty around them — are weighing on businesses and the economy.

“The reality is, a significant portion of our industry relies on immigrant labor — skilled, hardworking people who’ve been part of our workforce for years. When there are sudden crackdowns or raids, it slows timelines, drives up costs, and makes it harder to plan ahead,” says Patrick Murphy, chief investment officer at the Florida building firm Coastal Construction and a former Democratic member of Congress. “ We’re not sure from one month to the next what the rules are going to be or how they’ll be enforced. That uncertainty makes it really hard to operate a forward-looking business.”

Adds Douglas Holtz Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now president of the conservative American Action Forum think tank: “ICE had detained people who are here lawfully and so now lawful immigrants are afraid to go to work … All of this goes against other economic objectives the administration might have. The immigration policy and the economic policy are not lining up at all.’’

AP Staff Writers Jaime Ding in Los Angeles; Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas; Lisa Mascaro and Chris Megerian in Washington; Mae Anderson and Matt Sedensky in New York, and Associated Press/Report for America journalist Jack Brook in New Orleans contributed to this report.

Today is Thursday, June 19, the 170th day of 2025. There are 195 days left in the year. This is Juneteenth.

Today in history:

On June 19, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War was over and that all remaining enslaved people in Texas were free — an event now celebrated nationwide as Juneteenth.

Also on this date:

In 1910, the first-ever Father’s Day in the United States was celebrated in Spokane, Washington. (President Richard Nixon would make Father’s Day a federally recognized annual observation through a proclamation in 1972.)

In 1953, Julius Rosenberg, 35, and his wife, Ethel, 37, convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, were executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York; they were the first American civilians to be executed for espionage.

In 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova completed her historic flight as the first woman in space, landing safely by parachute to conclude the Vostok 6 mission.

In 1964, the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved by the U.S. Senate, 73-27, after surviving a lengthy filibuster.

In 1975, former Chicago organized crime boss Sam Giancana was shot to death in the basement of his home in Oak Park, Illinois; the killing has never been solved.

In 1986, University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, the first draft pick of the Boston Celtics two days earlier, suffered a fatal cocaine-induced seizure.

In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Edwards v. Aguillard, struck down a Louisiana law requiring any public school teaching the theory of evolution to teach creation science as well.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Hall of Fame auto racer Shirley Muldowney is 85.
• Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is 80.
• Author Tobias Wolff is 80.
• Author Salman Rushdie is 78.
• Actor Phylicia Rashad is 77.
• Rock singer Ann Wilson (Heart) is 75.
• Actor Kathleen Turner is 71.
• Singer-choreographer-TV personality Paula Abdul is 63.
• TV host Lara Spencer is 56.
• Actor Jean Dujardin is 53.
• Actor Robin Tunney is 53.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki is 47.
• Actor Zoe Saldaña is 47.
• Rapper Macklemore is 42.
• Actor Paul Dano is 41.

By BRUCE SCHREINER

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has asked a federal judge to strike down a Kentucky regulation that it says unlawfully gives undocumented immigrants access to in-state college tuition.

The U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit says the regulation violates federal immigration law by enabling undocumented students to qualify for the lower tuition rate at Kentucky’s public colleges and universities, while American citizens from other states pay higher tuition to attend the same schools.

“Federal law prohibits aliens not lawfully present in the United States from getting in-state tuition benefits that are denied to out-of-state U.S. citizens. There are no exceptions,” the suit said.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a federal court in Kentucky, follows a similar action by Trump’s administration in another red state as part of its efforts to crack down on immigration.

A federal judge blocked a Texas law that had given college students without legal residency access to reduced in-state tuition. That order only applied to Texas but was seen as an opening for conservatives to challenge similar laws in two dozen states. Such laws were intended to help “Dreamers,” or young adults without legal status, to be eligible for in-state tuition if they meet certain residency criteria.

“The Department of Justice just won on this exact issue in Texas, and we look forward to fighting in Kentucky to protect the rights of American citizens,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

The lawsuits in both states follow recent executive orders signed by Trump designed to stop any state or local laws or regulations the administration feels discriminate against legal residents.

The Texas suit listed the State of Texas as the defendant but did not name the state’s Republican governor as a defendant. The suit in Kentucky names Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear as one of the defendants.

The Kentucky regulation in question appears to have been issued by the state’s Council on Postsecondary Education before 2010, Beshear’s office said Wednesday in a statement that attempted to separate the governor from the legal fight.

Beshear — who was first elected governor in 2019 and is now in his second and last term due to term limits — is widely seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2028.

Beshear spokeswoman Crystal Staley said the governor has no authority to alter the regulations of the education council, or CPE, and should not be a party to the lawsuit.

“Under Kentucky law, CPE is independent, has sole authority to determine student residency requirements for the purposes of in-state tuition and controls its own regulations,” Staley said in the statement.

Beshear in the past has denounced Trump’s anti-immigrant language as dangerous and dehumanizing and has called for a balanced approach on immigration: one that protects the nation’s borders but recognizes the role legal immigration plays in meeting business employment needs. Beshear has said he believes that “Dreamers” should be able to get full American citizenship.

A spokeswoman for CPE, another defendant in the Kentucky case, said Wednesday that its general counsel was reviewing the lawsuit and regulation but had no additional comments.

Kentucky’s Republican attorney general, Russell Coleman, said he has “serious concerns” that CPE’s policy violates federal law and said his office supports the Trump administration’s efforts.

A handful of Republican lawmakers in Kentucky tried to bring up the issue during this year’s legislative session but their bill made no headway in the GOP-supermajority legislature. The measure would have blocked immigrants in the state illegally from claiming Kentucky residency for the purpose of paying in-state tuition at a state college or university.

The Justice Department suit says the regulation is in “direct conflict” with federal law by allowing an undocumented student to qualify for reduced in-state tuition based on residence within the Bluegrass State, while denying that benefit to U.S. citizens who don’t meet Kentucky’s residency requirements.

Students from other states generally pay higher tuition rates than in-state students to attend Kentucky public colleges, the suit says. Exceptions exist when a reciprocity agreement with another state allows for reduced tuition rates for qualifying students from that other state, it said.

The regulation recognizes undocumented immigrants who graduated from Kentucky high schools as Kentucky residents in conflict with federal law, the suit says.

“It directly conflicts with federal immigration law’s prohibition on providing postsecondary education benefits — such as lower tuition rates — based on residency to aliens not lawfully present in the United States that are not available to all U.S. citizens regardless of residency,” the suit says.

DETROIT (AP) — The scheduled game between the Detroit Tigers and Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday night was postponed due to the forecast for inclement weather.

The game will be played as a part of a split doubleheader on Thursday, with the first game scheduled for 1:10 p.m. and the second at 5:40 p.m.

Two of baseball’s top starting pitchers — Detroit’s Tarik Skubal and Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes — are scheduled to pitch on Thursday, but will not face each other.

Skubal (7-2, 1.99 ERA) will face Pittsburgh left-hander Andrew Heaney (3-5, 3.33) in the first game. Skenes (4-6, 1.78) will go against a Tigers opener in the nightcap.

— By DAVE HOGG, The Associated Press

By CHRIS MEGERIAN and DARLENE SUPERVILLE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The American flag has long flown from a pole on the White House roof, but that’s always been too small for President Donald Trump, who wants everything to be bigger and more beautiful.

On Wednesday, massive new flagpoles were erected on the North and South Lawns of the White House.

“It’s such a beautiful pole,” Trump said as workers used a crane to install the latest addition to the South Lawn. He returned to the same spot later in the day, saluting as the stars and stripes were hoisted for the first time.

The second pole, on the North Lawn, is close to Pennsylvania Avenue. The two poles are the most notable exterior modification to the White House since Trump returned to the presidency with grand ideas for remaking the building.

He’s already updated the Oval Office, adding gold accents, more portraits and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Workers have begun paving over the grass in the Rose Garden, and there are plans to construct a new ballroom somewhere on the White House grounds. The changes bring the iconic building more in line with Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Florida.

The president made time to watch one of the flagpole installations despite the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel, plus questions of whether the U.S. would become directly involved.

“I love construction,” said Trump, who made his mark as a New York real estate developer. “I know it better than anybody.”

He talked about how the pole went down nine feet deep for stability, and the rope would be contained inside the cylinder, unlike the one at Mar-a-Lago. When the wind blows, “you hear that rope, banging.”

“This is the real deal,” he said. “This is the best you can get. There’s nothing like this.”

President Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday that he would likely extend a deadline for TikTok’s Chinese owner to divest the popular video sharing app.

Trump had signed an order in early April to keep TikTok running for another 75 days after a potential deal to sell the app to American owners was put on ice.

“Probably yeah, yeah,” he responded when asked by reporters on Air Force One whether the deadline would be extended again.

“Probably have to get China approval but I think we’ll get it. I think President Xi will ultimately approve it.”

He indicated in an interview last month with NBC that he would be open to pushing back the deadline again. If it happens, it would be third time that the deadline has been extended.

By MARY CLARE JALONICK and JOEY CAPPELLETTI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of Congress will attend emergency briefings this week after the killing of a Minnesota state lawmaker brought renewed fears — and stoked existing partisan tensions — over the security of federal lawmakers when in Washington and at home.

The suspect in the attack had dozens of federal lawmakers listed in his writings, besides the state lawmakers and others he’s accused of targeting. The man is accused of shooting and killing former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their home early Saturday in the northern Minneapolis suburbs and wounding another lawmaker and his wife at their home.

The shootings come after credible threats to members of Congress have more than doubled in the last decade, the troubling tally of an era that has been marked by a string of violent attacks against lawmakers and their families.

In 2011, Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot and wounded at an event in her Arizona district. In 2017, Republican Rep. Steve Scalise was shot and wounded as he practiced for a congressional baseball game with other GOP lawmakers near Washington. In 2022, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was attacked by a man who broke into their San Francisco home. And in 2024, two men separately tried to assassinate Donald Trump during his Republican presidential campaign.

All four survived, some with serious injuries. But those attacks, among others and many close calls for members of both major political parties, have rattled lawmakers and raised recurring questions about whether they have enough security — and whether they can ever be truly safe in their jobs.

“I don’t have a solution to this problem right now,” said Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, a friend of Hortman’s who received increased security after the attack. “I just see so clearly that this current state of play is not sustainable.”

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said lawmakers are “clearly at the point where we have to adjust the options available to us.”

The U.S. Capitol Police’s threat assessment section investigated 9,474 “concerning statements and direct threats” against members of Congress last year, the highest number since 2021, the year that the Capitol was attacked by Trump’s supporters after he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. In 2017, there were 3,939 investigated threats, the Capitol Police said.

While members of Congress may be high profile, they do have some resources available that might not be available to state and local lawmakers, said Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, who was a member of the South Dakota state Senate for 10 years before he was the state’s governor. In the state legislature, “it just wasn’t feasible all the time” to have increased security, said Rounds, a Republican.

As threats have increased, members of Congress have had access to new funding to add security at their personal homes. But it is unclear how many have used it and whether there is enough money to keep lawmakers truly safe.

“Resources should not be the reason that a U.S. senator or congressman gets killed,” Murphy said.

Instead of bringing lawmakers together, the Minnesota shootings have created new internal tensions. Smith on Monday confronted one of her fellow senators, Utah Republican Mike Lee, for a series of posts on X over the weekend. One mocked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat who ran for vice president last year. Another post said of the killings, “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.”

Trump said he had no plans to call Walz, describing the Democratic leader as “so whacked out.”

“Why would I call him? I could call him and say, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’” the Republican president told reporters aboard Air Force One during an overnight flight back to Washington. “The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. So, you know, I could be nice and call him, but why waste time?”

Friends and former colleagues interviewed by The Associated Press described Vance Luther Boelter, the man accused of killing Hortman and her husband, as a devout Christian who attended an evangelical church and went to campaign rallies for Trump. Records show Boelter registered to vote as a Republican while living in Oklahoma in 2004 before moving to Minnesota, where voters don’t list party affiliation. His attorney has declined to comment.

Smith talked to Lee outside a GOP conference meeting as soon as she arrived in Washington on Monday. “I would say he seemed surprised to be confronted,” she told reporters afterward.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York also called out Lee’s posts on the Senate floor, saying that for him to “fan the flames of division with falsities, while the killer was still on the loose, is deeply irresponsible. He should take his posts down and immediately apologize to the families of the victims.”

Lee’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Lawmakers were already on edge before the shootings, which came less than two days after Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a press conference with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in California. Officers restrained Padilla and put him on the ground.

Angry Democratic senators immediately took to the Senate floor Thursday afternoon to denounce Padilla’s treatment. “What was really hard for me to see was that a member of this body was driven to his knees and made to kneel before authorities,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. “This is a test. This is a crossroads.”

Senate Democrats say at a briefing Tuesday they plan to ask security officials, as well as Republican leadership, about Padilla’s removal from the press conference and their protection against outside threats.

“I certainly hope to hear leadership responding in a profound way,” said New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, a Democrat.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., who said she had been informed that her name was also on the suspect’s list, said she wanted to hear recommendations at the briefing on how to improve security.

“And we can take those recommendations,” Baldwin said. “But I think, both with the president and his administration and with members of Congress, that we need to bring the temperature down. There’s no place for political violence ever. And the rhetoric — words matter.”

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he he won’t call Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after the targeted shootings of two state lawmakers because it would “waste time.”

One of the lawmakers and her husband were killed.

The Republican president spoke to reporters early Tuesday aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington after abruptly leaving an international summit in Canada because of rising tensions in the Middle East between Israel and Iran. Asked if he planned to call Walz, Trump said the Democratic governor is “slick” and “whacked out” and said, “I’m not calling him.”

Presidents often reach out to other elected officials at times of tragedy to offer condolences.

Trump added, “The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. So, you know, I could be nice and call him, but why waste time?”

Walz was the vice presidential running mate for 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who lost her presidential bid to Trump. During the campaign, Walz often branded Trump and other Republican politicians as “just weird.”