Today is Tuesday, Sept. 30, the 273rd day of 2025. There are 92 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 30, 1938, addressing the public after cosigning the Munich Agreement, which allowed Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain proclaimed, “I believe it is peace for our time.”

Also on this date:

In 1777, the Continental Congress — forced to flee in the face of advancing British forces — moved to York, Pennsylvania, after briefly meeting in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

In 1791, Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” premiered in Vienna, Austria.

In 1947, the World Series was broadcast on television for the first time, as the New York Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-3 in Game 1; the Yankees would go on to win the Series four games to three.

In 1949, the Berlin Airlift came to an end after delivering more than 2.3 million tons of cargo to blockaded residents of West Berlin over the prior 15 months.

In 1954, the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was commissioned by the U.S. Navy.

In 1955, actor James Dean was killed at age 24 in a two-car collision near Cholame, California.

In 1972, Pittsburgh Pirates star Roberto Clemente connected for his 3,000th and final hit, a double against Jon Matlack of the New York Mets at Three Rivers Stadium.

In 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties to illegally annex more occupied Ukrainian territory in a sharp escalation of his seven-month invasion.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Angie Dickinson is 94.
• Singer Johnny Mathis is 90.
• Actor Len Cariou is 86.
• Singer Marilyn McCoo is 82.
• Actor Barry Williams is 71.
• Singer Patrice Rushen is 71.
• Actor Fran Drescher is 68.
• Country musician Marty Stuart is 67.
• Actor Crystal Bernard is 64.
• Actor Eric Stoltz is 64.
• Rapper-producer Marley Marl is 63.
• Country musician Eddie Montgomery (Montgomery Gentry) is 62.
• Rock singer Trey Anastasio (Phish) is 61.
• Actor Monica Bellucci is 61.
• Actor Tony Hale is 55.
• Actor Jenna Elfman is 54.
• Actor Marion Cotillard is 50.
• Author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates is 50.
• Tennis Hall of Famer Martina Hingis is 45.
• Olympic gold medal gymnast Dominique Moceanu is 44.
• Actor Lacey Chabert is 43.
• Actor Kieran Culkin is 43.
• Singer-rapper T-Pain is 41.
• Racing driver Max Verstappen is 28.
• Actor-dancer Maddie Ziegler is 23.

By SEUNG MIN KIM

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has had one refrain in recent days when asked about the looming government shutdown.

Will there be a shutdown? Yes, Trump says, “because the Democrats are crazed.” Why is the White House pursuing mass firings, not just furloughs, of federal workers? Trump responds, “Well, this is all caused by the Democrats.”

Is he concerned about the impact of a shutdown? “The radical left Democrats want to shut it down,” he retorts.

“If it has to shut down, it’ll have to shut down,” Trump said Friday. “But they’re the ones that are shutting down government.”

In his public rhetoric, the Republican president has been singularly focused on laying pressure on Democrats in hopes they will yield before Wednesday, when the shutdown could begin, or shoulder the political blame if they don’t. That has aligned Trump with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who have refused to accede to Democrats’ calls to include health care provisions on a bill that will keep the government operating for seven more weeks.

Those dynamics could change Monday, when the president has agreed to host Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Johnson and Thune. Democrats believe the high-stakes meeting means the GOP is feeling pressure to compromise with them.

Still, Republicans say they are confident Democrats would be faulted if the closure comes. For Trump, the impact would go far beyond politics. His administration is sketching plans to implement mass layoffs of federal workers rather than simply furloughing them, furthering their goal of building a far smaller government that lines up with Trump’s vision and policy priorities.

This time, it’s the Democrats making policy demands

The GOP’s stance — a short-term extension of funding, with no strings attached — is unusual for a political party that has often tried to extract policy demands using the threat of a government shutdown as leverage.

In 2013, Republicans refused to keep the government running unless the Affordable Care Act was defunded, a stand that led to a 16-day shutdown for which the GOP was widely blamed. During his first term, Trump insisted on adding funding for a border wall that Congress would not approve, prompting a shutdown that the president, in an extraordinary Oval Office meeting that played out before cameras, said he would “take the mantle” for.

“I will be the one to shut it down,” Trump declared at the time.

This time, it’s the Democrats making the policy demands.

They want an extension of subsidies that help low- and middle-income earners who buy insurance coverage through the Obama-era health care law. They also want to reverse cuts to Medicaid enacted in the GOP’s tax and border spending bill this year. Republican leaders say what Democrats are pushing for is too costly and too complicated to negotiate with the threat of a government shutdown hanging over lawmakers.

Watching all this is Trump. He has not ruled out a potential deal on continuing the expiring subsidies, which some Republicans also want to extend.

“My assumption is, he’s going to be willing to sit down and talk about at least one of these issues that they’re interested in and pursuing a solution for after the government stays open,” Thune said in an Associated Press interview last week. “Frankly, I just don’t know what you negotiate at this point.”

Back and forth on a White House sit-down

At this point, Trump has shown no public indication he plans to compromise with Democrats on a shutdown, even as he acknowledges he needs help from at least a handful of them to keep the government open and is willing to meet with them at the White House.

Last week, Trump appeared to agree to sit down with Schumer and Jeffries and a meeting went on the books for Thursday. Once word got out about that, Johnson and Thune intervened, privately making the case to Trump that it was not the time during the funding fight to negotiate with Democrats over health care, according to a person familiar with the conversation who was not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Not long after hearing from the GOP leaders, Trump took to social media and said he would no longer meet with the two Democrats “after reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats.” Republicans privately acknowledge Trump’s decision to agree to a meeting was a misstep because it gave Democrats fodder to paint Trump as the one refusing to negotiate.

“Trump is literally boycotting meeting with Democrats to find a solution,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., wrote on the social media site X before Trump reversed course again and agreed to meet with the leadership. “There is no one to blame but him. He wants a shut down.”

It was not immediately clear what led Trump over the weekend to take a meeting he had once refused. Schumer spoke privately with Thune on Friday, pushing the majority leader to get a meeting with the president scheduled because of the approaching funding deadline, according to a Schumer aide. A Thune spokesman said in response that Schumer was “clearly getting nervous.”

Another reason why Democrats suspect Trump would be fine with a shutdown is how his budget office would approach a closure should one happen.

The administration’s strategy was laid out in an Office of Management and Budget memo last week that said agencies should consider a reduction in force for federal programs whose funding would lapse, are not otherwise funded and are “not consistent” with the president’s priorities. A reduction in force would not only lay off employees but also eliminate their positions, triggering yet another massive upheaval in the federal workforce.

Jeffries argued that Trump and his top aides were using the “smoke screen of a government shutdown caused by them to do more damage.”

AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

By JEFFREY COLLINS

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Former Republican South Carolina Rep. RJ May admitted in court Monday that he sent hundreds of videos of children being sexually abused to people across the country on social media.

May pleaded guilty to what prosecutors in court papers called a “five-day child pornography spree” in the spring of 2024.

May, who resigned earlier this year, is accused of using the screen name “joebidennnn69” to exchange 220 different files of toddlers and young children involved in sex acts on the Kik social media network, according to court documents that graphically detailed the videos.

“Bear with me. This is very hard to read,” U.S. Attorney Bryan Stirling said as he haltingly read a brief description of each video for television reporters outside of court since cameras aren’t allowed in federal courtrooms.

May, 38, pleaded guilty to five counts of distributing the videos and faces five to 20 years in prison on each charge. He will have to register as a sex offender and could be fined up to $250,000, according to his plea agreement.

The five counts represented the worst videos May shared, Stirling said.

Felony convictions bar May from voting or having a weapon

The felony convictions means the political consultant and National Rifle Association member cannot vote, hold public office, carry a gun or serve on a jury the rest of his life.

May’s sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 14 — the second day of the South Carolina legislature’s 2026 session.

The evidence against May included logs of his laptop and cellphone use, showing he was uploading and downloading the child sexual abuse videos at the same time he was emailing work files, making phone calls, doing web searches and messaging someone on Kik asking for “Bad moms. Bad dads. Bad pre teens.”

May mostly spent Monday’s hourlong hearing answering the judge’s questions. At the end, when Judge Cameron McGowan Currie asked May if he had anything else he wanted to say, May answered, “not at this time, your honor.”

May changed his mind about pleading guilty after hearing

May changed his mind and decided to plead guilty just hours after a Wednesday pretrial hearing in which he acted as his own attorney.

During Wednesday’s hearing, May made arguments to the judge to throw out the warrant used to search his home, laptop and mobile devices. She denied May’s request just hours after prosecutors filed documents detailing May’s plea on Friday.

Prosecutors showed May used his phone to upload and download videos through his cell network and home wireless network and also showed him charts explaining in stark, factual ways what was on each video May is charged with distributing.

May also tried to keep out any evidence about whether he used a fake name to travel to Colombia three times. Prosecutors said they found videos on his laptop of him allegedly having sex on the trips. A Homeland Security agent testified the women appeared to be underage and were paid. U.S. agents have not been able to locate the women.

May admitted to using the fake name Monday in court but was not asked about the videos.

May was a rising Republican political force in South Carolina

May was in his third term in the South Carolina House and was attacking fellow Republicans to go in a more conservative direction before he resigned.

“We as legislators have an obligation to insure that our children have no harm done to them,” May said in January 2024 on the House floor during a debate on transgender care for minors.

After his election in 2020, he helped create the Freedom Caucus. He also helped the campaigns of Republicans running against GOP House incumbents.

By BARBARA ORTUTAY and MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writers

Google’s YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit President Donald Trump brought after the video site suspended his account following the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol following the election that resulted in him leaving the White House for four years.

The settlement of the more than four-year-old case earmarks $22 million for Trump to contribute to the Trust for the National Mall and a construction of a White House ballroom, according to court documents filed Monday. The remaining $2.5 million will be paid to other parties involved in the case, including the writer Naomi Wolf and the American Conservative Union.

Alphabet, the parent of Google, is the third major technology company to settle a volley of lawsuits that Trump brought for what he alleged had unfairly muzzled him after his first term as president ended in January 2021. He filed similar cases Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Twitter before it was bought by billionaire Elon Musk in 2022 and rebranded as X.

Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle Trumps’ lawsuit over his 2021 suspension from Facebook and X agreed to settle the lawsuit that Trump brought against Twitter for $10 million. When the lawsuits against Meta. Twitter and YouTube were filed, legal experts predicted Trump had little chance of prevailing.

After buying Twitter for $44.5 billion, Musk later became major contributor to Trump’s successful 2024 campaign that resulted in his re-election and then spent several months leading a cost-cutting effort that purged thousands of workers from the federal government payroll before the two had a bitter falling out. Both Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg were among the tech leaders who lined up behind Trump during his second inauguration in January in a show of solidarity that was widely interpreted as a sign of the industry’s intention to work more closely with the president than during his first administration.

ABC News, meanwhile, agreed to pay $15 million in December toward Trump’s presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. And in July, Paramount decided to pay Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit regarding editing at CBS’ storied “60 Minutes” news program.

The settlement does not constitute an admission of liability, the filing says. Google confirmed the settlement but declined to comment beyond it.

Google declined to comment on the reasons for the settlement., but Trump’s YouTube account has been restored since 2023. The settlement is will barely dent Alphabet, which has a market value of nearly $3 trillion — an increase of about $600 billion, or 25%, since Trump’s return to the White House.

The disclosure of the settlement came a week before a scheduled Oct. 6 court hearing to discuss the case with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers in Oakland, California.

By MELISSA GOLDIN

President Donald Trump bolstered a years-old conspiracy theory over the weekend, claiming that 50 pages of alleged FBI documents recently made public prove that 274 FBI agents at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were there to incite the attack.

The documents first appeared in an article published Thursday by the conservative site Just The News, which did not blame the Jan. 6 insurrection on federal agents as Trump did. It focused instead on complaints made in an “after-action report” by FBI personnel, who were critical about the bureau’s response that day.

The information — which The Associated Press was not able to verify as authentic — does not support Trump’s claim. It says that FBI agents responded to the U.S. Capitol attack, not that those agents had any role in making it happen.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

TRUMP: “As it now turns out, FBI Agents were at, and in, the January 6th Protest, probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists, but certainly not as ‘Law Enforcement Officials.’”

THE FACTS: This is false. The alleged FBI documents to which Trump is referring state on page 46 that 274 agents from the FBI’s Washington Field Office “responded to” to the U.S. Capitol and other nearby locations on Jan. 6. They do not contain any credible evidence to suggest that federal agents were acting as agitators or insurrectionists.

“This number includes agents that responded to the Capitol grounds as well as inside the Capitol, the pipe bombs, and the red truck that was believed to contain explosive devices as well as CDC/ADCs,” the documents read.

The mention of “pipe bombs” refers to the devices planted outside offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees in Washington on the eve of the attack, while “the red truck” refers to a pickup truck filled with weapons and Molotov cocktail components that was parked near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

In addition to information about the agents and other FBI staff who were deployed in response to the Jan. 6 attack, the documents include extensive feedback from alleged bureau personnel about how the FBI responded to the day’s events. There are also suggestions from different operational divisions for future best practices, as well as notes on what went well.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Trump’s allegation. The FBI declined to comment.

Rioters determined to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, in a violent clash with police. Unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that federal agents played a role in instigating the attack became popular soon after and were advanced even by some Republicans in Congress. Many iterations have since been debunked.

A watchdog report published in December 2024 by the Justice Department inspector general’s office found that no undercover FBI employees were at the riot on Jan. 6 and that none of the bureau’s informants were authorized to participate. Informants, also known as confidential human sources, work with the FBI to provide information, but are not on the bureau’s payroll. Undercover agents are employed by the FBI.

It does state that “after the Capitol had been breached on Jan. 6 by the rioters, and in response to a request from the USCP, the FBI deployed several hundred Special Agents and employees to the U.S. Capitol and the surrounding area.” USCP refers to the U.S. Capitol Police.

According to the report, 26 informants were in Washington on Jan. 6 in connection with the day’s events. Of the total 26 informants, four entered the Capitol during the riot and an additional 13 entered a restricted area around the Capitol. But none were authorized to do so by the FBI, nor were they given permission to break other laws or encourage others to do the same. The remaining nine informants did not engage in any illegal activities.

It wasn’t clear prior to the report’s release how many FBI informants were in the crowd that day. Former FBI Director Christopher Wray, who resigned in January at the end of the Biden administration, refused to say during a congressional hearing in 2023 how many of the people who entered the Capitol and surrounding area on Jan. 6 were either FBI employees or people with whom the FBI had made contact. But Wray said the “notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous.”

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

By SARA CLINE and GEOFF MULVIHILL

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana is pursuing a criminal case against another out-of-state doctor accused of mailing abortion pills to a patient in the state, court documents filed this month revealed.

A warrant for the arrest of a California doctor is a rare charge of violating one of the state abortion bans that has taken effect since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and allowed enforcement.

It represents an additional front in a growing legal battle between liberal and conservative states over prescribing abortion medications via telehealth and mailing them to patients.

Pills are the most common way abortions are accessed in the U.S., and are a major reason that, despite the bans, abortion numbers rose last year, according to a report.

A Louisiana woman says she was forced to take abortion drugs

Louisiana said in a court case filed Sept. 19 that it had issued a warrant for a California-based doctor who it says provided pills to a Louisiana woman in 2023.

Both the woman, Rosalie Markezich, and the state attorney’s general, are seeking to be part of a lawsuit that seeks to order drug regulators to bar telehealth prescriptions to mifepristone, one of the two drugs usually used in combination for medication abortions.

In court filings, Markezich says her boyfriend at the time used her email address to order drugs from Dr. Remy Coeytaux, a California physician, and sent her $150, which she forwarded to Coeytaux. She said she had no other contact with the doctor.

She said she did not want to take the pills but felt forced to and said in the filing that “the trauma of my chemical abortion still haunts me” and that it would not have happened if telehealth prescriptions to the drug were off limits.

The accusation builds on a position taken by anti-abortion groups: That allowing abortion pills to be prescribed by phone or video call and filled by mail opens the door to women being coerced to take them.

“Rosalie is bravely representing many woman who are victimized by the illegal, immoral, and unethical conduct of these drug dealers,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement.

The doctor also faces a lawsuit in Texas

Murrill’s office did not immediately answer questions about what charges Coeytaux faces, or when the warrant was issued. But under the state’s ban on abortions at all stages of pregnancy, physicians convicted of providing abortion face up to 15 years in prison and $200,000 in fines.

Coeytaux is also the target of a lawsuit filed in July in federal court by a Texas man who says the doctor illegally provided his girlfriend with abortion pills.

Coeytaux did not immediately respond to emails or a phone message.

The combination of a Louisiana criminal case and a Texas civil case over abortion pills is also playing out surrounding a New York doctor, Margaret Carpenter. New York authorities are refusing to extradite Dr. Carpenter to Louisiana or to enforce for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton the $100,000 civil judgment against her.

In the Louisiana case, officials said a pregnant minor’s mother requested the abortion medication online and directed her daughter to take them. The mother was arrested, pleaded not guilty and was released on bond.

New York officials cite a law there that seeks to protect medical providers who prescribe abortion medications to patients in states with abortion bans — or where such prescriptions by telehealth violate the law.

New York and California are among the eight states that have shield laws with such provisions, according to a tally by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.

The legal and political fight over abortion pills is expanding

The legal filings that revealed the Louisiana charge against Coeytaux are part of an effort for Louisiana, along with Florida and Texas, to join a lawsuit filed last year by the Republican attorneys general for Idaho, Kansas and Missouri to roll back federal approvals for mifepristone.

This year, both Louisiana and Texas have adopted laws to target out-of-state providers of abortion pills.

The Louisiana law lets patients who receive abortions sue providers and others. The Texas law goes further and allows anyone to sue those who prescribe such pills in the state.

Both Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary have said they are conducting a full review of mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness.

Medication abortion has been available in the U.S. since 2000, when the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of mifepristone.

Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

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By FATIMA HUSSEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Even for an agency accustomed to criticism, this summer’s debate over Republicans’ big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts was a harsh one for the Congressional Budget Office.

“Notorious for getting it wrong,” was the judgment of Speaker Mike Johnson. “Making the same mistakes,” was the refrain from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. President Donald Trump dismissed the CBO as “very hostile.”

For the CBO’s director, Phillip Swagel, the “incoming fire,” as he calls it, is simply part of the job.

“We’re just trying to get it right and inform the Congress and the country,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. “There’s no agenda here.”

Tasked with producing nonpartisan analysis for Congress, it’s up to Swagel and expert staffers at the CBO to assess the impact of legislation on economic growth and the nation’s finances — producing “scores,” in the parlance of Washington, that often reverberate across the dominant political debates of the day. Both major political parties often dispute the agency’s findings, particularly when their top priorities are at stake.

“Sometimes it’s noise, sometimes it’s not. But we just tune it out. Here we do our work,” Swagel said. “The thing that I do care about a lot is to make sure our work is accurate.”

It’s a low-key approach Swagel has maintained at the CBO since 2019, when congressional leaders appointed him the director after stints in both Republican and Democratic administrations. An economist by trade, Swagel brings an inquisitive and genial approach to the job, his knowledge of government forged by work at the Council of Economic Advisers in the White House, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund.

“The challenge of doing analysis now,” Swagel said, “is the changes we’re seeing in our economy are really large.”

From the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans, to the unprecedented implementation of sweeping tariffs on countries around the world, to massive tax and spending cuts passed into law this summer, assessing the trajectory of the U.S. economy has grown more difficult.

Swagel recently sat down with the AP to talk at length about analyses from his agency, the future of the nation’s entitlement programs and the pressure to remain unbiased when data itself is at risk of being politicized.

How Trump’s tariffs are upending economic models

Trump’s sweeping tariffs plan has posed challenges to the CBO’s standard models for assessing trade.

The baseline tariffs on all countries and higher rates on Trump’s “worst offenders” list are different from what “we’ve seen in more than 100 years,” Swagel said. It’s a dramatic shift away from the low-tariff era that has existed since World War II. “We’re going to be looking carefully to see if those models still apply, or if tariffs that are this large, do those have effects that we just haven’t counted on?” he said.

So far, the CBO estimates the tariffs could reduce the national deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade, helping to offset the deficit increases it projects will result from the Republicans’ big bill passed this year. “It’s a huge impact,” Swagel said.

The CBO also anticipates Trump’s tariffs will cause roughly two years of elevated inflation, Swagel said, causing price increases for businesses and customers. But he says those effects will be temporary.

“As the tariffs go up and the prices go up with the tariffs, inflation will be higher, but then prices will get to a higher level and be stable,” he said. “And then the inflationary impact will subside.”

Immigration cuts different ways

Swagel said there are “pros and cons” when assessing how immigration affects the economy.

“Immigrants have added to our labor force, and that has meant higher GDP. It’s meant more revenue and a lower deficit,” Swagel said. “But, of course, there’s lots of issues related to immigration,” notably that “more immigrants put more fiscal pressure on state and local governments — on schools, on police, on health care systems and other things.”

“So, for the federal government, immigration is a fiscal positive,” he said, “but for state and local governments, it’s the opposite.”

Trump’s tax and spending law signed in July will result in roughly 320,000 people being removed from the United States over the next 10 years, the CBO said in a recent report. It also projected the U.S. population will grow more slowly than previously expected.

That law includes roughly $150 billion to ramp up deportations over the next four years.

Swagel says it’s not his place to say how immigration laws should be crafted.

“Our role is just to say what the budget impact is,” he said. “It’s for the political system to figure out, ‘Well, what’s the right choices to make for the country?’”

The strain on Social Security and Medicare

Swagel said U.S. entitlement programs “are all part of a challenging fiscal trajectory” for the country. But the greatest obstacle to doing something about it, he said, is that “the decisions don’t need to be made right away.”

The go-broke dates for Medicare and Social Security are now 2033 and 2034, respectively. On those dates, Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and Social Security’s trust funds. which cover old age and disability recipients, will no longer be able to pay out full benefits, according to the latest report from the programs’ trustees.

While fast approaching, the insolvency dates are a lifetime away for lawmakers always inclined to kick the can down the road on big fiscal decisions.

“We have a stable economy, an economy that’s growing,” Swagel said. “We’ve seen a slowing economy in the second half of 2025, but the economy is still growing and still creating jobs. And so there’s not a crisis.”

“Difficult decisions need to be made,” he said.

Criticism of the CBO’s data

The CBO has faced more aggressive attacks on its analyses during Trump’s second term, often amplified by his fellow Republicans in Congress. Earlier this year, Trump called the CBO a “very hostile” organization.

Swagel downplayed the tension, saying that “our working relationship with the executive branch is smooth and routine, that when we evaluate legislation, every piece of legislation results in a phone call to some executive branch agency.”

“There is this incoming fire on the CBO,” which Swagel says is part of the political process. “I understand that sometimes that kind of criticism might be helpful in the eyes of the people making it in their political endeavors.”

Unlike many other roles in government, the CBO director cannot be fired by the president — the person can be removed only by Congress.

Swagel said the work out of his office is as crucial as ever.

“It’s important for the country to have a group of analysts who don’t have an opinion — who are just saying, ‘Here’s the facts,’” he said.

“We’re not telling Congress what to do,” Swagel said. “We’re not saying if something is good or bad. We’re just saying, ‘Here’s what it costs, here’s what it does.’ And that’s our role.”

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The threat of a government shutdown has become a recurring event in Washington, though most of the time lawmakers and the president are able to head it off. This time, however, prospects for a last-minute compromise look rather bleak.

Republicans have crafted a short-term measure to fund the government through Nov. 21, but Democrats have insisted that the measure address their concerns on health care. They want to reverse the Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s mega-bill passed this summer as well as extend tax credits that make health insurance premiums more affordable for millions who purchase through the marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act. Republicans say that’s all a non-starter.

Neither side is showing any signs of budging, with the House not even expected to be in session before a shutdown has begun.

Here’s a look at how a shutdown would occur.

What happens in a shutdown?

When a lapse in funding occurs, the law requires agencies to cease activity and furlough their “non-excepted” employees. Excepted employees include those who perform work to protect life and property. They stay on the job but don’t get paid until after the shutdown has ended.

During the 35-day partial shutdown in Trump’s first term, roughly 340,000 of the 800,000 federal workers at affected agencies were furloughed. The remainder were “excepted” and required to work.

What government work continues during a shutdown?

A great deal, actually.

FBI investigators, CIA officers, air traffic controllers and agents manning airport checkpoints continue to work. So do members of the Armed Forces.

Those programs that rely on mandatory spending also generally continue during a shutdown. Social Security checks continue to go out. Seniors who rely on Medicare coverage can still go see their doctor and health care providers can still submit claims for payment and be reimbursed.

Veteran health care also continues during a shutdown. VA medical centers and outpatient clinics will be open and VA benefits will continue to be processed and delivered. Burials will continue at VA national cemeteries.

Will furloughed federal workers get paid?

Yes, but not until the shutdown is over.

Congress has historically acted after shutdowns to pay federal workers for the days they were furloughed, though there were no guarantees it would do so. In 2019, however, Congress passed a bill enshrining into law the requirement that furloughed employees get retroactive pay once operations resume.

While they will eventually get paid, the furloughed workers as well as those who remain on the job may have to go without one or more of their regular paychecks, depending upon how long the shutdown lasts, which will create financial stress for many families.

Service members would receive back pay for any missed paychecks once federal funding resumes.

Will I still get mail?

Yes, the U.S. Postal Service is not affected by a government shutdown. The U.S. Postal Service is an independent entity that is funded through the sale of its products and services, and not by tax dollars.

What closes during a shutdown?

All administrations get some leeway to choose which services to freeze and which to maintain in a shutdown.

The first Trump administration worked to blunt the impact of what became the country’s longest partial shutdown in 2018 and 2019. But in the selective reopening of offices, experts say they saw a willingness to cut corners, scrap prior plans and wade into legally dubious territory to mitigate the pain.

Each federal agency develops its own shutdown plan that in the past was accessible on the Office of Management and Budget’s public website. So far, those plans have not been posted. The plans outline which agency workers would stay on the job during a government shutdown and which would be furloughed.

In a provocative move, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget has threatened the mass firing of federal workers in the event of a shutdown. An OMB memo released Wednesday said those programs that did not get funding through Trump’s mega-bill this summer would bear the brunt of a shutdown.

Agencies should consider issuing reduction-in-force notices for those programs whose funding expires Oct. 1, that don’t have alternative funding sources and are “not consistent with the President’s priorities,” the memo said.

That would be a much more aggressive step than in previous shutdowns when furloughed federal workers returned to their jobs once Congress approved government spending. A reduction in force would not only lay off employees but eliminate their positions, which would trigger yet another massive upheaval in a federal workforce that has already faced major rounds of cuts this year due to efforts from the Department of Government Efficiency and elsewhere in the Trump administration.

Shutdown practices in the past

Many shutdown plans submitted during the Biden administration are publicly available and some plans can be found on individual agency websites, providing an indication of past precedent that could guide the Trump administration.

Here are some excerpts from those plans:

— Education Department: “A protracted delay in Department obligations and payments beyond one week would severely curtail the cash flow to school districts, colleges and universities, vocational rehabilitation agencies, and other entities that depend on the Department’s discretionary funds to support their services.”

— National Park Service: As a general rule if a facility or area is inaccessible during non-business hours, it will be locked for the duration of the lapse in funding. At parks where it is impractical or impossible to restrict public access, staffing will vary by park. “Generally, where parks have accessible park areas, including park roads, lookouts, trails, campgrounds, and open-air memorials, these areas will remain physically accessible to the public.”

— Transportation: Air traffic controller hiring and field training would cease, as would routine personnel security background checks and air traffic performance analysis, according to a March 25 update.

— Smithsonian Institution: “The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, like all Smithsonian museums, receives federal funding. Thus, during a government shutdown, the Zoo — and the rest of the Smithsonian museums — must close to the public.”

— Food and Drug Administration: “Work to protect animal health would be limited, only addressing imminent threats to human life. Similarly, food safety efforts … would be reduced to emergency responses, as most of its funding comes from appropriations. Longer-term food safety initiatives, including the prevention of foodborne illnesses and diet-related diseases, would be halted.”

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Republican Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s top public schools official who lauded President Donald Trump, pledged to put a Turning Point USA chapter in every high school to honor Charlie Kirk and end what he called “wokeness” in public schools, is resigning to lead a conservative educators’ group.

Walters, 40, said Wednesday night on Fox News that he is stepping down as state superintendent of public instruction to become the CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, a nonprofit that says it assists educators “in their mission to develop free, moral, and upright American citizens.”

“We’re going to destroy the teachers unions,” Walters said on Fox. “We have seen the teachers unions use money and power to corrupt our schools, to undermine our schools.”

Walters has leaned into culture-war politics and sought to infuse religion into classroom instruction, including a mandate that public schoolteachers incorporate the Bible into lesson plans for children in grades 5 though 12.

He has also tried to require social studies teachers to promote conspiracies about the 2020 election, track the immigration status of children in schools and require applicants for teacher jobs coming from California and New York to pass an exam designed to safeguard what he described as “radical leftist ideology.” Many of his efforts have led to lawsuits against him and the agency, even as Oklahoma’s national ranking in several education metrics has continued to decline.

Just Tuesday, Walters announced that Oklahoma high schools will have Turning Point USA chapters. He said parents, teachers and students “want their young people to be engaged in a process that understands free speech, open engagement, dialogue about American greatness, a dialogue around American values.”

Kirk founded the organization to mobilize young, Christian conservatives. It has seen a massive surge in interest and support since the activist’s assassination on Sept. 10.

Walters, a former teacher, was elected to the superintendent’s job. He had served as Oklahoma Secretary of Education from September 2020 to April 2023. He was appointed to that position by Gov. Kevin Stitt.

Ever since then, “we have witnessed a stream of never-ending scandal and political drama,” Oklahoma Attorney General Genter Drummond said in a statement.

“It’s time for a State Superintendent of Public Instruction who will actually focus on quality instruction in our public schools,” Drummond, a Republican and candidate for governor in 2026, said.

By SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is telling agencies to prepare large-scale firings of federal workers if the government shuts down next week.

In a memo released Wednesday night, the Office of Management and Budget said agencies should consider a reduction in force for federal programs whose funding would lapse next week, is not otherwise funded and is “not consistent with the President’s priorities.” That would be a much more aggressive step than in previous shutdowns, when federal workers not deemed essential were furloughed but returned to their jobs once Congress approved government spending.

A reduction in force would not only lay off employees but eliminate their positions, which would trigger yet another massive upheaval in a federal workforce that has already faced major rounds of cuts this year due to efforts from the Department of Government Efficiency and elsewhere in the Trump administration.

Once any potential government shutdown ends, agencies are asked to revise their reduction in force plans “as needed to retain the minimal number of employees necessary to carry out statutory functions,” according to the memo, which was first reported by Politico.

This move from OMB significantly increases the consequences of a potential government shutdown next week and escalates pressure on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The two leaders have kept nearly all of their Democratic lawmakers united against a clean funding bill pushed by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans that would keep the federal government operating for seven more weeks, demanding immediate improvements to health care in exchange for their votes.

In statements issued shortly after the memo was released, the two Democrats showed no signs of budging.

“We will not be intimidated by your threat to engage in mass firings,” Jeffries wrote in a post on X. “Get lost.”

Jeffries called Russ Vought, the head of OMB, a “malignant political hack.”

Schumer said in a statement that the OMB memo is an “attempt at intimidation” and predicted the “unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back.”

OMB noted that it held its first planning call with other federal agencies earlier this week to plan for a shutdown. The budget office plays point in managing federal government shutdowns, particularly planning for them ahead of time. Past budget offices have also posted shutdown contingency plans — which would outline which agency workers would stay on the job during a government shutdown and which would be furloughed — on its website, but this one has not.

The memo noted that congressional Democrats are refusing to support a clean government funding bill “due to their partisan demands,” which include an extension of enhanced health insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, plus a reversal of Medicaid cuts that were included in Republicans’ big tax and spending cuts law.

“As such, it has never been more important for the Administration to be prepared for a shutdown if the Democrats choose to pursue one,” the memo reads, which also notes that the GOP’s signature law, a major tax and border spending package, gives “ample resources to ensure that many core Trump Administration priorities will continue uninterrupted.”

OMB noted that it had asked all agencies to submit their plans in case of a government shutdown by Aug. 1.

“OMB has received many, but not all, of your submissions,” it added. “Please send us your updated lapse plans ASAP.”

By LINLEY SANDERS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s second-term strengths look different from his first, according to new polling.

Once strengthened by economic issues, Trump’s approval is now relatively low on the economy — and he’s leaning on his stronger issues of crime, border security and immigration. Concerns about the economy and immigration helped propel him to the White House, but polling over the past year shows that Americans’ faith in the Republican president’s handling of the economy is low — particularly among independents — and his approval on immigration has fallen slightly.

Now, Trump’s strongest issues are border security and crime, but there were signs of potential weakness on crime in the most recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

At the same time, Trump’s overall approval has been fairly steady in AP-NORC polling since the beginning of his second term. This month, 39% of U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling his job as president, which is back in line with his average approval rating after a slight uptick in August. There was a similar pattern during his first White House term, when his approval stayed within a narrow range.

Here are the issues on which he’s been strongest and weakest in his second term:

Trump’s biggest strengths are border security and crime

Trump has turned border security into a strength of his second term, a sharp reversal from his first term in office.

Most Americans approve of Trump’s approach to border security. He gets higher marks on that than on his handling of the presidency overall or other issues that had previously been top strengths, including immigration and crime. This has also emerged as a unique strength of his second term. Only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults approved of Trump’s approach to border security in 2019, during which time Trump was focused on securing funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

His approval on immigration is slightly lower than it was early in his second term, but it remains a bit higher than his overall job approval.

In March, about half of U.S. adults approved of his handling of immigration. But the most recent measure found his approval on immigration at 43%, just a tick higher than his overall approval rating.

Even with the slight dip, immigration remains a strength in a way it wasn’t in his first term. Throughout his first term, closer to 4 in 10 U.S. adults approved of his immigration approach — but when he started his second term, it was about half who approved.

Trump has taken firm steps to deport immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, and the new poll finds that a sizable share of Americans — about half — say Trump has “gone too far” in pursuit of that goal, roughly the same share as held that stance in a poll conducted in April.

His approval on how he’s handling crime is also down slightly to 46%, after reaching 53% in August as he deployed the National Guard to Washington. But that still exceeds his overall job approval, and it’s also an advantage among certain groups, like independents. About 4 in 10 independents approve of Trump’s approach to crime, compared with 25% who approve of his approach to the presidency overall.

Trump is weaker on the economy with independents

The economy is often a fraught point for presidents, and there are indications that Americans continue to be concerned about the country’s economic state.

Just 37% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. That’s down slightly from August, when 43% approved, but broadly in line with his overall approval.

The economy is a particularly weak issue for Trump among independents. Only about 2 in 10 independents approve of how Trump is handling the economy, much lower than the share who approve of his handling of border security and crime.

In Trump’s first term, closer to half of U.S. adults approved of his handling of the economy. This height of his success on this issue came at the beginning of 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic sparked an economic downturn. His approval on this issue varied throughout the pandemic, and about half of Americans approved of his economic approach just before he lost the 2020 presidential election. At that point, however, more Americans were more worried about the coronavirus pandemic than the economy. His approval has been consistently lower in his second term — when he came into office, only about 4 in 10 approved of how he handled the economy.

Trump’s lowest issues among Republicans: Trade and health care

Only about 7 in 10 Republicans approve of Trump’s approach to trade negotiations with other countries and health care — marking the lowest issue ratings among his base.

Americans overall aren’t thrilled about how he’s handling these issues, either. Only about one-third of U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling either trade negotiations with other countries or health care. These have been steadily low in recent AP-NORC polls but roughly track with Trump’s overall approval. They were also similarly low in his first term.

About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say Trump has “gone too far” when it comes to imposing new tariffs on other countries. That includes about 9 in 10 Democrats but also roughly 6 in 10 independents and 3 in 10 Republicans. Very few Americans, including Republicans, want Trump to go further on imposing tariffs.

Trump is earning lower marks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

About 4 in 10, 37%, of U.S. adults approve of the way Trump is handling the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, down slightly from the 44% who approved in March.

Slightly fewer Republicans approve of how Trump is handling the conflict — 72%, compared with 82% of Republicans who approved of the way Trump was handling the issue in March. Democrats are also slightly less likely to approve: 9% now, down from 14% in March.

Despite this, Trump’s approval on foreign policy has been steady. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve, in line with April.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,183 adults was conducted Sept. 11-15, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

By LISA MASCARO, AP Congressional Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has abruptly canceled this week’s planned meeting with congressional Democratic leaders, refusing to negotiate over their demands to shore up health care funds as part of a deal to prevent a potential looming federal government shutdown.

In a lengthy Tuesday social media post, Trump rejected the sit-down the White House had agreed to the day before. It would have been the first time the Republican president met with the Democratic Party’s leaders, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, since his return to the White House.

“I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive,” Trump wrote in the post.

The president complained the Democrats “are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States” unless the Republicans agree to more funding on health care for various groups of people he has criticized. Trump did not close the door on a future sit-down with the Democratic leaders, but he warned of a “long and brutal slog” ahead unless Democrats dropped their demands to salvage health care funds.

Earlier Tuesday, Schumer and Jeffries had issued a joint statement saying that after “weeks of Republican stonewalling” the president had agreed to meet in the Oval Office. But after the Republican president canceled the meeting, the Democratic leaders accused him of throwing a tantrum and running away. Jeffries posted on X that “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

“Donald Trump just cancelled a high stakes meeting in the Oval Office with myself and Leader Schumer,” Jeffries wrote on X. “The extremists want to shut down the government because they are unwilling to address the Republican healthcare crisis that is devastating America.”

In a post on X directed at Trump, Schumer said Democrats will sit down and discuss health care “when you’re finished ranting.”

Schumer said Trump “is running away from the negotiating table before he even gets there” and would “rather throw a tantrum than do his job.”

With Congress at a stalemate, the government is headed toward a federal shutdown next week, Oct. 1, if the House and the Senate are unable to approve the legislation needed to fund offices and services into the new fiscal year. Lawmakers left town amid the logjam, and they are not due back until Sept. 29.

Trump has been unafraid of shutting down the government and, during his first term, was president over the nation’s longest federal closure, during the 2018-19 holiday season, when he was pushing Congress to provide funds for his long-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The president insisted over the weekend that essential services, including for veterans, would remain open.

Republicans, who have the majority in both the House and the Senate, have been trying to avoid a shutdown. House Speaker Mike Johnson led passage late last week of a temporary funding measure, which would have kept government offices running into November while talks get underway.

That’s the typical way to buy time during funding fights, but the measure failed in the Senate. Democrats refused to support the stopgap bill because it did not include their priorities of health care funds. A Democratic proposal, with the health care money restored, was defeated by Senate Republicans.

Schumer and Jeffries have demanded a meeting with Trump to work out a compromise, but the Republican president has been reluctant to enter talks and instructed GOP leaders on Capitol Hill not to negotiate with the Democrats.

Thursday’s scheduled meeting would have potentially set up a showdown at the White House, reminiscent of the 2018 funding fight when Trump led an explosive public session with Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Democrats are working to protect health care programs. The Democratic proposal would extend enhanced health insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, plus reverse Medicaid cuts that were included in Republicans’ big tax breaks and spending cuts bill enacted earlier this year.

Republicans have said the Democrats’ demands to reverse the Medicaid changes are a nonstarter, but they have also said there is time to address the health insurance subsidy issue in the months ahead.

By FRANCESCO SPORTELLI

FIUMICINO, Italy (AP) — Dog owners often face a dilemma before traveling: leave your beloved pet with a sitter or at a kennel? Both require quite some planning and logistics, which can be stressful and time-consuming for fur parents.

Rome’s Fiumicino International Airport has sought to streamline the process by opening one of the first on-site hotels at a major European airport, following a similar initiative in Frankfurt. Dog Relais’ workers even retrieve pups from the terminal so travelers can proceed straight to their flight.

“This project is fitting into a strategy to provide a very immersive experience to passengers,” said Marilena Blasi, chief commercial officer at Aeroporti di Roma, the company that manages Italian capital’s two airports. “In this case, we provide services to dogs and the owners of the dogs.”

Basic rooms at the dog hotel cost about €40 ($47) and feature temperature-controlled floors and private gardens. More timid or solitary dogs can be placed in kennels at the edge of the facility, where they interact with staff rather than other dogs in the common grass pens. At night, ambient music that has a frequency with a low, soft tone — 432 hertz — designed for relaxation is piped in through the rooms’ speakers.

There are optional extras that range from the usual grooming, bathing and cleaning teeth services, to the more indulgent, such as aromatherapy with lavender or peppermint scents to help induce calm, or arnica cream rubbed into aching muscles and joints.

Owners unsatisfied with standard-issue webcams for checking in on their canines from afar can spring for a €60 (about $70) premium room equipped with a screen for round-the-clock videocalls. They can even pamper their pet by tossing a treat via an application connected to a dispenser.

The facility not only provides its services to travelers, but also to dog owners who need daycare.

Working in human resources for Aeroporti di Roma, Alessandra Morelli regularly leaves her 2-year-old, chocolate-colored Labrador Retriever there.

“Since I’ve been able to bring Nina to this dog hotel, my life, and the balance between my personal and professional life have changed because it allows me to enjoy my working day and my personal travels in total peace and tranquility,” said Morelli, 47.

Dario Chiassarini, 32, said he started bringing his Rottweiler puppy, Athena, to Dog Relais for training, another service on offer, because it’s clean, well-organized and its location was easily accessible. And he said he plans to check his beloved pup into the hotel whenever he and his girlfriend need to travel.

“We will rely on them without hesitation and without doubt — both because we got to know the people who work here, which for us is essential, and because of the love they have for animals and the peace of mind of knowing who we are entrusting Athena to,” said Chiassarini, who works in car sales. “It is certainly a service that, if we should need it, we will make use of.”

The dog hotel has proved popular so far. All 40 rooms were occupied in August, when Italians take their customary summer vacation and millions of passengers come through Fiumicino. Occupancy averaged almost 2/3 since doors opened in May, said Blasi.

The same month the dog hotel opened, Italy’s commercial aviation authority changed rules to allow large dogs to fly inside plane cabins for domestic flights, provided they are inside secured crates. The first such flight will take off on Sept. 23, according to transport minister, Matteo Salvini.

Salvini admits that while many are happy with having their pups on the plane, others may feel annoyed. However, at a pet conference on Sept. 16, he said: “We always have to use judgment, but … for me it’s a source of pride, as well as a step forward from the point of view of civilization.”

Associated Press writer David Biller in Rome contributed to this report.

By TOM MURPHY

Drugstores are ready to deliver updated COVID-19 vaccines this fall and insurers plan to pay for them, even though the shots no longer come recommended by an important government committee.

On Friday, vaccine advisers picked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declined to specifically recommend the shots but said people could make individual decisions on whether to get them.

The recommendations from the advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention require sign-off by the agency’s director, but they are almost always adopted.

Those recommendations normally trigger several layers of insurance coverage and allow drugstores in many states to deliver the shots. But insurers and government officials have said coverage will continue, and several states have allowed for vaccine access through pharmacies, the most common place to get shots.

Many people start seeking vaccinations in the late summer or early fall to get protection against any winter surges in cases.

Here’s a closer look at the issue.

Will insurers cover these shots?

Many are expected to do so, but you still may want to check with yours.

The Department of Health and Human Services said Friday that the committee vote “provides for immunization coverage through all payment mechanisms.” An HHS spokesperson said that includes Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, commercial coverage sold through health insurance marketplaces and the federal Vaccines for Children program, which pays for roughly half of childhood vaccinations in the U.S. each year.

The VFC program normally automatically covers any vaccines recommended by the CDC committee.

The trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans said earlier this week that its members will continue to cover the shots at no cost to patients through 2026.

That group includes every major insurer except UnitedHealthcare. And that insurer has said it will continue covering the vaccine at no cost for its standard commercial coverage, which includes plans offered for individuals and through small businesses.

One caveat: Large employers that offer coverage will make their own decisions on the vaccines.

They may be motivated to continue coverage: The vaccines can help ward off expensive hospital bills from people who develop a bad case of COVID-19.

Where people can get vaccinations

About two-thirds of adults get COVID-19 shots at pharmacies, and around 30% receive them at doctors’ offices, according to CDC data.

Access to the shots has grown after a clunky start to vaccine season that saw some people travel to nearby states when they couldn’t make appointments at pharmacies closer to home.

Drugstore chains like CVS say their locations are stocked with the latest vaccines, and they now are able to deliver vaccinations in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Prescriptions are required in D.C. and a handful of states, including Florida and Georgia, CVS Health spokeswoman Amy Thibault said.

Walgreens also requires prescriptions in a few states, a company spokesperson said.

Who can get the shot

Until now, the U.S. has recommended yearly COVID-19 shots for everyone age 6 months and older.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved the shots for all people age 65 and older, and for younger adults and children with conditions that put them at high risk for catching a bad case of COVID-19.

The CDC maintains a long list of conditions that would put someone at high risk, including asthma, cancer, heart or lung problems, obesity, depression and a history of smoking. It also includes those who are physically inactive, and the agency notes that this list is not conclusive.

Patients can consult with their doctor or care provider to decide whether they are high risk if they don’t have a condition on that list.

Both CVS and Walgreens representatives say their companies will ask patients under age 65 if they have any of these factors. They won’t require proof.

“In simplest terms, if a patient says they’re eligible, they will get the vaccine,” said Thibault, the CVS Health spokeswoman.

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 DANIEL WALTERS/InvestigateWest

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The first time Denys’s children heard fireworks go off in Spokane, Washington, they were terrified. His kids had grown up about 20 miles from the Russian border, in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, and they knew too well the booms of Russian missile attacks and screeching sounds of Ukrainian air defenses.

In 2023, after Russians attacked the hospital where his youngest daughter, Olivia, had recently been born, Denys knew he needed a way out, and fast.

That’s when a former neighbor, living in an American city on the other side of the world, offered him an escape:

“He called me and said, ‘We have a nice program — Uniting for Ukraine,’” Denys recalled. “If you want to come, grab your family and move.”

Denys, who asked his last name not be used, leapt at the opportunity. He’s stayed in Spokane for the past three years, getting used to a place where explosions are simply celebrations of freedom. He’d spent a half year learning English, and then drawing on his Ukrainian experience making boilers, he swiftly got a job welding construction beams at Metals Fabrication Co.

Like so many of the 240,000 Ukrainians who have immigrated to this country through the Uniting for Ukraine program, his future here is precarious.

Launched by former President Joe Biden in 2022, Uniting for Ukraine is a “humanitarian parole” program. It allowed Ukrainian immigrants to temporarily stay and work in America, two years at a time, so long as they found an American sponsor willing to help support them.

In June, however, Denys lost his job — not because he did anything wrong, but because the federal government failed to reauthorize his right to work. Under Donald Trump’s administration, which is targeting humanitarian parole programs affecting nearly 1.8 million migrants, renewals have ground to a halt.

“I’m very worried about my family,” Denys said. “I need to buy food. I have three kids.”

Along with freezing the Biden-era parole programs for Ukrainian refugees, the administration completely withdrew parole protections for more than 530,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and over 9,000 from Afghanistan.

Many Ukrainians are taking notice of what’s happening to other refugees. In Spokane, two Venezuelan immigrants who had come here legally through humanitarian parole programs were jailed and slated for deportation, despite applying for asylum. When they showed up for a scheduled meeting in June with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they were arrested by ICE and carted off to Tacoma’s immigration detention center. A mass protest resulted in 30 arrests, federal charges for nine demonstrators, and national media attention.

Unlike Latin American, Haitian and Afghan immigrants, most Ukrainians don’t have to worry about racial profiling. They haven’t been tarred with wild falsehoods about eating pets from the presidential debate stage. But while Ukrainians were never the primary target of the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle Biden’s immigration legacy, they’ve been caught in the crossfire. At the mercy of a rapidly changing and dysfunctional federal bureaucracy, many are paralyzed by the uncertainty — faced with a choice of waiting for a government response, working illegally, surviving on charity, or leaving America entirely.

“There’s this no man’s land,” said Spokane immigration attorney Sam Smith. “There’s this in-between that they’re stuck in. There’s no good solution for them.”

Frozen in place

Whether because of its climate or its people, Spokane, a mid-sized Washington city on the Idaho border, has been a hub for Ukrainian immigration since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine brought a new surge of nearly 3,000 Ukrainians, many who quickly got to work establishing their new lives.

At a coffee stop started by another Ukrainian immigrant, Maksym Bedenko proudly hands InvestigateWest the business card for The Old Preacher, a small barbershop business he started in 2023. He was lucky enough to re-enroll in the Uniting for Ukraine program in August of last year, when it was still easy to get re-approval. But he knows a slew of other people, including Amazon workers, factory workers and caregivers, who have all lost their jobs.

The second Trump administration had launched with a salvo against nearly every aspect of the immigration system. Executive orders banned new refugees, severed contracts with refugee resettlement organizations and put any renewals of those with programs like Uniting for Ukraine on hold.

During the campaign, Trump had demonized Biden’s humanitarian parole programs, which had resulted in a surge of immigrants into some cities. On his first day back in office, Trump issued an executive order to “terminate all categorical parole programs” that were contrary to his policies.

Three days later, a freeze order went out from the acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: Stop processing all Uniting for Ukraine applications, including from those trying to renew their parole status. No parole status, no new rights to work.

Spokane Slavic Association Vice President Zhanna Oberemok, who immigrated to Spokane shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, said drivers for her husband’s trucking company recently started seeing some of their workers lose their commercial driver’s licenses as their work authorizations expired.

“Within the next week or so, we’re going to be losing about seven drivers because their driver license just became inactive,” Oberemok said.

Employers were frustrated to have to let perfectly good workers go.

Sara Weaver-Lundberg, vice president for Metals Fabrication Co., said by email that Denys had been a “gilded unicorn,” the rare, impossible-to-find experienced worker, and losing him “put a strain on our production.”

He was dependable, she said, always willing to work overtime when they needed it. She reached out to her corporate attorney and contacted her congressman to find help for Denys, but so far, neither route has been effective.

“I cannot imagine having to leave my country because it was no longer safe for me and my family,” Weaver-Lundberg said. “Denys did just that — he left Ukraine and entered this country legally. … Now, because of a pause in the program or backlog, he is living in this country with no job.”

Every two weeks, Denys had been sending money to his mother — still in Ukraine, where the prices of groceries and utilities have skyrocketed because of the war. He had been hoping to bring her to the United States through Uniting for Ukraine. Now, that’s out of the question, too.

Without a job, he’s been relying on the generosity of his sponsor — his former neighbor — to pay for food and rent for himself, his wife and his three kids. He’s waiting for a phone call from the state government to see if he’s eligible for unemployment benefits. He noted how he’d been turned from someone contributing to tax revenue through his work into someone costing the government money.

At a table at the Spokane refugee resettlement nonprofit Thrive International, Denys speaks through a translator, a woman who herself came here through the Uniting for Ukraine program.

“I know some families, they got mortgages,” Denys said. “They have loans for their cars. They have huge bills every single month.”

They’re left with an ugly decision: Provide for their family or follow the law. It’s a choice Denys hasn’t made and doesn’t want to.

“I should probably find some job and work under the table, but I don’t want to do that,” Denys said. “But it’s like the government pushes us to do that. We don’t want to do that. We want to work legally and follow the law.”

Pushing back

Elsewhere in Spokane, a local doctor has been fighting for months for a remedy in federal court. In February, Kyle Varner, an activist who spent a month along the Ukrainian border caring for refugees and who’d sponsored nearly 50 Venezuelan immigrants, joined a lawsuit to challenge the new policies, writing that he feels “that there is something fundamentally and morally wrong with treating people differently and giving them fewer rights simply because they were not born in this country.”

Along with immigrants from Ukraine, Nicaragua, Haiti and Afghanistan, he asked the court to force the Trump administration to start processing humanitarian parole applications again.

So far, the verdict has been mixed: New parole applications remain frozen, and in May, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to order a half-million Latin American immigrants to leave the country, a decision that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned could lead to “social and economic chaos.”

But thanks to a lower court ruling, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sent out a memo on June 9, officially lifting the freeze on processing parole renewals. In theory, Ukrainian immigrants like Denys would begin to see their right to work restored. So far, few have.

“We’ve seen some cases denied. And some cases be asked for additional evidence,” said Matthew Soerens, the policy director for World Relief, a national refugee resettlement organization. “But at least the folks that we’re helping, we are not aware of cases being approved for humanitarian parole renewal from Ukraine.”

Smith, the local immigration attorney, says the parole system remains functionally frozen. He suspects it’s a matter of priorities, that the Trump administration is dumping more resources into enforcement and kicking people out instead of helping people to stay.

“It’s pretty clear what the administration thinks about … immigrants and immigration generally,” Smith said.

Alternate routes

Many Ukrainian immigrants have lit upon another strategy, one that uses the glacial pace of the federal immigration bureaucracy to their advantage. Some are filing for asylum — arguing they have a well-founded fear of political, racial or religious persecution from their home country.

And while an asylum application can sometimes take five to 10 years to process, immigrants can get work authorization while they wait.

There’s just one big hitch: It still takes six months, once you apply for asylum, to get work permits. Even if Denys applied today, he wouldn’t be able to get the right to work again until March.

Even then, Smith, the attorney, hesitates to offer any kind of certainty. Lately, federal policy has been chaotic enough that it’s hard to provide long-term assurances.

Often, the government hasn’t formally communicated at all about changes in policy, and when it has, it’s sometimes been a mistake. In April, according to The Washington Post, the Department of Homeland Security had emailed many Ukrainians across the country telling them that their humanitarian parole had been canceled, and threatening that if they didn’t leave the United States, “the federal government will find you.” The message was an error, but it was sent out so broadly that even Smith — an attorney, not an immigrant — got the email.

“There’s a lack of clarity all throughout the system, which makes an already difficult system to navigate even more difficult and perilous,” Smith said. “It paralyzes the system, but it also paralyzes people.”

Appealing to Trump

In Congress, there have been a handful of stabs at trying to make things easier for Ukrainian immigrants — a Senate bill proposes letting Ukrainians on humanitarian parole continue to work, while a bill in the U.S. House would give the Ukrainian parolees a way to become permanent residents. But while both bills have bipartisan supporters, neither has gotten much traction. The Republican Party has been starkly divided on Ukraine, the traditional anti-Russian wing in conflict with a growing isolationist wing.

Spokane’s Republican congressman, U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, embodies that tension. In February, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was booted from the White House following a combative meeting with Trump, Baumgartner called for Zelenskyy’s resignation.

But in April, he also co-authored a bipartisan letter calling for the Trump administration to continue to offer Ukrainian immigrants protection.

“Many of them have found employment, pay taxes, have their children enrolled in school, and are positively contributing to their new communities,” the letter states. “Revoking their protections and sending them back to a war-torn country before peace is secured would be devastating for both them and their families.”

Baumgartner said he did not get a response from the administration.

Still, he stressed to InvestigateWest that “the Ukrainian population have really been model immigrants. They’re hard-working folks, they are entrepreneurs, small business owners.” He was hopeful that Trump could use his tough-on-immigration reputation as a way to bring about reform of a broken system.

In a dark way, Oberemok with the Spokane Slavic Association finds a reason for optimism in the recent news about the stabbing of a young Ukrainian refugee woman in North Carolina. Trump, in his social media post calling for the death penalty for the “animal” who murdered her, had characterized her as a “beautiful young lady from Ukraine, who came to America searching for peace and safety.”

“It’s already giving us hope that he’s not planning on sending us back home,” Oberemok said.

So far, Trump has shown little sign of making it easier for immigrants. In an interview this month, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow declared that the administration plans to make it even harder, and more expensive, for immigrants to get work authorization. He accused the Biden administration of using work permits as a magnet to attract droves of foreigners to the United States.

“To the extent that we can shut off work authorization once we terminate these paroles, we’ve done that,” Edlow said. “You may be eligible for a work permit, but that doesn’t mean anymore that that’s going to result in you being able to remain in this country.”

For now, Ukrainian immigrants continue living under what Mariia Chava, Denys’s sponsor and former neighbor, calls “the big question mark.”

“What will be tomorrow?” she said. “Nobody knows.”

Denys knows he can’t return to Ukraine, where war is still raging and where many see those who left as traitors.

He loves the beauty of nature in Spokane, driving on America’s wide open roads. But he can’t live in a place where he has to fear deportation, where he’s not allowed to provide for his family without breaking the law, where he has no clear path to becoming legal.

“I love this country,” Denys said. “Just give me a chance to work.”

This story was originally published in InvestigateWest and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A veteran water expert from Arizona says the Trump administration withdrew his nomination to lead the federal agency that oversees water management in the western U.S., leaving the Bureau of Reclamation without permanent leadership this year.

Ted Cooke told The Associated Press late Wednesday that he was preparing for a Senate confirmation hearing early this month but his name was removed from the agenda. He wasn’t told until this week that there was an unspecified issue with his background check. Cooke said the White House didn’t offer any details and asked only that he withdraw himself from consideration.

“The real story here is that I’ve been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency because of party politics and maybe Colorado River basin intrigues,” Cooke said, adding that he believes he was given a fabricated excuse “to avoid having any discussion on what the real issue is.”

Cooke said he didn’t know what the issue was.

The shift comes as the bureau and seven states face a deadline to decide how to share the Colorado River amid ongoing drought and shrinking water supplies.

The Interior Department, which oversees the bureau, referred questions about Cooke to the White House, which did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment.

Trump’s announcement in June that he had tapped Cooke, the former general manager of the Central Arizona Project, drew praise from many who said Cooke’s experience delivering water to the state’s most populous communities would be a plus for the bureau.

Still, officials in other Western states had concerns that Cooke would give deference to his home state as negotiations over the future of the Colorado River come to a head. Water managers have been grappling with the prospect of painful cuts in water supplies as the river dwindles.

The Colorado River is a critical lifeline to seven U.S. states, more than 20 Native American tribes, and two Mexican states. It provides electricity to millions of homes and businesses, irrigates vast stretches of desert farmland and reaches faucets in cities throughout the Southwest, including Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

In Mesa, Arizona, Mayor Mark Freeman had celebrated Cooke’s nomination back in June in a social media post. On Wednesday, the Republican told the AP he was disappointed to learn the nomination wouldn’t move forward.

“Mr. Cooke has dedicated his career to managing Arizona’s water resources, and his deep knowledge of the Colorado River system would have provided valuable insight during this critical time. Although his nomination was not confirmed, the challenges before us remain,” Freeman said, highlighting the need to ensure reliable water supplies.

Anne Castle, former chair of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said in an email that withdrawal of the nomination “looks like backroom politics at a time when what we really need is straightforward leadership on western water issues.”

Cooke said he heard from some people that his knack for being fair and even-handed might have worked against him. He theorized that some officials might have been pushing to find a “more ruthless” nominee since Colorado River negotiations have been anything but easy.

Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, said that while Cooke’s withdrawal is a lost opportunity to have a highly qualified person in the job, it’s not likely to disrupt ongoing negotiations. She said the bureau’s acting leadership has been working assiduously to figure out a way forward for river management.

She also doubted that having Cooke lead the bureau would have given Arizona a leg up, saying “there are too many other decision-makers and significant stakeholders involved for that to ever be a real possibility. And they know that Ted would have tried hard to rise above all that.”

It’s unclear whether the Trump administration is considering other candidates for the top post at the bureau.

Associated Press writers Felicia Fonseca in New York City, Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., and Dorany Pineda in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

By AAMER MADHANI and KONSTANTIN TOROPIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested that he is working to reestablish a U.S. presence at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, four years after America’s chaotic withdrawal from the country left the base in the Taliban’s hands.

Trump floated the idea during a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as he wrapped up a state visit to the U.K. and tied it to the need for the U.S. to counter its top rival, China.

“We’re trying to get it back,” Trump said of the base in an aside to a question about ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

While Trump described his call for the U.S. military to reestablish a position in Afghanistan as “breaking news,” the Republican president has previously raised the idea. The White House did not immediately respond to questions about whether it or the Pentagon has done any planning around returning to the sprawling air base, which was central to America’s longest war.

Trump has seized on the U.S. withdrawal under Biden

During his first presidency, Trump set the terms for the U.S. withdrawal by negotiating a deal with the Taliban. The 20-year conflict came to an end in disquieting fashion under President Joe Biden: The U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed, a grisly bombing killed 13 U.S. troops and 170 others, and thousands of desperate Afghans descended on Kabul’s airport in search of a way out before the final U.S. aircraft departed over the Hindu Kush.

The Afghanistan debacle was a major setback just eight months into Biden’s Democratic presidency that he struggled to recover from.

Biden’s Republican detractors, including Trump, seized on it as a signal moment in a failed presidency. Those criticisms have persisted into the present day, including as recently as last week, when Trump claimed the move emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine in February 2022.

“He would have never done what he did, except that he didn’t respect the leadership of the United States,” Trump said, speaking of Putin. “They just went through the Afghanistan total disaster for no reason whatsoever. We were going to leave Afghanistan, but we were going to leave it with strength and dignity. We were going to keep Bagram Air Base — one of the biggest air bases in the world. We gave it to them for nothing.”

Asked again about the proposal hours later on Air Force One, Trump offered no details but again bashed Biden for “gross incompetence” and said the base should have “never been given back.”

“It’s one of the most powerful bases in the world in terms of runway strength and length,” he said. “You can land anything on there. You can land a planet on top of it.”

No clarity if there have been discussions with the Taliban about Bagram

It is unclear if the U.S. has any new direct or indirect conversations with the Taliban government about returning to the country. But Trump hinted that the Taliban, who have struggled with an economic crisis, international legitimacy, internal rifts and rival militant groups since their return to power in 2021, could be game to allow the U.S. military to return.

“We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us,” Trump said of the Taliban.

The president repeated his view that a U.S. presence at Bagram is of value because of its proximity to China, the most significant economic and military competitor to the United States.

“But one of the reasons we want that base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” Trump said. “So a lot of things are happening.”

While the U.S. and the Taliban have no formal diplomatic ties, the sides have had hostage conversations. An American man who was abducted more than two years ago while traveling through Afghanistan as a tourist was released by the Taliban in March.

Last week, the Taliban also said they reached an agreement with U.S. envoys on an exchange of prisoners as part of an effort to normalize relations between the United States and Afghanistan.

The Taliban gave no details of a detainee swap, and the White House did not comment on the meeting in Kabul or the results described in a Taliban statement. The Taliban released photographs from their talks, showing their foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, with Trump’s special envoy for hostage response, Adam Boehler.

Officials at U.S. Central Command in the Middle East and the Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office, referred questions about reestablishing a presence at Bagram to the White House.

By ISABELLA VOLMERT and OBED LAMY, Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg rallied Democrats against redistricting in his home state of Indiana Thursday as pressure grows on Republican state lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional districts.

Buttigieg — a contender to represent Democrats aiming to win back the presidency in 2028 — was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, before he launched into the national political scene by running for president in 2020 and emerged victorious from the Iowa caucus that year.

Indiana Republicans have been hesitant to redistrict so far compared to other states where the GOP holds control. But Democrats have little power to stop the move if Republican leaders choose to create a new map.

“Indiana Republicans are being pressured by Washington Republicans to do something that they know in their hearts is wrong,” Buttigieg said.

Typically, states redraw their congressional districts every 10 years with the census. But President Donald Trump wants to give his party an advantage in the 2026 election in order to keep majority control in the House of Representatives, as midterms tend to favor the party out of power. Republicans in Texas and Missouri have moved to create advantageous new seats while California Democrats have countered with their own new proposal.

Indiana lawmakers however have not yet answered the redistricting call and have kept their cards close, emblematic of the state’s independent streak and its more measured approach to politics.

But pressure from Trump to redraw House districts has been mounting on Republicans in the state he won by 19 percentage points in 2024. First-term Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, said Tuesday that a legislative session on redistricting probably will happen, and it could come as soon as November. But he doesn’t want to call a special session unless there will be a successful outcome.

“I’ve been very clear. I want it to be organic,” he said in a video reported by WRTV in Indianapolis.

A large crowd gathered inside the statehouse in Indianapolis Thursday afternoon to see Buttigieg speak.

“It’s an issue of fairness,” said Judy Jessup, an Indianapolis resident. “The voters should get to choose politicians, not the other way around.”

Buttigieg is the biggest Democratic voice to come out of Indiana in recent memory. Following the 2020 election, Buttigieg and his family moved to Traverse City, Michigan, and he served as Secretary of Transportation under the Biden administration.

In an excerpt from her upcoming memoir, Kamala Harris said that Buttigieg was her first pick for 2024 running mate, but she said running with Buttigieg, who is openly gay, was too risky. He didn’t address the comments on Thursday.

Braun could call a special session, but it would be up to lawmakers to create a new map. Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers in Indiana, meaning Democrats could not stop or delay a special session by refusing to attend, like their peers in Texas briefly did. Republicans also outnumber Democrats in Indiana’s congressional delegation 7-2. Some Republicans see an opportunity to gain all nine seats in the state.

The GOP would likely target Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, a Democratic stronghold encompassing Gary and other cities near Chicago. Three-term Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan won reelection in 2022 and easily retained the seat in 2024 even after Republicans redrew the district to be slightly more favorable to the GOP.

Republicans could also zero in on the 7th Congressional District, composed entirely of Marion County and the Democratic stronghold of Indianapolis, but they would invite more controversy by slicing up Indiana’s largest city and diluting Black voters’ influence.

“Both of those districts are filled with Black voters,” state Sen. Andrea Hunley, who represents Indianapolis, said at the rally. “This is a racist power grab to silence voters who look like me.”

Texas passed a new map that would help Republicans win up to five new seats, and Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, is expected to sign legislation soon that would help Republicans win seven of the state’s eight districts. Meanwhile, California Democrats are launching a campaign to build support ahead of a Nov. 4 referendum on new U.S. House districts that were made to offset wins made by Texas Republicans.

Utah and Ohio may soon have new congressional district maps, and elected leaders in other states also are considering mid-decade redistricting, including Republicans in Florida and Kansas and Democrats in Maryland and New York.

Volmert reported from Lansing, Michigan.