By NADIA LATHAN and SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — Texas Democrats on Thursday moved closer to ending a nearly two-week walkout that has blocked the GOP’s redrawing of U.S. House maps before the 2026 election and put them under escalating threats by Republicans back home.

The Democrats announced they will return so long as Texas Republicans end a special session and California releases its own redrawn map proposal, both of which were expected to happen Friday.

Democrats did not say what day they might return.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott still intends to push through new maps that would give the GOP five more winnable seats before next year’s midterm elections.

Texas House Democrats said in a statement that under the advice of legal counsel, they needed to return to the state to “build a strong public legislative record” for an upcoming legal battle against a new map.

“Now, as Democrats across the nation join our fight to cause these maps to fail their political purpose, we’re prepared to bring this battle back to Texas under the right conditions and to take this fight to the courts,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic leader.

Lathan reported from Austin.

By ASHRAF KHALIL, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington, D.C., police chief ordered more cooperation between her officers and federal immigration officials as President Donald Trump’s law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital took root Thursday. National Guard troops watched over some of the world’s most renowned landmarks and Humvees took up position in front of the busy main train station.

In a city tense from days of ramp-up toward federal law enforcement intervention, volunteers helped homeless people leave long-standing encampments — to where, exactly, was often unclear. The mayor, meanwhile, left town for a family commitment. And the president told reporters that he was pleased at how the operation — and, now, its direct link with his immigration-control efforts — was unfolding.

“That’s a very positive thing, I have heard that just happened,” Trump said of Police Chief Pamela Smith’s order. “That’s a great step. That’s a great step if they’re doing that.”

The police chief’s order establishes that Metropolitan Police Department officers may now share information with immigration agencies regarding people not in custody — such as someone involved in a traffic stop or checkpoint. MPD officers may also provide “transportation for federal immigration employees and detained subject,” the order states.

The changes, which raise collaboration between the two forces in notable ways, are effective immediately. Mayor Muriel Bowser, walking a tightrope between the Republican White House and the constituency of her largely Democratic city, was out of town Thursday for a family commitment in Martha’s Vineyard but would be back Friday, her office said.

A boost in police activity, federal and otherwise

For an already wary Washington, Thursday marked a notable — and highly visible — uptick in presence from the previous two days. The visibility of federal forces around the city, including in many high-traffic areas, was striking to residents going about their lives. Trump has the power to take over federal law enforcement for 30 days before his actions must be reviewed by Congress, though he has said he’ll re-evaluate as that deadline approaches.

The response before Thursday had been gradual and, by all appearances, low key. But on Wednesday night, officers set up a checkpoint in one of D.C.’s popular nightlife areas, drawing protests. The White House said 45 arrests were made Wednesday night, including 29 arrests of people living in the country illegally, including for distribution or possession of drugs, carrying a concealed weapon and assaulting a federal officer.

Troops were stationed outside the Union Station transportation hub as the 800 Guard members who have been activated by Trump start in on missions that include monument security, community safety patrols and beautification efforts, the Pentagon said.

“They will remain until law and order has been restored in the District as determined by the president, standing as the gatekeepers of our great nation’s capital,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said. “The National Guard is uniquely qualified for this mission as a community-based force with strong local ties and disciplined training.”

Wilson said the troops won’t be armed and declined to give more details on what the safety patrols or beautification efforts would entail or how many Guard members have already been sent out on the streets.

National Guard Major Micah Maxwell said troops will assist law enforcement in a variety of roles, including traffic control posts and crowd control. The Guard members have been trained in de-escalation tactics and crowd control equipment, Maxwell said.

The White House said Thursday that Guard members aren’t making arrests but are “protecting federal assets, providing a safe environment for law enforcement officers to make arrests, and deterring violent crime with a visible law enforcement presence.”

For homeless residents, an uncertain time is at hand

Meanwhile, about a dozen homeless residents in Washington packed up their belongings with help from volunteers from some city agencies. Items largely were not forcibly thrown out by law enforcement, but a garbage truck idled nearby.

Several protesters held signs close by, some critical of the Trump administration. Once the residents had left, a construction vehicle from a city agency cleared through the remains of the tents.

Advocates expected law enforcement officers to fan out across D.C. later Thursday to take down — or supervise the takedown of — any remaining homeless encampments.

For two days, small groups of federal officers have been visible in scattered parts of the city. But more were present in high-profile locations Wednesday night, and troops were expected to start doing more missions Thursday.

Agents from Homeland Security Investigations have patrolled the popular U Street corridor, while Drug Enforcement Administration officers were seen on the National Mall, with Guard members parked nearby. DEA agents also joined MPD officers on patrol in the Navy Yard neighborhood, while FBI agents stood along the heavily trafficked Massachusetts Avenue.

Associated Press journalists Jacquelyn Martin, Mike Pesoli and David Klepper contributed to this report.

By AMANDA SEITZ and KIMBERLY KINDY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge ordered the nation’s health department to stop giving deportation officials access to the personal information — including home addresses — of all 79 million Medicaid enrollees.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services first handed over the personal data on millions of Medicaid enrollees in a handful of states in June. After an Associated Press report identified the new policy, 20 states filed a lawsuit to stop its implementation.

In July, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services entered into a new agreement that gave the Department of Homeland Security daily access to view the personal data — including Social Security numbers and home address — of all the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees. Neither agreement was announced publicly.

The extraordinary disclosure of such personal health data to deportation officials in the Trump administration’s far-reaching immigration crackdown immediately prompted the lawsuit over privacy concerns.

The Medicaid data sharing is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to provide DHS with more data on migrants. In May, for example, a federal judge refused to block the Internal Revenue Service from sharing immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help agents locate and detain people living without legal status in the U.S.

The order, issued by federal Judge Vince Chhabria in California, temporarily halts the health department from sharing personal data of enrollees in those 20 states, which include California, Arizona, Washington and New York.

“Using CMS data for immigration enforcement threatens to significantly disrupt the operation of Medicaid—a program that Congress has deemed critical for the provision of health coverage to the nation’s most vulnerable residents,” Chhabria wrote in his decision, issued on Tuesday.

Chhabria, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said that the order will remain in effect until the health department outlines “reasoned decisionmaking” for its new policy of sharing data with deportation officials.

A spokesperson for the federal health department declined to directly answer whether the agency would stop sharing its data with DHS. HHS has maintained that its agreement with DHS is legal.

Immigrants who are not living in the U.S. legally, as well as some lawfully present immigrants, are not allowed to enroll in the Medicaid program that provides nearly free coverage for health services. But federal law requires all states to offer emergency Medicaid, a temporary coverage that pays only for lifesaving services in emergency rooms to anyone, including non-U.S. citizens. Medicaid is a jointly funded program between states and the federal government.

Immigration advocates have said the disclosure of personal data could cause alarm among people seeking emergency medical help for themselves or their children. Other efforts to crack down on illegal immigration have made schools, churches, courthouses and other everyday places feel perilous to immigrants and even U.S. citizens who fear getting caught up in a raid.

“Protecting people’s private health information is vitally important,” Washington state’s Attorney General Nick Brown said in a statement. “And everyone should be able to seek medical care without fear of what the federal government may do with that information.”

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and TRÂN NGUYỄN, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom is calling for a Nov. 4 special election on new U.S. House maps designed to win more Democratic seats.

His move is in response to Republican efforts to pick up five seats in Texas. Newsom released a campaign ad on social media Thursday as Democrats kicked off a press conference.

State lawmakers technically need to declare the special election and they plan to do so next week.

Democrats have not yet released their draft maps, but they aim to pick up five more seats.

The maps need voter approval. That’s because voters previously granted the power to draw maps to an independent commission instead of lawmakers.

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday refused for now to block enforcement of a Mississippi law aimed at regulating the use of social media by children, an issue of growing national concern.

The justices rejected an emergency appeal from a tech industry group representing major platforms like Facebook, X and YouTube.

NetChoice is challenging laws passed in Mississippi and other states that require social media users to verify their ages, and asked the court to keep the measure on hold while a lawsuit plays out.

There were no noted dissents from the brief, unsigned order. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that there’s a good chance NetChoice will eventually succeed in showing that the law is unconstitutional, but hadn’t shown it must be blocked while the lawsuit unfolds.

NetChoice argues that the Mississippi law threatens privacy rights and unconstitutionally restricts the free expression of users of all ages.

A federal judge agreed and prevented the 2024 law from taking effect. But a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in July that the law could be enforced while the lawsuit proceeds.

It’s the latest legal development as court challenges play out against similar laws in states across the country.

Parents and even some teenagers are growing increasingly concerned about the effects of social media use on young people. Supporters of the new laws have said they are needed to help curb the explosive use of social media among young people, and what researchers say is an associated increase in depression and anxiety.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch told the justices that age verification could help protect young people from “sexual abuse, trafficking, physical violence, sextortion and more,” activities that Fitch noted are not protected by the First Amendment.

NetChoice represents some of the country’s most high-profile technology companies, including Google, which owns YouTube; Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat; and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. NetChoice has filed similar lawsuits in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Utah.

Paul Taske, co-director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, called the decision “an unfortunate procedural delay.”

“Although we’re disappointed with the Court’s decision, Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence makes clear that NetChoice will ultimately succeed in defending the First Amendment — not just in this case but across all NetChoice’s ID-for-Speech lawsuits,” he said.

By LEANNE ITALIE, AP Lifestyles Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Orange you ready for it?

Taylor Swift swathed her bombshell album announcement in a shade she’s calling Portofino Orange Glitter after donning the color onstage during the latter part of her latest tour.

So now, will “The Life of a Showgirl” usher in the pop star’s Orange Era? On the “New Heights” podcast Wednesday night, Swift leaned toward a yes.

“I’ve just always liked it, Jason,” she said, addressing interlocutor Jason Kelce, while sitting next to boyfriend Travis Kelce. “It feels like kind of energetically how my life has felt. And this album is about what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during this tour.”

In all its glory, the color can evoke creativity, enthusiasm, energy, optimism and more. While some see a downside in the brighter hues, perceiving them as clownish or silly, orange is more often exuberant or inviting, color experts said.

The positive sentiments are precisely how Swift described the mood she wanted to capture on the album: “so exuberant and electric and vibrant.”

Here’s an exploration of the color orange, from pale peach to deep terra cotta.

Orange brings all the feels

Laurie Pressman, vice president of Pantone Color Institute, said Swift’s shifting of her color story to a bright orange feels like a “new personality coming out.”

“And she looks so happy,” Pressman said. “She’s glowing and she’s basking.” The orange hue Swift is going with is the perfect expression of positive vibes, Pressman said. The closest shade in Pantone’s vast library of color is called “Exuberance.”

“Even when you go down to the peaches, which are very pale,” she said, referencing the spectrum of orange, “there’s a deliciousness, there’s a warmth that comes with that. There’s just a softness, a tactility. There’s a sweetness to it.”

In its deeper tones, orange is also all goodness, Pressman said.

“Going all the way over to the darker terra cottas, there’s an earthiness and authenticity, but also warmth. Whereas red is about being bold and dramatic, orange is more friendliness, more approachable,” she said, noting a previous era of Swift’s.

As saffron, it can have religious connotations

The saffron shade is a different story in a contemporary context in India, said Dheepa Sundaram, who researches Hindu nationalist politics as an assistant professor of religion at the University of Denver.

In ancient Hinduism and Buddhism, she said, monks and other spiritual figures who renounce worldly life clothe themselves in saffron garb as a way to express their piety.

“Some people have speculated that it’s because saffron (the spice) was really cheap as a dye and sort of fit with the poverty roles of monks and aesthetes. Kings and royalty preferred more expensive colors like the colors of rubies and emeralds,” Sundaram said. (Nowadays, though, saffron is among the world’s most expensive spices.)

Fast forward a couple thousand years, give or take, to a right-wing policy strategy wielded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s powerful Bharatiya Janata Party that aims to implement Hindu nationalist views and embraces the saffron color as a symbol. Incendiary, anti-Muslim songs have been dubbed “saffron pop.”

“The color saffron has become their color. They have sort of positioned themselves as true Hindus, and this has become part of that schtick,” Sundaram said.

So what about that glittery Portofino orange?

Swift and Kelce frolicked last year in Lake Como, but did they also hit up Portofino and soak up some orange-hued charm in the coastal village known for its colorful buildings?

That’s unclear, which didn’t stop the mayor of Portofino and the Portofino Yacht Marina from jointly hopping on the orange Tay train for the album announcement. On Tuesday, the Italian Riviera playground for the rich and famous, via Instagram, issued the “it” couple an open invitation to visit.

“We are ready to welcome you, and we are already preparing an official Portofino Yacht Marina T-shirt for you… with a logo in perfect orange!,” read the Italian-language post. “Between sunsets on the sea, music and the magic of the main square, Portofino awaits you. And it already shines in your color.”

The luxe destination features ocher- and terra cotta-colored buildings along the port that reflect on the water, particularly during sunsets.

The gingers are ready for it!

We went directly to the source, redheads, to suss out the orange appeal.

Sara Schafer, a 40-year-old lawyer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is the ginger-haired mother of two ginger-haired daughters. All three are dedicated Swifties. Schafer also proudly owns a bright orange car.

“We’re all really excited. It’s a great day when we have Swiftie news,” she said. “I love everything orange. It’s like happy sunshine.”

Scott Walls, a hospital operations manager in Norwalk, Connecticut, is also a ginger, but he doesn’t count himself among the Swifties. He’s a huge New York Knicks fan, though. And what are the Knicks’ team colors? Bright orange and blue, often proudly worn by mega-fans like Spike Lee.

“I’ve got a ton of Knicks stuff,” said Walls, 32. “And it’s funny that growing up in Westchester (New York), I played on a basketball team that had orange and blue as the colors.”

He encountered some light teasing as an orange-haired kid growing up in small-town Pelham. “Sometimes people would make comments. I didn’t like it so I’d fight back. My brother is also a redhead and he would celebrate it more,” Walls said.

Schafer added: “You know what they say, redheads are the feistiest. We feel everything more deeply.”

Orange has a young appeal in home decor

Amy Wax, a color expert focusing on residential and commercial design, called orange a universally feel-good hue that evokes youthfulness in interior spaces.

“I’ve done dining rooms in a really, really rich rusty orange. It kind of takes the traditional red dining room and updates it. It feels more contemporary,” she said.

Swift’s stage design featured orange touches, including a projection of a mysterious orange door, confirmed by Swift on the podcast as a clue she was heading into a new era.

Orange also works for transitional spaces like hallways. “A light orange in a hallway can feel very pleasing and energetic,” Wax said.

Orange blends beautifully with browns, cream colors and other neutrals, she said.

Who can pull off wearing orange?

Natalie Tincher, founder of the BU Style consulting company and personal wardrobe stylist, said people shouldn’t fear wearing the color. There’s likely a shade out there for everyone. Swift’s own tour included lots of orange stage costumes, including the work of the late Italian designer Roberto Cavalli.

Vibrant orange will pop and softer oranges can lend harmony with softer skin tones, Tincher said: “Incorporate it into a scarf, a handbag or a trouser if you don’t want it reflecting your face.”

And what company is known for its orange luxury goods? That’s right, Hermès. The “Hermès Orange” and “Hermès Amber” are signatures of the French fashion house known for its silk scarves and pricey handbags.

On a more egalitarian level, and despite the seasonal nature of — dare we utter the words — pumpkin spice, Tincher sees orange in some shade or another as perfectly acceptable year-round.

For the bright, bold shades, consider pairing a loud orange with a lighter tone, Tincher said. Or go all in with a bright monochromatic orange look.

“And browns are very big right now as a neutral so you could do a rich brown with a bright orange,” she said. “Mom’s rules aren’t the case anymore.”

Associated Press journalist Colleen Barry contributed to this story from Milan.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and ASHRAF KHALIL

WASHINGTON (AP) — As a wary Washington waited, the White House promised a ramp-up of National Guard troops and federal officers on the streets of the nation’s capital around the clock starting Wednesday, days after President Donald Trump’s unprecedented announcement that his administration would take over the city’s police department for at least a month.

The city’s Democratic mayor and police chief framed the influx as a plus for public safety, though they said there are few hard measures for what a successful end to the operation might look like. The Republican president has said crime in the city was at emergency levels that only such federal intervention could fix even as District of Columbia leaders pointed to statistics showing violent crime at a 30-year low after a sharp rise two years ago.

For two days, small groups of federal officers have been visible in scattered areas of the city. That is about to change, the administration says.

A “significantly higher” presence of guard members was expected Wednesday night, and federal agents will be out 24/7 rather than largely at night, according to the White House. Hundreds of federal law enforcement and city police officers who patrolled the streets Tuesday night made 43 arrests, compared with about two dozen the night before.

In one neighborhood, officers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI could be seen along with the U.S. Park Police searching the car of a motorist parked just outside a legal parking area to eat takeout and drop off a friend. Two blocks away, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers gathered in a parking lot before driving off on patrol.

In other parts of the city, including those with popular nightlife hot spots, federal patrols were harder to find. At the National Mall, there was little law enforcement activity aside from Park Police cruisers pulling over a taxi driver near the Washington Monument.

Unlike in other U.S. states and cities, the law gives Trump the power to take over Washington’s police for up to 30 days. Extending his power over the city for longer would require approval from Congress, and that could be tough in the face of Democratic resistance.

A variety of infractions are targeted

The arrests made by 1,450 federal and local officers across the city included those for suspicion of driving under the influence, unlawful entry, as well as a warrant for assault with a deadly weapon, according to the White House. Seven illegal firearms were seized.

Unlike in other U.S. states and cities, the law gives Trump the power to take over Washington’s police for up to a month. Extending Trump’s power over the city for longer would require approval from Congress, and that could be tough in the face of Democratic resistance.

The president has full command of the National Guard, but as of Tuesday evening, guard members had yet to be assigned a specific mission, according to an official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. As many as 800 troops were expected to be mobilized in a support role to law enforcement, though exactly what form remains to be determined.

The push also includes clearing out encampments for people who are homeless, Trump has said. U.S. Park Police have removed dozens of tents since March, and plan to take out two more this week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said. People are offered the chance to go to shelters and get addiction treatment, if needed, but those who refuse could be fined or jailed, she said.

City officials said they are making more shelter space available and increasing their outreach.

Violent crime has dropped in the district

The federal effort comes even after a drop in violent crime in the nation’s capital, a trend that experts have seen in cities across the U.S. since an increase during the coronavirus pandemic.

On average, the level of violence Washington remains mostly higher than averages in three dozen cities analyzed by the nonprofit Council on Criminal Justice, said the group’s president and CEO, Adam Gelb.

Police Chief Pamela Smith said during an interview with the local Fox affiliate that the city’s Metro Police Department has been down nearly 800 officers. She said the increased number of federal agents on the streets would help fill that gap, at least for now.

Mayor Muriel Bowser said city officials did not get any specific goals for the surge during a meeting with Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, and other top federal law enforcement officials Tuesday. But, she said, “I think they regard it as a success to have more presence and take more guns off the street, and we do too.”

She had previously called Trump’s moves “unsettling and unprecedented” while pointing out he was within a president’s legal rights regarding the district, which is the seat of American government but is not a state.

For some residents, the increased presence of law enforcement and National Guard troops is nerve-wracking.

“I’ve seen them right here at the subway … they had my street where I live at blocked off yesterday, actually,” Washington native Sheina Taylor said. “It’s more fearful now because even though you’re a law-abiding citizen, here in D.C., you don’t know, especially because I’m African American.”

Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin and Will Weissert, photographer Jacquelyn Martin and video journalist River Zhang contributed to this report.

By MEG KINNARD, Associated Press

President Donald Trump says homeless people in the nation’s capital will be moved far from the city as part of his federal takeover of policing in the District of Columbia and crackdown on crime.

With his exact plans unclear, there is concern among advocates and others who say there are better ways to address the issue of homelessness than clearing encampments, as the Republican administration has pledged to do.

Washington’s status as a congressionally established federal district gives Trump the opportunity to push his tough-on-crime agenda, though he has not proposed solutions to the root causes of homelessness or crime.

Here’s a look at what we know and what questions remain about how Trump’s actions will affect the city’s homeless population:

How many homeless people are in Washington?

It is difficult to obtain accurate counts of homeless populations.

On one day at the end of each January, municipal agencies across the United States perform what is called a “point-in-time” count aimed at capturing the total number of people in emergency shelters, transitional housing or without any housing.

The 2025 count in the district put the total at 5,138 adults and children, a 9% decrease compared with the year before, according to Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser.

Where will the city’s homeless people be taken?

It’s not entirely clear.

Trump wrote on his social media site before Monday’s news conference announcing the takeover that “The homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”

Asked during a media briefing at the White House on Tuesday where homeless people would be relocated, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said local police and federal agencies would “enforce the laws that are already on the books,” which, she said, “have been completely ignored.”

Citing a city regulation that she said gives local police “the authority to take action when it comes to homeless encampments,” Leavitt said homeless people “will be given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services.” Those who refuse “will be susceptible to fines or to jail time.”

In the past five months, the U.S. Park Police has removed 70 homeless encampments, giving the people living in them the same options, she said. As of Tuesday, Leavitt said only two homeless encampments remained in district parks maintained by the National Park Service and would be removed this week.

What are city officials doing for the homeless?

District officials said Tuesday they were making additional shelter space available after Trump said federal agents would remove homeless people in the city.

Kevin Donahue, the city administrator, said outreach workers were visiting homeless encampments and that the city has a building available that could house as many as 200 people, if needed.

Donahue made the comments during a conversation with community advocates and Bowser. The conversation was broadcast on X.

He said the outreach would continue through the week with a “greater level of urgency.”

Bowser said that when Trump sees homeless encampments in the city it “triggers something in him that has him believing our very beautiful city is dirty, which it is not.”

What are Washington residents saying?

Washington residents emphasized reductions in crime in recent years and concerns over the removal of homeless encampments in interviews Tuesday criticizing the federal takeover of the city’s police department.

Jeraod Tyre, who has lived in the city for 15 years, said “crime has been slowing down lately” and argued that federal troops would only escalate tensions because they do not have “relationships with the people in the community” like local police do.

Sheiena Taylor, 36, said she is more fearful as a result of the presence of federal forces in the city where she was born and raised.

Taylor said she has seen federal officers around her home and on the subway and worries about their targeting of young people and people experiencing homelessness.

“Being homeless isn’t a crime,” she said, emphasizing the need for solutions to the root causes of homelessness or crime rather than policing.

What do we still not know?

It’s not exactly clear what agents specifically will be tasked with moving homeless people to areas outside the city.

There also hasn’t been detailed information about how the people will be housed or provided for in new locations.

Some advocates have raised constitutional questions about the legality of forcibly removing homeless people from the city.

Associated Press writers River Zhang, Christine Fernando, Mike Balsamo and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

By MARK KENNEDY

NEW YORK (AP) — Charlie Brown and Snoopy go to sleepaway camp in a new, bittersweet Apple TV+ special fueled by a pair of Emmy Award-nominated songwriters that’s being billed as the first “Peanuts” musical in 35 years.

“My motivation has always been to preserve and enhance my dad’s legacy,” says co-writer Craig Schulz, a son of the iconic comic strip “Peanuts” creator Charles. S. Schulz. “So it’s really an honor to get to play with these kids.”

“Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical,” which premieres Friday, features five songs — two by Jeff Morrow, Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner — and three by Ben Folds.

“If someone asked me to write for a stupid kids thing, I would find it difficult because I don’t like talking down to anyone, much less kids,” says Folds. “’Peanuts’ isn’t like that. We’re working in very rich, fertile soil.”

What’s the special about?

The special opens with the kids getting ready to catch the bus to Cloverhill Ranch camp, but Sally isn’t so sure it’s going to be great. “Honestly, big brother, I could stay home,” she says.

Sally is initially intimidated by the camp’s inside jokes and rituals, turned off by the insects, the endless climbing, no TV, cold lake water and lumpy beds.

“You wake at dawn/Like you would in jail,” she sings in the song “A Place Like This.” “The food’s not what you’d call upscale/This whole endeavor, an epic fail/And that’s being diplomatic.”

Trust “Peanuts” to explore reluctance to leave home and fear of change. Craig Schulz, who co-wrote the script with his son, Bryan, and Cornelius Uliano, channeled some of his own childhood.

“Cloverhill Ranch actually is a take-off of the one in Santa Rosa called Cloverleaf that I went to as a child and hated. I bailed out after a week and went home,” he says. “So many connections in the film kind of date back to my childhood that we weaved into the film.”

While Sally warms to camp, Snoopy discovers what he thinks is a treasure map that will transform him into a wealthy pooch, one who will lay on top of a gold dog house. And Charlie Brown learns that this summer will be the last for his beloved but struggling camp — unless he does something.

“I guess your generation would rather sit in front of the television than sit under the stars,” he tells Sally. “We have to protect these kinds of places because once they’re gone, they’re gone forever.”

A concert to save the camp

Charlie Brown comes up with the idea to invite generations of camp-goers back for a fundraising concert, but the skies darken on the big day, threatening to cancel the event and sending him into a “Good grief” spiral.

“Charlie Brown is different in this special,” says director Erik Wiese. “He’s really happy. He loves this place. And so that’s why when we get to that scene it’s so effective because he returned back to the zero we sort of know him traditionally.”

Folds supplies the lovely, last three songs — “When We Were Light,” “Look Up, Charlie Brown” and “Leave It Better” — and credits his songwriting collaborators for setting the stage.

“I entered when those first two songs existed, and I get to just sort of step in at the point where things get really complex and melancholic,” he says.

Folds has had a flirtation with musical theater before, having written the “Peanuts” Earth Day song “It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown” in 2022 and a few songs for the movie “Over the Hedge” in 2006.

“People can easily confuse a song that sounds like musical theater with a song that should be musical theater,” he says. “Really what the value of the song is that it obviates the need for a good five to 10 pages of script.”

This October marks the 75th anniversary of “Peanuts,” and the musical arrives with a boatload of branding, from tote bags by Coach to shoes by Crocs and Starbucks mugs.

Craig Schulz is already at work on a second animated musical with his son, having long ago fallen in love with the family business.

“I used to always wonder how in the world my dad could go to the office every day for 50 years and write a comic strip every day,” he says, comparing it to the “I Love Lucy” episode with Lucy trying to keep up with a chocolate conveyor belt.

“Then I came to realize that he had his family of five kids, but I really think he enjoyed going to the studio and working with the ‘Peanuts’ characters even more so than his real family. He got to go in there and embrace them, draw them, make him happy, sad, whatever. It was a world that I don’t think he could ever leave.”

By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN

NEW YORK (AP) — After a summer of vacations and late nights, it’s time to set those back-to-school alarms.

A good night’s sleep helps students stay focused and attentive in class. Experts say it’s worth easing kids back into a routine with the start of a new school year.

“We don’t say ‘ get good sleep ’ just because,” said pediatrician Dr. Gabrina Dixon with Children’s National Hospital. “It really helps kids learn and it helps them function throughout the day.”

The amount of sleep kids need changes as they age. Preschoolers should get up to 13 hours of sleep. Tweens need between nine and 12 hours. Teenagers do best with eight to 10 hours of shut-eye.

Set an earlier bedtime

Early bedtimes can slip through the cracks over the summer as kids stay up for sleepovers, movie marathons and long plane flights. To get back on track, experts recommend setting earlier bedtimes a week or two before the first day of school or gradually going to bed 15 to 30 minutes earlier each night.

Don’t eat a heavy meal before bed and avoid TV or screen time two hours before sleep. Instead, work in relaxing activities to slow down like showering and reading a story.

“You’re trying to take the cognitive load off your mind,” said Dr. Nitun Verma, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “It would be like if you’re driving, you’re slowly letting go of the gas pedal.”

Parents can adjust their back-to-school plans based on what works best for their child. Nikkya Hargrove moves her twin daughters’ bedtimes up by 30 minutes the week before school starts.

Sometimes, her 10-year-olds will negotiate for a few extra minutes to stay up and read. Hargrove said those conversations are important as her children get older and advocate for themselves. If they stay up too late and don’t have the best morning, Hargrove said that can be a learning experience too.

“If they’re groggy and they don’t like how they feel, then they know, ‘OK, I have to go to bed earlier,’” said Hargrove, an author and independent bookstore owner from Connecticut.

In the morning, soaking in some daylight by sitting at a window or going outside can help train the brain to power up, Verma said.

Squash back-to-school sleep anxiety

Sleep quality matters just as much as duration. First-day jitters can make it hard to fall asleep no matter how early the bedtime.

Dixon says parents can talk to their kids to find out what is making them anxious. Is it the first day at a new school? Is it a fear of making new friends? Then they might try a test run of stressful activities before school starts to make those tasks feel less scary — for example, by visiting the school or meeting classmates at an open house.

The weeks leading up can be jam-packed and it’s not always possible to prep a routine in advance. But kids will adjust eventually so sleep experts say parents should do what they can. After all, their kids aren’t the only ones adjusting to a new routine.

“I always say, ‘Take a deep breath, it’ll be OK,’” Dixon said. “And just start that schedule.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO

NEW YORK (AP) — Feeling nostalgic for the days when going back to school meant picking out fresh notebooks, pencils and colored markers at a local drugstore or stationary shop? The annual retail ritual is both easier and more complicated for today’s students.

Chains like Walmart generate online lists of school supplies for customers who type in their zip codes, then choose a school and a grade level. One click and they are ready to check out. Some schools also offer busy parents a one-stop shop by partnering with vendors that sell premade kits with binders, index cards, pens and other needed items.

Yet for all the time-saving options, many families begin their back-to-school shopping months before Labor Day, searching around for the best deals and making purchases tied to summer sales. This year, the possibility of price increases from new U.S. tariffs on imports motivated more shoppers to get a jump start on replacing and refilling school backpacks, according to retail analysts.

Retail and technology consulting company Coresight Research estimates that back-to-school spending from June through August will reach $33.3 billion in the U.S., a 3.3% increase from the same three-month period a year ago. The company predicted families would complete about 60% of their shopping before August to avoid extra costs from tariffs.

“Consumers are of the mindset where they’re being very strategic and conscientious around price fluctuations, so for back to school, it prompts them to shop even earlier,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, the research division of software company Adobe Inc.

Getting a head start

Miami resident Jacqueline Agudelo, 39, was one of the early birds who started shopping for school supplies in June because she wanted to get ahead of possible price increases from new U.S. tariffs on imported products.

The teacher’s supply list for her 5-year-old son, who started kindergarten earlier this month, mandated specific classroom items in big quantities. Agudelo said her shopping list included 15 boxes of Crayola crayons, Lysol wipes and five boxes of Ticonderoga brand pencils, all sharpened.

Agudelo said she spent $160 after finding plenty of bargains online and in stores, including the crayons at half off, but found the experience stressful.

“I am overwhelmed by the need to stay on top of where the deals are as shopping has become more expensive over the years,” she said.

A lot of the backpacks, lined paper, glue sticks — and Ticonderoga pencils — sold in the U.S. are made in China, whose products were subjected to a 145% tariff in the spring. Under the latest agreement between the countries, Chinese goods are taxed at a 30% rate when they enter the U.S.

Many companies accelerated shipments from China early in the year, stockpiling inventory at pre-tariff prices. Some predicted consumers would encounter higher prices just in time for the back-to-school shopping season. Although government data showed consumer prices rose 2.7% last month from a year earlier, strategic discounting by major retailers may have muted any sticker shock for customers seeking school supplies.

Backpacks and lunchboxes, for example, had discounts as deep as 12.1% during Amazon’s Prime Day sales and competing online sales at Target and Walmart in early July, Adobe Insights said.

Throughout the summer, some of the biggest chains have are advertising selective price freezes to hold onto customers.

Walmart is advertising a 14-item school supplies deal that costs $16, the lowest price in six years, company spokesperson Leigh Stidham said. Target said in June that it would maintain its 2024 prices on 20 key back-to-school items that together cost less than $20.

An analysis consumer data provider Numerator prepared for The Associated Press showed the retail cost of 48 products a family with two school age children might need — two lunchboxes, two scientific calculators, a pair of boy’s shoes — averaged $272 in July, or $3 less than the same month last year.

Digital natives in the classroom

Numerator, which tracks U.S. retail prices through sales receipts, online account activity and other information from 200,000 shoppers, reported last year that households were buying fewer notebooks, book covers, writing instruments and other familiar staples as students did more of their work on computers.

The transition does not mean students no longer have to stock up on plastic folders, highlighters and erasers, or that parents are spending less to equip their children for class. Accounting and consulting firm Deloitte estimates that traditional school supplies will account for more than $7 billion of the $31 billion it expects U.S. parents to put toward back-to-school shopping.

Shopping habits also are evolving. TeacherLists, an online platform where individual schools and teachers can upload their recommended supply lists and parents can search for them, was launched in 2012 to reduce the need for paper lists. It now has more than 2 million lists from 70,000 schools.

Users have the option of clicking on an icon that populates an online shopping cart at participating retail chains. Some retailers also license the data for use on their websites and in their stores, said Dyanne Griffin, the architect and vice president of TeacherLists.

The typical number of items teacher request has remained fairly steady at around 17 since the end of the coronavirus pandemic, Griffin said. “The new items that had come on the list, you know, in the last four or five years are more the tech side. Everybody needs headphones or earbuds, that type of thing, maybe a mouse,” she said.

She’s also noticed a lot of schools requiring clear backpacks and pencil pouches so the gear can’t be used to stow guns.

Enter artificial intelligence

For consumers who like to research their options before they buy, technology and retail companies have introduced generative AI tools to help them find and compare products. Rufus, the AI-powered shopping assistant that Amazon launched last year, is now joined by Sparky, an app-only feature that Walmart shoppers can use to get age-specific product recommendations and other information in response to their questions.

Just over a quarter of U.S. adults say they use AI for shopping, which is considerably lower than the number who say they use AI for tasks such as searching for information or brainstorming, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in July.

Some traditions remain

Before the pandemic turned a lot more people into online shoppers, schools and local Parent Teacher Associations embraced the idea of making back-to-school shopping easier by ordering ready-made bundles of teacher-recommended supplies. An extra fee on the price helped raise money for the school.

Market data from Edukit, a supplier of school supply kits owned by TeachersList parent company School Family Media, shows that about 40% of parents end up buying the boxes, meaning the other 60% need to shop on their own, Griffin said. She noted that parents typically must commit no later than June to secure a bundle, which focus on essentials like notebooks and crayons.

Agudelo said her son’s school offered a box for $190 that focused on basics like crayons and notebooks but didn’t include a backpack. She decided to pass and shop around for the best prices. She also liked bringing her son along for the shopping trips.

“There’s that sense of getting him mentally prepared for the school year,” Agudelo said. “The box takes away from that.”

By MARK THIESSEN and GENE JOHNSON

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — When U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday, it will be the latest chapter in the 49th state’s long history with Russia — and with international tensions.

Siberian fur traders arrived from across the Bering Sea in the first part of the 18th century, and the imprint of Russian settlement in Alaska remains. The oldest building in Anchorage is a Russian Orthodox church, and many Alaska Natives have Russian surnames.

The nations are so close — Alaska’s Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait is less than 3 miles from Russia’s Big Diomede — that former Gov. Sarah Palin was right during the 2008 presidential race when she said, “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska,” though the comment prompted jokes that that was the extent of her foreign policy experience.

Alaska has been U.S. territory since 1867, and it has since been the location of the only World War II battle on North American soil, a focus of Cold War tensions and the site of occasional meetings between U.S. and world leaders.

Here’s a look at Alaska’s history with Russia and on the international stage:

Russian trappers and Seward’s Folly

The fur traders established hubs in Sitka and on Kodiak Island. The Russian population in Alaska never surpassed about 400 permanent settlers, according to the Office of the Historian of the U.S. State Department.

Russian settlers brutally coerced Alaska Natives to harvest sea otters and other marine mammals for their pelts, said Ian Hartman, a University of Alaska Anchorage history professor.

“It was a relationship that the Russians made clear quite early on was not really about kind of a longer-term pattern of settlement, but it was much more about a short-term pattern of extraction,” Hartman said.

Meanwhile, Russian Orthodox missionaries baptized an estimated 18,000 Alaska Natives.

By 1867 the otters had been hunted nearly to extinction and Russia was broke from the Crimean War. Czar Alexander II sold Alaska to the U.S. for the low price of $7.2 million — knowing Russia couldn’t defend its interests in Alaska if the U.S. or Great Britain tried to seize it.

Skeptics referred to the purchase as “Seward’s Folly,” after U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward. That changed when gold was discovered in the Klondike in 1896.

World War II and the Cold War

The U.S. realized Alaska’s strategic importance in the 20th century. During World War II the island of Attu — the westernmost in the Aleutian chain and closer to Russia than to mainland North America — was captured by Japanese forces. The effort to reclaim it in 1943 became known as the war’s “forgotten battle.”

During the Cold War, military leaders worried Soviets might attack via Alaska, flying planes over the North Pole to drop nuclear weapons. They built a chain of radar systems connected to an anti-aircraft missile system.

Friday’s summit will be at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage. The base was crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and it still hosts key aircraft squadrons that intercept Russian aircraft when they fly into U.S. airspace.

The military constructed much of the infrastructure in Alaska, including roads and some communities, and its experience building on permafrost later informed the private companies that would drill for oil and construct the trans-Alaska pipeline.

Last year the Pentagon said the U.S. must invest more to upgrade sensors, communications and space-based technologies in the Arctic to keep pace with China and Russia, and it sent about 130 soldiers to a desolate Aleutian island amid an increase in Russian military planes and vessels approaching U.S. territory.

Past visits by dignitaries

Putin will be the first Russian leader to visit, but other prominent figures have come before him.

Japanese Emperor Hirohito stopped in Anchorage before heading to Europe in 1971 to meet President Richard Nixon, and in 1984 thousands turned out to see President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II meet at the airport in Fairbanks.

President Barack Obama visited in 2015, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to set foot north of the Arctic Circle, on a trip to highlight the dangers of climate change.

Gov. Bill Walker welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping at the airport in Anchorage in 2017 and then took him on a short tour of the state’s largest city.

Four years later Anchorage was the setting for a less cordial meeting as top U.S. and Chinese officials held two days of contentious talks in their first face-to-face meeting since President Joe Biden took office two months earlier.

Critics say Alaska is a poor choice for the summit

Sentiment toward Russia in Alaska has cooled since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. The Anchorage Assembly voted unanimously to suspend its three-decade-long sister city relationship with Magadan, Russia, and the Juneau Assembly sent its sister city of Vladivostok a letter expressing concern.

The group Stand Up Alaska has organized rallies against Putin on Thursday and Friday.

Dimitry Shein, who ran unsuccessfully for Alaska’s lone seat in the U.S. House in 2018, fled from the Soviet Union to Anchorage with his mother in the early 1990s.

Russia and the U.S. “are just starting to look more and more alike,” he said.

Many observers have suggested that holding the summit in Alaska sends a bad symbolic message.

“It’s easy to imagine Putin making the argument during his meetings with Trump that, ‘Well, look, territories can change hands,’” said Nigel Gould-Davies, former British Ambassador to Belarus and senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. “’We gave you Alaska. Why can’t Ukraine give us a part of its territory?’”

The story has been updated to correct the spelling of Vladivostok.

Johnson reported from Seattle. Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit and Emma Burrows in London contributed.

By CALEIGH WELLS

CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio (AP) — A significant share of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions comes from heating, cooling and powering homes — about 15%, according to one estimate by the Environmental Protection Agency. So if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, the home is an effective place to start.

There are so many factors involved in a household’s energy consumption, including whether you have gas or electric heat and how you use your kitchen appliances, washer and dryer. It’s often overwhelming to figure out where to begin.

That’s why experts recommend a home energy assessment conducted by a professional. The room-by-room examinations help homeowners determine energy use, discover inefficiencies and create a plan to reduce both. In addition to helping the environment, improving efficiency saves money over the long term.

The assessments typically last several hours and cost anywhere from $100 to more than $1,000. Until the end of the year, the Inflation Reduction Act, a major U.S. climate law passed in 2022, helps cover the cost. Congress recently rescinded many of those benefits, which will be phased out.

I’m a climate reporter, so I’ve written about responsible energy use more than a few times. But in May, after years of apartment-dwelling, I moved into the first home I’ve ever owned.

So, I signed up for a home energy assessment.

My home, outside of Cleveland, is more than 100 years old. When I blast the air conditioning, it’s still hot and humid upstairs. I can hear birds chirping outside no matter how hard I shut the windows. And there’s a giant pipe in my basement held together by duct tape and prayers.

My assessment delivered pretty bad news. But with it came with lots of room for improvement. Here’s how the day unfolded:

The HVAC tests

Tim Portman, owner of the HVAC company Portman Mechanical in northeast Ohio, started with an hourlong interview about my goals of having a more comfortable and climate-friendly house. Then he headed into the basement to test my furnace, air conditioner and water heater.

The water heater pressure was normal, so Portman said there was no major risk of a water burst. However, the pressure in both the furnace and air conditioner was too high.

Which reveals my first problem: They are too big for the duct work. That’s inefficient, and it wears on the equipment. Making matters worse, Portman noticed a bunch of unnecessary turns in the ducts.

He equated it to having great water pressure in a kinked garden hose.

“If you don’t get the kink out of that garden hose, you’re never going to have a good experience,” he said.

The highlight of my basement woes was a giant pipe that feeds heating and cooling to the rest of the house. It just … wasn’t connected. It was jammed together like two straws without a junction. It bugged him enough that he paused to fix it.

And who am I to stop him?

The blower door

After the basement, Portman assembled a contraption called a blower door. He jammed a bunch of airtight plastic in my front doorway, shoved a big fan through the middle and turned it on so that it was blowing air out of my house.

“It literally sets up a vacuum in the house. So anywhere where there are leaks, you can see where those leaks are,” he said.

Seconds later, my home got hot and musty as the fan pulled outdoor air through all the leaky seams. Portman guessed the primary culprit immediately. I followed him upstairs into what felt like a sauna near the opening to the attic.

“You literally have hot, humid air — and your attic’s warmer than outside — just pouring into the second floor,” Portman said.

The blower door measures how many cubic feet of air flow through per minute. In a well-sealed house, the number should be less than or equal to the square footage. In my 1,500 square-foot (139-square-meter) house, the blower door number was 4,500. Three times as leaky as it should be.

Portman called it a worst-case scenario.

“It’s like driving your car around with the AC on and the windows rolled down,” he said.

The thermal camera

Next, Portman grabbed a thermal camera. The goal, since it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) outside, was to see if leaks would show up as hot spots on the camera.

There were a lot. On the screen, yellow revealed a hot spot. The coolest spaces were dark blue. The leaky door frame around the attic lit up bright yellow.

“Do you think that’s a problem?” Portman joked.

“Oops,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Oops is the right answer.”

There were a few unsurprising finds, including a leaky bathroom fan and gaps around the hundred-year-old windows. Downstairs we also found major gaps in the living room’s exposed beams.

Thermal images proved Portman’s theory that my walls were not insulated. That’s because my house still has some knob and tube wiring, a system of ceramic supports and porcelain-wrapped wires that’s a relic of the early 20th century. Because of how it heats up, only certain insulation can be used with it. It can also be very expensive to remove.

In the basement, the camera revealed major gaps next to pipes and some other just … random holes. They were maybe where wiring used to be, or just hollow spots in the old wooden framing. But the air seepage was strong enough to make the cobwebs flutter frantically, as if reflecting my dread discovering them.

The verdict

After his review, Portman’s first recommendation was to call an electrician about the old wiring.

“Getting knob and tube out of your house opens the door to have insulation in your walls,” he said.

Once that’s addressed, Portman said I need to upgrade my electrical panel to support an eventual switch to a heat pump and an electric water heater, though those appliances don’t fit my budget this year.

One electrician I spoke to by phone guessed it would cost $30,000 to remove the old wiring. But another said as long as he inspects the wiring and doesn’t find any dangerous modifications, I could leave it and replace the panel for roughly $3,000.

I went with the second guy.

Through the end of 2025, federal tax credits will help subsidize weatherization upgrades, including insulation, windows, doors and electrical panels.

In the meantime, my husband and I have a different homework assignment: use a caulk gun and spray foam to plug the holes that we found on the thermal camera.

Between July heat waves and January cold snaps, sealing a house in the Cleveland area isn’t just good for the planet. It’s a good investment.

“You could potentially cut your bills in half. Potentially even more,” he said.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental 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.

Today is Saturday, Aug. 9, the 221st day of 2025. There are 144 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Aug. 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, a U.S. B-29 Superfortress dropped a nuclear device over Nagasaki; the bombing and subsequent radiation poisoning killed an estimated 74,000 people.

Also on this date:

In 1173, construction began on the campanile of Pisa Cathedral—better known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

In 1854, Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” which described Thoreau’s experiences while living near Walden Pond in Massachusetts, was first published.

In 1936, Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the Berlin Olympics as the United States took first place in the 400-meter relay.

In 1969, actor Sharon Tate and four other people were found murdered at Tate’s Los Angeles home; cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his followers were later convicted of the crime.

In 1974, Gerald Ford took the oath of office to become US president after Richard Nixon’s resignation; in a speech following, Ford declared that “our long national nightmare is over.”

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan nominated Lauro Cavazos to be secretary of education; Cavazos became the first Hispanic to serve in the Cabinet.

In 2014, Michael Brown Jr., a Black 18-year-old, was shot to death by a police officer following an altercation in Ferguson, Missouri; Brown’s death led to sometimes-violent protests in Ferguson and other U.S. cities, helping fuel a national “Black Lives Matter” movement.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Basketball Hall of Famer Bob Cousy is 97.
• Tennis Hall of Famer Rod Laver is 87.
• Jazz musician Jack DeJohnette is 83.
• Comedian-director David Steinberg is 83.
• Actor Sam Elliott is 81.
• Singer Barbara Mason is 78.
• College Football Hall of Famer and former NFL player John Cappelletti is 73.
• College Football Hall of Famer and former NFL player Doug Williams is 70.
• Actor Melanie Griffith is 68.
• Actor Amanda Bearse is 67.
• Rapper Kurtis Blow is 66.
• Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas is 65.
• Hockey Hall of Famer Brett Hull is 61.
• TV host Hoda Kotb (KAHT’-bee) is 61.
• Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders is 58.
• Actor Gillian Anderson is 57.
• Actor Eric Bana is 57.
• Producer-director McG (aka Joseph McGinty Nichol) is 57.
• NHL player-turned-coach Rod Brind’Amour is 55.
• Actor Thomas Lennon is 55.
• Actor Nikki Schieler Ziering is 54.
• Latin rock singer Juanes is 53.
• Actor Liz Vassey is 53.
• Actor Kevin McKidd is 52.
• Actor Jessica Capshaw is 49.
• Actor Ashley Johnson is 42.
• Actor Anna Kendrick is 40.

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California Democrats’ rush to schedule an emergency election to remake U.S. House districts and counter rival moves by Texas Republicans has created a dilemma for county officials who are being urged to plan for an election that hasn’t been scheduled and might never happen.

Orchestrating an election in a state of nearly 23 million registered voters across 58 counties is a time-consuming and costly endeavor under any circumstances, but Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic-dominated Legislature already have blown past deadlines intended to give local officials adequate time for organizing everything from printing mail ballots in multiple languages to lining up staff and securing locations for in-person voting.

Democrats are considering new political maps that could slash five Republican-held House seats in the liberal-leaning state while bolstering Democratic incumbents in other battleground districts. If Democrats succeed, that could leave Republicans with four House seats in the state among 52 overall.

Those revised maps could be formally unveiled as soon as next week, in advance of a Nov. 4 election.

The office of the state’s chief elections overseer, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, met Monday with local election officials to discuss planning for the pending election. Though an election has not been called, “staff around the state need to begin preparing for the possibility of a special election,” Weber spokesperson Jim Patrick said in an email.

Meanwhile, it’s not known if the state will cover the cost of the potential November election or if counties — many cash-strapped — will be saddled with the bill. A 2021 special election in which Newsom beat back a recall attempt cost over $200 million to conduct.

“We are going to be under some tight time pressures,” said Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page, whose office is rapidly planning for the proposed election.

“We really can’t lose all or most of August by waiting” for the Legislature and the governor to act, Page added. “It’s a risk I have to take.”

Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan, who oversees elections in the county of nearly 10 million people, warned that “without upfront state funding and a clearly defined calendar, counties can face challenges meeting the demands of an election.”

“Ensuring voters are served accurately, securely, and equitably must remain the top priority, and that takes preparation,” Logan added in a statement.

Texas and California — the two most populous U.S. states — are the leading actors in a back-and-forth push to remake the balance of power in the U.S. House, kicked off when President Donald Trump called for Texas to redraw district lines with the GOP’s fragile House majority imperiled in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.

The party that controls the White House is typically punished by voters in midterm elections.

“We are entitled to five more seats” in Texas, Trump insisted Tuesday in a CNBC interview. He pointed to California’s existing maps, which are drawn by an independent commission unlike the Texas maps crafted by a partisan legislature: “They did it to us.”

Other states — including New York, Florida and Indiana — could get into the power struggle that’s emerging as a national proxy war for control of Congress.

Newsom has said he would only move forward with the election if Texas succeeds in recasting its own House maps. The Texas push is on hold, after Democrats fled the state to prevent a legislative vote on the Republican redistricting plan.

In an online post, Page wrote that state rules require the governor to issue a proclamation calling a statewide election at least 148 days before the date of the election — that would have been June 9. As part of any action, the Legislature would have to waive that requirement this year.

He warned of a possible enforcement action by the U.S. Justice Department if ballots for members of the U.S. Military and overseas voters are not issued by Sept. 20.

Page said if he waited for the Legislature and the governor to formally call the election, “it would be too late for me to actually conduct the election.”

If it goes through, “We are going to make this work,” Page added.

By DASHA LITVINOVA

Bilateral meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterparts were a regular occurrence early in his tenure.

But as tensions mounted between Moscow and the West following the illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and allegations of meddling with the 2016 U.S. elections, those became increasingly less frequent, and their tone appeared less friendly.

Here’s what to know about past meetings between Russian and U.S. presidents:

Putin and Joe Biden

Putin and Joe Biden met only once while holding the presidency –- in Geneva in June 2021.

Russia was amassing troops on the border with Ukraine, where large swaths of land in the east had long been occupied by Moscow-backed forces; Washington repeatedly accused Russia of cyberattacks. The Kremlin was intensifying its domestic crackdown on dissent, jailing opposition leader Alexei Navalny months earlier and harshly suppressing protests demanding his release.

Putin and Biden talked for three hours, but no breakthroughs came out of the meeting. The two exchanged expressions of mutual respect, but firmly restated their starkly different views on all of the above.

They spoke again via videoconference in December 2021 as tensions heightened over Ukraine. Biden threatened sanctions if Russia invaded Ukraine, and Putin demanded guarantees that Kyiv wouldn’t join NATO –- something Washington and its allies said was a nonstarter.

Another phone call between the two came in February 2022, less than two weeks before the full-scale invasion. Then the high-level contacts stopped cold, with no publicly disclosed conversations between Putin and Biden since the invasion.

Putin and Donald Trump

Putin met Trump met six times during the American’s first term -– at and on the sidelines of G20 and APEC gatherings — but most famously in Helsinki in July 2018. That’s where Trump stood next to Putin and appeared to accept his insistence that Moscow had not interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and openly questioned the firm finding by his own intelligence agencies.

His remarks were a stark illustration of Trump’s willingness to upend decades of U.S. foreign policy and rattle Western allies in service of his political concerns.

“I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said. “He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Putin and Barack Obama

U.S. President Barack Obama met with Putin nine times, and there were 12 more meetings with Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president in 2008-12. Putin became prime minister in a move that allowed him to reset Russia’s presidential term limits and run again in 2012.

Obama traveled to Russia twice — once to meet Medvedev in 2009 and again for a G20 summit 2013. Medvedev and Putin also traveled to the U.S.

Under Medvedev, Moscow and Washington talked of “resetting” Russia-U.S. relations post-Cold War and worked on arms control treaties. U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton famously presented a big “reset” button to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting in 2009. One problem: instead of “reset” in Russian, they used another word meaning “overload.”

After Putin returned to office in 2012, tensions rose between the two countries. The Kremlin accused the West of interfering with Russian domestic affairs, saying it fomented anti-government protests that rocked Moscow just as Putin sought reelection. The authorities cracked down on dissent and civil society, drawing international condemnation.

Obama canceled his visit to Moscow in 2013 after Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower.

In 2014, the Kremlin illegally annexed Crimea and threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies responded with crippling sanctions. Relations plummeted to the lowest point since the Cold War.

The Kremlin’s 2015 military intervention in Syria to prop up Bashar Assad further complicated ties. Putin and Obama last met in China in September 2016, on the sidelines of a G20 summit, and held talks focused on Ukraine and Syria.

Putin and George W. Bush

Putin and George W. Bush met 28 times during Bush’s two terms. They hosted each other for talks and informal meetings in Russia and the U.S., met regularly on the sidelines of international summits and forums, and boasted of improving ties between onetime rivals.

After the first meeting with Putin in 2001, Bush said he “looked the man in the eye” and “found him very straightforward and trustworthy,” getting “a sense of his soul.”

In 2002, they signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty -– a nuclear arms pact that significantly reduced both countries’ strategic nuclear warhead arsenal.

Putin was the first world leader to call Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attack, offering his condolences and support, and welcomed the U.S. military deployment on the territory of Moscow’s Central Asian allies for action in Afghanistan.

He has called Bush “a decent person and a good friend,” adding that good relations with him helped find a way out of “the most acute and conflict situations.”

Associated Press writer Yuras Karmanau contributed.

By CHEYANNE MUMPHREY

A big increase in the tax on university endowments is adding to financial uncertainty for the wealthiest colleges in the U.S., leading several already to lay off staff or implement hiring freezes.

Spending more endowment money on taxes could also lead colleges to reduce financial aid, cutting off access to elite institutions for lower-income students, colleges and industry experts have warned. President Donald Trump signed the tax increase into law last month as part of his signature spending bill.

The new tax rates take effect in 2026, but colleges such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford already are citing the tax as one of many reasons for making cuts across their universities. Each will be on the hook to pay hundreds of millions more in taxes, while also navigating reductions in research grants and other threats to funding by the Trump administration.

A tax on college endowments was introduced during Trump’s first administration, collecting 1.4% of wealthy universities’ investment earnings. The law signed by Trump last month creates a new tiered system that taxes the richest schools at the highest rates.

The new tax will charge an 8% rate at schools with $2 million or more in assets for each enrolled student. Schools with $750,000 to $2 million will be charged 4%, and schools with $500,000 to $750,000 will continue to be charged the 1.4% rate.

The tax applies only to private colleges and universities with at least 3,000 students, up from the previous cutoff of 500 students.

“The tax now will really solely apply to private research universities,” said Steven Bloom, assistant vice president of government relations for the American Council on Education. “It’s going to mean that these schools are going to have to spend more money under the tax, taking it away from what they primarily use their endowment assets for — financial aid.”

This small group of wealthy colleges faces a tax increase

The law will increase the endowment tax for about a dozen universities, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are expected to pay the 8% rate next year. The schools facing the 4% rate include Notre Dame, Dartmouth College, Rice University, University of Pennsylvania, Washington University in St. Louis and Vanderbilt University.

Some universities are on the edge of the law’s parameters. Both Duke and Emory, for instance, were shy of the $750,000-per-student endowment threshold based on last fiscal year.

Endowments are made up of donations to the college, which are invested to maintain the money over time. Colleges often spend about 5% of their investment earnings every year to put toward their budgets. Much of it goes toward scholarships for students, along with costs such as research or endowed faculty positions.

Despite the colleges’ wealth, the tax will drastically impact their budgets, said Phillip Levine, an economist and professor at Wellesley College.

“They’re looking for savings wherever possible,” Levine said, which could impact financial aid. “One of the most important things they do with their endowment is lower the cost of education for lower- and middle-income students. The institutions paying the highest tax are also the ones charging these students the least amount of money to attend.”

For example, at Rice University in Houston, officials anticipate the college will need to pay $6.4 million more in taxes. That equates to more than 100 student financial aid packages, the university said, but Rice officials will explore all other options to avoid cutting that support.

How colleges are adjusting to financial pressures

In the meantime, some universities are going forward with staff cuts.

Yale University says it will have to pay an estimated $280 million in total endowment taxes, citing the tax in a campus message implementing a hiring freeze. Stanford University announced plans to reduce its operating budget by $140 million this upcoming school year, which included 363 layoffs and an ongoing hiring freeze. The university spent months trying to determine where to reduce its budget, but said it would continue to support undergraduate financial aid and funding for Ph.D. students.

Research universities are under increasing financial pressure from reductions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies.

No university knows this pressure better than Harvard, the country’s wealthiest college. Its $53 billion endowment puts it at the top of the list for the new tax, but it’s also seeing massive portions of research funding under threat in its ongoing battle with the White House.

The federal government has frozen $2.6 billion in Harvard’s research grants in connection with civil rights investigations focused on antisemitism and Harvard’s efforts to promote diversity on campus. But the impact of other administration policies on the university could approach $1 billion annually, Harvard said in a statement.

“It’s not like Harvard is going to go from one of the best institutions in the world to just a mediocre institution. That’s probably not going to happen,” Levine said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a bad thing — that there won’t be pain and that students won’t suffer.”

Mumphrey reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writer Sharon Lurye in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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 JIM VERTUNO and NADIA LATHAN

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Republicans on Friday warned they would escalate efforts to end a nearly weeklong holdout by Democrats if they don’t return to vote on new congressional voting maps sought by President Donald Trump in a widening battle over redistricting across the U.S.

The dozens of Texas House Democrats who left the state on Aug. 3 have shown no signs of buckling for now: A group of them was headed to California to meet with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who wants to redraw his own state’s lines in retaliation if Texas puts in place redrawn maps for the 2026 midterm elections.

Texas has been the epicenter of Trump’s push to gerrymander congressional maps to shore up Republicans’ narrow House majority before next year. The Texas House of Representatives was set to convene again Friday, and GOP leaders warned they would ratchet up pressure if the holdout continued, including expanding efforts to try to remove Democratic lawmakers from office.

“We have an agenda to pass priorities critical to Texans, and we will get it done. I’ll call special session after special session—no matter how long it takes—until the job is finished,” Abbott posted Friday on the social platform X.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has pledged legal action to try to get the missing Democrats removed from office if they do not return to the House chamber. State Rep. Gene Wu, the chairman of the state House Democratic Caucus faced a Friday deadline to respond to a similar effort filed by Gov. Greg Abbott with the state Supreme Court.

Abbott has threatened to keep calling state lawmakers into special sessions until outnumbered Democrats return to face the redistricting vote, telling them they can’t stay away forever. The current special session ends Aug. 19, and the missing lawmakers already face mounting fines for every day they are gone, and civil arrest warrants issued by the state House.

Friday will mark the third time the 150-member state House has tried to convene since Democrats left the state. The state constitution requires at least 100 members present for the House to do business, and Republicans hold an 88-62 majority in the chamber.

Trump wants five more seats out of Texas to potentially avoid a repeat of the 2018 midterms, when Democrats reclaimed the House and proceeded to thwart his agenda and impeach him twice.

While their minority status allows them only to delay, the Texas holdout has inspired Democrats and progressives around the country.

Newsom wants Democratic gerrymandering in California if Texas proceeds, though voters would have to bypass an independent redistricting commission. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both of whom have appeared alongside Texas Democrats who relocated to their states, have also declared their intent to push new maps if they are necessary to neutralize Republican maneuvers.

The dynamics could embroil the 2026 midterm campaign in legislative and court battles testing Trump’s power over the Republican Party, Democrats’ ability to mount opposition and the durability of the U.S. system of federalism that balances power between Washington and individual states.

Lathan 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.

By JAIMIE DING, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A fast-growing brush fire has forced thousands of people to evacuate in a mountainous area north of Los Angeles.

The Canyon Fire ignited Thursday afternoon and grew to more than 7.6 square miles by 11 p.m., according to the Ventura County Fire Department. At least 400 personnel were battling the blaze along with several planes and helicopters. It remained uncontained late Thursday and was spreading east into Los Angeles County, officials said.

The fire is burning just south of Lake Piru, a reservoir located in the Los Padres National Forest. It’s close by Lake Castaic, a popular recreation area burned by the Hughes Fire in January. That fire burned about 15 square miles in six hours and put 50,000 people under evacuation orders or warnings.

Sunny, hot and dry conditions were expected in the area where the Canyon Fire was burning on Friday, with the daytime high near 100 degrees Fahrenheit  and minimum humidity in the mid-teens, according to the National Weather Service. Winds were expected to be light in the morning and grow from the south to southwest in the afternoon.

In LA County, around 2,700 residents evacuated with 700 structures under an evacuation order, officials said late Thursday. Another 14,000 residents and 5,000 structures were covered by an evacuation warning. Areas within the Val Verde zone had been reduced from an order to a warning.

The evacuation zones in nearby Ventura County were relatively unpopulated, Ventura County Fire Department spokesperson Andrew Dowd said Thursday. Fifty-six people were evacuated from the Lake Piru recreation area.

Dowd called the blaze a “very dynamic situation” caused by hot, dry weather, steep and rugged terrain and dry fuel.

LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents the district, urged residents to evacuate.

“Extreme heat and low humidity in our north county have created dangerous conditions where flames can spread with alarming speed,” Barger said in a statement. “If first responders tell you to leave, go—without hesitation.”

The new blaze comes as a massive wildfire in Central California became the state’s largest blaze of the year, threatening hundreds of homes and burning out of control in the Los Padres National Forest.

The Gifford Fire had spread to 155 square miles by Thursday night with 15% containment. It grew out of at least four smaller fires that erupted Aug. 1 along State Route 166, forcing closures in both directions east of Santa Maria, a city of about 110,000 people. It has injured at least four people. The causes of the fires are under investigation.

Wildfire risk will be elevated through the weekend across much of inland California as a heat wave gripping the area intensifies. August and September are typically the most dangerous months for wildfires in the state.