By COLLIN BINKLEY, AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is pressing for a deal with Harvard University that would require the Ivy League school to pay far more than the $200 million fine agreed to by Columbia University to resolve multiple federal investigations, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Harvard would be expected to pay hundreds of millions of dollars as part of any settlement to end investigations into antisemitism at its campus, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Harvard leaders have been negotiating with the White House even as they battle in court to regain access to billions in federal research funding terminated by the Trump administration.

The White House’s desire to get Harvard to pay far more than Columbia was first reported by The New York Times, which said the school has signaled a willingness to pay as much as $500 million.

Harvard did not immediately comment.

The Trump administration plans to use its deal with Columbia as a template for other universities, with financial penalties that are now seen as a staple for future agreements. Last week, Columbia leaders agreed to pay $200 million as part of a settlement to resolve investigations into alleged violations of federal antidiscrimination laws and restore more than $400 million in research grants.

Columbia had been in talks for months after the Trump administration accused the university of allowing the harassment of Jewish students and employees amid a wave of campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Harvard faces similar accusations but, unlike Columbia, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school challenged the administration’s funding cuts and subsequent sanctions in court.

Last week, President Donald Trump said Harvard “wants to settle” but he said Columbia “handled it better.”

The Trump administration’s emphasis on financial penalties adds a new dimension for colleges facing federal scrutiny. In the past, civil rights investigations by the Education Department almost always ended with voluntary agreements and rarely included fines.

Even when the government has levied fines, they’ve been a small fraction of the scale Trump is seeking. Last year, the Education Department fined Liberty University $14 million after finding the Christian school failed to disclose crimes on its campus. It was the most the government had ever fined a university under the Clery Act, following a $4.5 million fine dealt to Michigan State University in 2019 for its handling of sexual assault complaints against disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar.

The University of Pennsylvania agreed this month to modify school records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, but that school’s deal with the Trump administration included no fine.

The Trump administration has opened investigations at dozens of universities over allegations of antisemitism or racial discrimination in the form of diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Several face funding freezes akin to those at Harvard, including more than $1 billion at Cornell University and $790 million at Northwestern University.

Last week, Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the Columbia deal a “roadmap” for other colleges, saying it would “ripple across the higher education sector and change the course of campus culture for years to come.”

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 ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, is open to answering questions from Congress — but only if she is granted immunity from future prosecution for her testimony, her lawyers said Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for the committee that wants to interview her responded with a terse statement saying it would not consider offering her immunity.

Maxwell’s lawyers also asked that they be provided with any questions in advance and that any interview with her be scheduled after her petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to take up her case has been resolved.

The conditions were laid out in a letter sent by Maxwell’s attorneys to Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee who last week issued a subpoena for her deposition at the Florida prison where she is serving a 20-year-prison sentence on a conviction of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls.

The request to interview her is part of a frenzied, renewed interest in the Epstein saga following the Justice Department’s July statement that it would not be releasing any additional records from the investigation, an abrupt announcement that stunned online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and elements of President Donald Trump’s base who had been hoping to find proof of a government coverup.

Since then, the Trump administration has sought to present itself as promoting transparency, with the department urging courts to unseal grand jury transcripts from the sex-trafficking investigation and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewing Maxwell over the course of two days at a Florida courthouse last week.

In a letter Tuesday, Maxwell’s attorneys said that though their initial instinct was for Maxwell to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, they are open to having her cooperate provided that lawmakers satisfy their request for immunity and other conditions.

But the Oversight Committee seemed to reject that offer outright.

“The Oversight Committee will respond to Ms. Maxwell’s attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony,” a spokesperson said.

Separately, Maxwell’s attorneys have urged the Supreme Court to review her conviction, saying she dd not receive a fair trial. They also say that one way she would testify “openly and honestly, in public,” is in the event of a pardon by Trump, who has told reporters that such a move is within his rights but that he has not been not asked to make it.

“She welcomes the opportunity to share the truth and to dispel the many misconceptions and misstatements that have plagued this case from the beginning,” he said.

By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer

In its push to remove transgender athletes from Olympic sports, the Trump administration provided the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee a detailed legal brief on how such a move would not conflict with the Ted Stevens Act, the landmark 1978 federal statute governing the Olympic movement.

That gave the USOPC the cover it needed to quietly change its policy, though the protection offers no guarantee the new policy won’t be challenged in court.

Olympic legal expert Jill Pilgrim called the Trump guidance “a well thought-out, well-reasoned set of arguments for people who want to look at it from that perspective.”

“But I’d be pretty shocked if this doesn’t get challenged if there is, somewhere along the line, a trans athlete who’s in contention for an Olympic team or world championship and gets excluded,” said Pilgrim, who has experience litigating eligibility rules for the Olympics and is a former general counsel for USA Track and Field.

The USOPC’s update of its athlete safety policy orders its 54 national governing bodies to rewrite their participation rules to ensure they are in sync with the executive order Trump signed in February called “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”

When the USOPC released the guidance, fewer than five had rules that would adhere to the new policy.

Among the first adopters was USA Fencing, which was pulled into a congressional hearing earlier this year about transgender women in sports when a woman refused to compete against a transgender opponent at a meet in Maryland.

One of the main concerns over the USOPC’s change is that rewriting the rules could conflict with a clause in the Ted Stevens Act stating that an NGB cannot have eligibility criteria “that are more restrictive than those of the appropriate international sports federation” that oversees its sport.

While some American federations such as USATF and USA Swimming follow rules set by their international counterparts, many others don’t. International federations have wrestled with eligibility criteria surrounding transgender sports, and not all have guidelines as strict as what Trump’s order calls for.

World Rowing, for example, has guidelines that call for specific medical conditions to be met for transgender athletes competing in the female category. Other federations, such as the one for skiing, are more vague.

White House lawyers provided the USOPC a seven-paragraph analysis that concluded that requiring “men’s participation in women’s sports cannot be squared with the rest of the” Ted Stevens Act.

“And in any event, permitting male athletes to compete against only other fellow males is not a ‘restriction’ on participation or eligibility, it is instead, a neutral channeling rule,” according to the analysis, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

Once the sports federations come into compliance, the question then becomes whether the new policy will be challenged, either by individual athletes or by states whose laws don’t conform with what the NGBs adopt. The guidance impacts everyone from Olympic-level athletes to grassroots players whose clubs are affiliated with the NGBs.

Shannon Minter, the legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said it will not be hard to find a transgender athlete who is being harmed by the USOPC change, and that the White House guidance “will be challenged and is highly unlikely to succeed.”

“There are transgender women. There are some international sporting organizations that have policies that permit transgender women to compete if they meet certain medical conditions,” Minter said. “Under the Ted Stevens Act, they can’t override that. So, their response is just to, by brute force, pretend there’s no such thing as a transgender woman. They can’t just dictate that by sheer force of will.”

Traditionally, athletes on the Olympic pathway who have issues with eligibility rules must first try to resolve those through what’s called a Section IX arbitration case before heading to the U.S. court system. Pilgrim spelled out one scenario in which an athlete wins an arbitration “and then the USOPC has a problem.”

“Then, it’s in the USOPC’s court to deny that person the opportunity to compete, and then they’ll be in court, no doubt about that,” she said.

All this comes against the backdrop of a 2020 law that passed that, in the wake of sex scandals in Olympic sports, gave Congress the power to dissolve the USOPC board.

That, combined with the upcoming Summer Games in Los Angeles and the president’s consistent effort to place his stamp on issues surrounding sports, is widely viewed as driving the USOPC’s traditionally cautious board toward making a decision that was being roundly criticized in some circles. The committee’s new policy replaces one that called for reliance on “real data and science-based evidence rather than ideology” to make decisions about transgender athletes in sports.

“As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations,” CEO Sarah Hirshland and board chair Gene Sykes wrote to Olympic stakeholders last week. “The guidance we’ve received aligns with the Ted Stevens Act, reinforcing our mandated responsibility to promote athlete safety and competitive fairness.”

The USOPC didn’t set a timeline on NGBs coming into compliance, though it’s believed most will get there by the end of the year.

By MELINA WALLING and MATTHEW DALY

When President Donald Trump rolled out a plan to boost artificial intelligence and data centers, a key goal was wiping away barriers to rapid growth.

And that meant taking aim at the National Environmental Policy Act — a 55-year-old, bedrock law aimed at protecting the environment through a process that requires agencies to consider a project’s possible impacts and allows the public to be heard before a project is approved. Data centers, demanding vast amounts of energy and water, have aroused strong opposition in some communities.

The AI Action Plan Trump announced last week would seek to sweep aside NEPA, as it’s commonly known, to streamline environmental reviews and permitting for data centers and related infrastructure. Republicans and business interests have long criticized NEPA for what they see as unreasonable slowing of development, and Trump’s plan would give “categorical exclusions” to data centers for “maximum efficiency” in permitting.

A spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality said the administration is “focused on driving meaningful NEPA reform to reduce the delays in federal permitting, unleashing the ability for America to strengthen its AI and manufacturing leadership.”

Trump’s administration has been weakening the law for months.

“It’s par for the course for this administration. The attitude is to clear the way for projects that harm communities and the environment,” said Erin Doran, senior staff attorney at environmental nonprofit Food & Water Watch.

Here’s what to know about this key environmental law, and Trump’s effort to weaken it:

What is NEPA and why does it matter?

NEPA is a foundational environmental law in the United States, “essentially our Magna Carta for the environment,” said Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, another environmental group, referring to the 13th century English legal text that formed the basis for constitutions worldwide.

Signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970, NEPA requires federal agencies proposing actions such as building roads, bridges or energy projects to study how their project will affect the environment. Private companies are also frequently subject to NEPA standards when they apply for a permit from a federal agency.

In recent years, the law has become increasingly important in requiring consideration of a project’s possible contributions to climate change.

“That’s a really important function because otherwise we’re just operating with blinders just to get the project done, without considering whether there are alternative solutions that might accomplish the same objective, but in a more environmentally friendly way,” Park said.

But business groups say NEPA routinely blocks important projects that often take five years or more to complete.

“Our broken permitting system has long been a national embarrassment,” said Marty Durbin, president of the U.S. Chamber’s Global Energy Institute. He called NEPA “a blunt and haphazard tool” that too often is used to block investment and economic development.

The White House proposal comes as Congress is working on a permitting reform plan that would overhaul NEPA, addressing long-standing concerns from both parties that development projects — including some for clean energy — take too long to be approved.

What’s happened to NEPA recently?

NEPA’s strength — and usefulness — can depend on how it’s interpreted by different administrations.

Trump, a Republican, sought to weaken NEPA in his first term by limiting when environmental reviews are required and limiting the time for evaluation and public comment. Former Democratic President Joe Biden restored more rigorous reviews.

In his second term, Trump has again targeted the law.

An executive order that touched on environmental statutes has many agencies scrapping the requirement for a draft environmental impact statement. And the CEQ in May withdrew Biden-era guidance that federal agencies should consider the effects of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions when conducting NEPA reviews.

Separately, the U.S. Supreme Court in May narrowed the scope of environmental reviews required for major infrastructure projects. In a ruling involving a Utah railway expansion project aimed at quadrupling oil production, the court said NEPA wasn’t designed “for judges to hamstring new infrastructure and construction projects.”

“It’s been a rough eight months for NEPA,” said Dinah Bear, a former general counsel at the Council on Environmental Quality under both Democratic and Republican presidents.

John Ruple, a research professor of law at the University of Utah, said sidelining NEPA could actually slow things down. Federal agencies still have to comply with other environmental laws, like the Endangered Species Act or Clean Air Act. NEPA has an often overlooked benefit of forcing coordination with those other laws, he said.

Some examples of cases where NEPA has played a role

A botanist by training, Mary O’Brien was working with a small organization in Oregon in the 1980s to propose alternative techniques to successfully replant Douglas fir trees that had been clear-cut on federal lands. Aerially sprayed herbicides aimed at helping the conifers grow have not only been linked to health problems in humans but were also killing another species of tree, red alders, that were beneficial to the fir saplings, O’Brien said.

The U.S. Forest Service had maintained that the herbicides’ impact on humans and red alders wasn’t a problem. But under NEPA, a court required the agency to redo their analysis and they ultimately had to write a new environmental impact statement.

“It’s a fundamental concept: ‘Don’t just roar ahead.’ Think about your options,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien, who later worked at the Grand Canyon Trust, also co-chaired a working group that weighed in on a 2012 Forest Service proposal, finalized in 2016, for aspen restoration on Monroe Mountain in Utah. Hunters, landowners, loggers and ranchers all had different opinions on how the restoration should be handled. She said NEPA’s requirement to get the public involved made for better research and a better plan.

“I think it’s one of the laws that’s the most often used by the public without the public being aware,” said Stephen Schima, senior legislative counsel at environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice. “NEPA has long been the one opportunity for communities and impacted stakeholders and local governments to weigh in.”

Schima said rolling back the power of NEPA threatens the scientific integrity of examining projects’ full impacts.

“Decisions are going to be less informed by scientific studies, and that is one of the major concerns here,” he said.

Ruple said uncertainty from NEPA changes and competing opinions on how to comply with the law’s requirements may invite even more litigation.

“And all of this will fall on the shoulder of agencies that are losing the staff needed to lead them through these changes,” he said.

This story has been updated to correct the date to 2012, not 2018, for a U.S. Forest Service proposal for aspen restoration in Utah.

Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social.

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.

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO and DAVID CRARY

MONTREAL (AP) — Throughout his new term, starting with his inaugural address, President Donald Trump has said he was “saved by God” to make America great again. In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney rarely evokes religion in public; his victory speech in April never used the word God. “Canada forever. Vive le Canada,” he ended.

As Canada and the U.S. now skirmish over Trump’s tariff threats and occasional bullying, the leaders’ rhetoric reflects a striking difference between their nations. Religion plays a far more subdued role in the public sphere in Canada than in its southern neighbor.

Trump posed in front of a vandalized Episcopal parish house gripping a Bible. He invites pastors to the Oval Office to pray with him. His ally, House Speaker Mike Johnson, says the best way to understand his own world view is to read the Bible.

Such high-level religion-themed displays would be unlikely and almost certainly unpopular in Canada, where Carney — like his recent predecessors — generally avoids public discussion of his faith. (He is a Catholic who supports abortion rights.)

There are broader differences as well. The rate of regular church attendance in Canada is far lower than in the U.S. Evangelical Christians have nowhere near the political clout in Canada that they have south of the border. There is no major campaign in Canada to post the Ten Commandments in public schools or to enact sweeping abortion bans.

Kevin Kee, a professor and former dean at the University of Ottawa, has written about the contrasting religious landscapes of the U.S. and Canada, exploring the rise of American evangelist Billy Graham to become a confidant of numerous U.S. presidents.

Christianity, Kee said, has not permeated modern Canadian politics to that extent.

“We have a political leadership that keeps its religion quiet,” Kee said. “To make that kind of declaration in Canada is to create an us/them situation. There’s no easy way to keep everybody happy, so people keep it quiet.”

A dramatic loss of Catholic power in Quebec

The mostly French-speaking province of Quebec provides a distinctive example of Canada’s tilt toward secularism. The Catholic Church was Quebec’s dominant force through most of its history, with sweeping influence over schools, health care and politics.

That changed dramatically in the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, when the provincial government took control of education and health care as part of a broader campaign to reduce the church’s power. The rate of regular church attendance among Quebec’s Catholics plummeted from one of the highest in Canada to the one of the lowest.

Among religiously devout Canadians, in Quebec and other provinces, some are candid about feeling marginalized in a largely secular country.

“I feel isolated because our traditional Christian views are seen as old-fashioned or not moving with the times,” said Mégane Arès-Dubé, 22, after she and her husband attended a service at a conservative Reformed Baptist church in Saint Jerome, about 30 miles (nearly 50 kilometers) north of Montreal.

“Contrary to the U.S., where Christians are more represented in elected officials, Christians are really not represented in Canada,” she added. “I pray that Canada wakes up.”

The church’s senior pastor, Pascal Denault, has mixed feelings about the Quiet Revolution’s legacy.

“For many aspects of it, that was good,” he said. “Before that, it was mainly the Catholic clergy that controlled many things in the province, so we didn’t have religious freedom.”

Nonetheless, Denault wishes for a more positive public view of religion in Canada.

“Sometimes, secularism becomes a religion in itself, and it wants to shut up any religious speech in the public sphere,” he said. “What we hope for is that the government will recognize that religion is not an enemy to fight, but it’s more a positive force to encourage.”

Denault recently hosted a podcast episode focusing on Trump; he later shared some thoughts about the president.

“We tend to think that Trump is more using Christianity as a tool for his influence, rather than being a genuine Christian,” he said. “But Christians are, I think, appreciative of some of his stances on different things.”

Trump’s religion-related tactics — such as posing with the Bible in his hands — wouldn’t go over well with Canadians, Denault said.

“They’d see that as something wrongful. The public servant should not identify with a specific religion,” Denault said. “I don’t think most Canadians would vote for that type of politician.”

Repurposed church buildings abound in Montreal

In the Montreal neighborhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, the skyline is dotted with crosses atop steeples, but many of those churches are unused or repurposed.

For decades, factory and port workers worshipped at Saint-Mathias-Apotre Church. Today it’s a restaurant that serves affordable meals daily for more than 600 residents.

The manager of Le Chic Resto Pop, Marc-Andre Simard, grew up Catholic and now, like many of his staff, identifies as religiously unaffiliated. But he still tries to honor some core values of Catholicism at the nonprofit restaurant, which retains the church’s original wooden doors and even its confessional booths.

“There’s still space to be together, to have some sort of communion, but it’s around food, not around faith.” Simard said during a lunch break, sitting near what used to be the altar of the former church.

Simard says the extent to which the Catholic Church controlled so much of public life in Quebec should serve as a cautionary tale for the U.S.

“We went through what the United States are going through right now,” he said.

Elsewhere in Montreal, a building that once housed a Catholic convent now often accommodates meetings of the Quebec Humanist Association.

The group’s co-founder, Michel Virard, said French Canadians “know firsthand what it was to have a clergy nosing in their affairs.”

Now, Virard says, “There is no ‘excluding religious voice’ in Canada, merely attempts at excluding clergy from manipulating the state power levers and using taxpayers’ money to promote a particular religious viewpoint.”

History reveals why role of religion is so different in U.S. and Canada

Why are Canada and the U.S., two neighbors which share so many cultural traditions and priorities, so different regarding religion’s role in public life?

According to academics who have pondered that question, their history provides some answers. The United States, at independence from Britain, chose not to have a dominant, federally established church.

In Canada, meanwhile, the Catholic Church was dominant in Quebec, and the Church of England — eventually named the Anglican Church of Canada — was powerful elsewhere.

Professor Darren Dochuk, a Canadian who teaches history at University of Notre Dame in Indiana, says the “disestablishment” of religion in the U.S. “made religious life all the more dynamic.”

“This is a country in which free faith communities have been allowed to compete in the marketplace for their share,” he said.

“In the 20th century, you had a plethora of religious groups across the spectrum who all competed voraciously for access to power,” he said. “More recently, the evangelicals are really dominating that. … Religious conservatives are imposing their will on Washington.”

There’s been no equivalent faith-based surge in Canada, said Dochuk, suggesting that Canada’s secularization produced “precipitous decline in the power of religion as a major operator in politics.”

Carmen Celestini, professor of religious studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said that even when Canadian politicians do opt for faith-based outreach, they often take a multicultural approach — for example, visiting Sikh, Hindu and Jewish houses of worship, as well as Christian churches.

Trump’s talk about Canada becoming the 51st state fueled a greater sense of national unity among most Canadians, and undermined the relatively small portion of them who identify as Christian nationalists, Celestini said.

“Canada came together more as a nation, not sort of seeing differences with each other, but seeing each other as Canadians and being proud of our sovereignty and who we are as a nation,” she said. “The concern that Canadians have, when we look at what’s happening in America, is that we don’t want that to happen here. “

Crary, who reported from New York, was the AP’s Canada bureau chief from 1995-99.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By JOCELYN GECKER, Associated Press

As artificial intelligence technology becomes part of daily life, adolescents are turning to chatbots for advice, guidance and conversation. The appeal is clear: Chatbots are patient, never judgmental, supportive and always available.

That worries experts who say the booming AI industry is largely unregulated and that many parents have no idea about how their kids are using AI tools or the extent of personal information they are sharing with chatbots.

New research shows more than 70% of American teenagers have used AI companions and more than half converse with them regularly. The study by Common Sense Media focused on “AI companions,” like Character. AI, Nomi and Replika, which it defines as “digital friends or characters you can text or talk with whenever you want,” versus AI assistants or tools like ChatGPT, though it notes they can be used the same way.

It’s important that parents understand the technology. Experts suggest some things parents can do to help protect their kids:

— Start a conversation, without judgment, says Michael Robb, head researcher at Common Sense Media. Approach your teen with curiosity and basic questions: “Have you heard of AI companions?” “Do you use apps that talk to you like a friend?” Listen and understand what appeals to your teen before being dismissive or saying you’re worried about it.

— Help teens recognize that AI companions are programmed to be agreeable and validating. Explain that’s not how real relationships work and that real friends with their own points of view can help navigate difficult situations in ways that AI companions cannot.

“One of the things that’s really concerning is not only what’s happening on screen but how much time it’s taking kids away from relationships in real life,” says Mitch Prinstein, chief of psychology at the American Psychological Association. “We need to teach kids that this is a form of entertainment. It’s not real, and it’s really important they distinguish it from reality and should not have it replace relationships in your actual life.”

The APA recently put out a health advisory on AI and adolescent well-being, and tips for parents.

— Parents should watch for signs of unhealthy attachments.

“If your teen is preferring AI interactions over real relationships or spending hours talking to AI companions, or showing that they are becoming emotionally distressed when separated from them — those are patterns that suggest AI companions might be replacing rather than complementing human connection,” Robb says.

— Parents can set rules about AI use, just like they do for screen time and social media. Have discussions about when and how AI tools can and cannot be used. Many AI companions are designed for adult use and can mimic romantic, intimate and role-playing scenarios.

While AI companions may feel supportive, children should understand the tools are not equipped to handle a real crisis or provide genuine mental health support. If kids are struggling with depression, anxiety, loneliness, an eating disorder or other mental health challenges, they need human support — whether it is family, friends or a mental health professional.

— Get informed. The more parents know about AI, the better. “I don’t think people quite get what AI can do, how many teens are using it and why it’s starting to get a little scary,” says Prinstein, one of many experts calling for regulations to ensure safety guardrails for children. “A lot of us throw our hands up and say, ‘I don’t know what this is!’ This sounds crazy!’ Unfortunately, that tells kids if you have a problem with this, don’t come to me because I am going to diminish it and belittle it.”

Older teenagers have advice, too, for parents and kids. Banning AI tools is not a solution because the technology is becoming ubiquitous, says Ganesh Nair, 18.

“Trying not to use AI is like trying to not use social media today. It is too ingrained in everything we do,” says Nair, who is trying to step back from using AI companions after seeing them affect real-life friendships in his high school. “The best way you can try to regulate it is to embrace being challenged.”

“Anything that is difficult, AI can make easy. But that is a problem,” says Nair. “Actively seek out challenges, whether academic or personal. If you fall for the idea that easier is better, then you are the most vulnerable to being absorbed into this newly artificial world.”

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 JOCELYN GECKER, Associated Press

No question is too small when Kayla Chege, a high school student in Kansas, is using artificial intelligence.

The 15-year-old asks ChatGPT for guidance on back-to-school shopping, makeup colors, low-calorie choices at Smoothie King, plus ideas for her Sweet 16 and her younger sister’s birthday party.

The sophomore honors student makes a point not to have chatbots do her homework and tries to limit her interactions to mundane questions. But in interviews with The Associated Press and a new study, teenagers say they are increasingly interacting with AI as if it were a companion, capable of providing advice and friendship.

“Everyone uses AI for everything now. It’s really taking over,” said Chege, who wonders how AI tools will affect her generation. “I think kids use AI to get out of thinking.”

For the past couple of years, concerns about cheating at school have dominated the conversation around kids and AI. But artificial intelligence is playing a much larger role in many of their lives. AI, teens say, has become a go-to source for personal advice, emotional support, everyday decision-making and problem-solving.

‘AI is always available. It never gets bored with you’

More than 70% of teens have used AI companions and half use them regularly, according to a new study from Common Sense Media, a group that studies and advocates for using screens and digital media sensibly.

The study defines AI companions as platforms designed to serve as “digital friends,” like Character. AI or Replika, which can be customized with specific traits or personalities and can offer emotional support, companionship and conversations that can feel human-like. But popular sites like ChatGPT and Claude, which mainly answer questions, are being used in the same way, the researchers say.

As the technology rapidly gets more sophisticated, teenagers and experts worry about AI’s potential to redefine human relationships and exacerbate crises of loneliness and youth mental health.

“AI is always available. It never gets bored with you. It’s never judgmental,” says Ganesh Nair, an 18-year-old in Arkansas. “When you’re talking to AI, you are always right. You’re always interesting. You are always emotionally justified.”

All that used to be appealing, but as Nair heads to college this fall, he wants to step back from using AI. Nair got spooked after a high school friend who relied on an “AI companion” for heart-to-heart conversations with his girlfriend later had the chatbot write the breakup text ending his two-year relationship.

“That felt a little bit dystopian, that a computer generated the end to a real relationship,” said Nair. “It’s almost like we are allowing computers to replace our relationships with people.”

How many teens are using AI? New study stuns researchers

In the Common Sense Media survey, 31% of teens said their conversations with AI companions were “as satisfying or more satisfying” than talking with real friends. Even though half of teens said they distrust AI’s advice, 33% had discussed serious or important issues with AI instead of real people.

Those findings are worrisome, says Michael Robb, the study’s lead author and head researcher at Common Sense, and should send a warning to parents, teachers and policymakers. The now-booming and largely unregulated AI industry is becoming as integrated with adolescence as smartphones and social media are.

“It’s eye-opening,” said Robb. “When we set out to do this survey, we had no understanding of how many kids are actually using AI companions.” The study polled more than 1,000 teens nationwide in April and May.

Adolescence is a critical time for developing identity, social skills and independence, Robb said, and AI companions should complement — not replace — real-world interactions.

“If teens are developing social skills on AI platforms where they are constantly being validated, not being challenged, not learning to read social cues or understand somebody else’s perspective, they are not going to be adequately prepared in the real world,” he said.

The nonprofit analyzed several popular AI companions in a “ risk assessment,” finding ineffective age restrictions and that the platforms can produce sexual material, give dangerous advice and offer harmful content. The group recommends that minors not use AI companions.

A concerning trend to teens and adults alike

Researchers and educators worry about the cognitive costs for youth who rely heavily on AI, especially in their creativity, critical thinking and social skills. The potential dangers of children forming relationships with chatbots gained national attention last year when a 14-year-old Florida boy died by suicide after developing an emotional attachment to a Character. AI chatbot.

“Parents really have no idea this is happening,” said Eva Telzer, a psychology and neuroscience professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “All of us are struck by how quickly this blew up.” Telzer is leading multiple studies on youth and AI, a new research area with limited data.

Telzer’s research has found that children as young as 8 are using generative AI and also found that teens are using AI to explore their sexuality and for companionship. In focus groups, Telzer found that one of the top apps teens frequent is SpicyChat AI, a free role-playing app intended for adults.

Many teens also say they use chatbots to write emails or messages to strike the right tone in sensitive situations.

“One of the concerns that comes up is that they no longer have trust in themselves to make a decision,” said Telzer. “They need feedback from AI before feeling like they can check off the box that an idea is OK or not.”

Arkansas teen Bruce Perry, 17, says he relates to that and relies on AI tools to craft outlines and proofread essays for his English class.

“If you tell me to plan out an essay, I would think of going to ChatGPT before getting out a pencil,” Perry said. He uses AI daily and has asked chatbots for advice in social situations, to help him decide what to wear and to write emails to teachers, saying AI articulates his thoughts faster.

Perry says he feels fortunate that AI companions were not around when he was younger.

“I’m worried that kids could get lost in this,” Perry said. “I could see a kid that grows up with AI not seeing a reason to go to the park or try to make a friend.”

Other teens agree, saying the issues with AI and its effect on children’s mental health are different from those of social media.

“Social media complemented the need people have to be seen, to be known, to meet new people,” Nair said. “I think AI complements another need that runs a lot deeper — our need for attachment and our need to feel emotions. It feeds off of that.”

“It’s the new addiction,” Nair added. “That’s how I see it.”

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 CATHY BUSSEWITZ

NEW YORK (AP) — After five years of working long nights as a truck driver, Julius Mosley wanted a change. He found driving unfulfilling, and his teenage son needed him to spend more time at home.

So Mosley took a job as a customer service representative at a telecommunications company near his home. The employee benefits included being able to take job-related classes for free. He decided he wanted to study leadership so he could learn about managing teams and helping people become the best versions of themselves.

His company, Spectrum, paid for a 10-week front-line manager certificate program that Mosley went on to complete. Then it covered the tuition cost for a bachelor’s degree in leadership and organization studies that he’s currently pursuing. The company also promoted him to a management position while he took college courses online.

“It’s completely changed the course of my life,” Mosley said about the education benefit, which took care of his tuition up front instead of requiring him to pay and seek later reimbursement. “It’s truly a blessing to be able to do this.”

As higher education costs have grown to heights many U.S. residents find unattainable or illogical, some adults are looking to their employers for help defraying the expense of college and professional credentials. Nearly half of public and private employers have a tuition reimbursement program for employees, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, or SHRM.

Many employers that provide tuition assistance reimburse staff members up to $5,250 per year because that amount is tax-deductible, said Amy Dufrane, CEO of the Human Resource Certification Institute, which offers credentials to HR professionals.

Some companies offer more, including Bank of America, which provides tuition assistance of up to $7,500 annually, and Spectrum which, in addition to its prepaid tuition program, reimburses employees earning master’s degrees or enrolled in classes that fall outside the scope of its prepaid program up to $10,000 per year.

“For companies who are looking to attract Generation Z and Millennials, it’s a great way to bring them in because they’re keenly interested in how companies are investing in them and the benefits that are available,” said Dufrane.

Because many college graduates start jobs after accumulating student loan debt, about 8% of employers also offer help with student loan repayment, according to James Atkinson, vice president of thought leadership at SHRM.

If continuing education feels out of reach financially or seems incompatible with job demands, experts say there are ways to explore the possibility, either by by making the case to your employer or seeking a position at a place that provides education benefits.

A pay-it-forward model

In traditional tuition reimbursement programs, employees lay out thousands of dollars to pay for tuition, books and fees at the start of a semester, and usually must complete the course with a passing grade before a company would kick in its contribution.

That means employees would often wait four to six months before being reimbursed, which only works for more affluent workers, said Paul Marchand, chief human resources officer at Spectrum.

“The person that can afford to put it on their credit card and sit with $3- or $4- or $5,000 of expenses due back to them and not be concerned about that cost, that is not our average worker,” Marchand said. “Our average worker is making $25, $28, $30 bucks an hour, maybe having a second job, maybe a single parent with kids, … and they’re important workers for us, and we want to help develop them and grow their careers.”

Spectrum launched a program that lets employees sign up for an array of certificates or college courses while paying nothing themselves. The eligible courses and where to take them came from Guild, a Denver company that works with employers on workforce development and tuition assistance.

Walmart offers a similar benefit to its front-line associates, who can enroll in college or certain classes without ever seeing an invoice, according to company spokesperson Jimmy Carter. The benefit also extends to family members of the employees, he said.

Help with loan repayment

As recent college graduates have struggled with debts from college, some employers have added student loan repayment programs as well as tuition assistance.

Morgan Woods, 29, a training analyst at semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries, graduated from college with a $20,000 debt load. Her employer is paying $125 per month toward her student loans, a sum that will increase over time.

Woods now expects to pay off her loans four years earlier than she anticipated doing on her own and hopes it will improve her options as she explores buying a house.

“The fact that I’m now ahead of where I thought I would be a little over a year ago is very nice to see,” she said.

Making the case

Not all employers offer education benefits, and when they do, they’re not always widely publicized. To find out if your employer offers such benefits, ask a manager or a human resources representative.

Show how a course or training directly relates to your role and how it would help you do your job more effectively, Dufrane advised. Even if there’s no formal tuition reimbursement program, your employer might have a training or professional development budget.

“If you’re taking on a stretch role or entering a new industry, you can advocate for training as part of your offer. Say something like, ‘I’d like to take a course to help me get up to speed in this area.’ In my experience, that shows initiative and employers often respect it,” Dufrane said.

You can also approach your boss and say, “I want to move up and I want to invest in myself. What recommendations do you have for me?” Dufrane added.

Finding the time

Fitting in classes, study sessions and paper writing can be daunting when holding down a full-time job, but there are ways to make it work.

Rene Sotolongo, a cybersecurity analyst at the Human Resource Certification Institute, earned a master’s degree in cybersecurity using tuition reimbursement benefits from his employer. To manage his time, he switched to working Monday through Thursday, studied on weeknights and dedicated Friday through Sunday to other schoolwork.

“Without the tuition reimbursement or the organization’s flexibility, there’s no way that I would be able to” earn advanced degrees, said Sotolongo, who is now pursuing a PhD with assistance from HRCI. “It’s rewarding in every aspect.”

Providing flexibility shows commitment to employees, Dufrane said. “You’ve got to be flexible around learning because people have parents they’re taking care of and kids they’re taking care of, and going home at night isn’t always the best time to be writing a paper,” she said.

Fitting in schoolwork while also meeting the needs of a son, a fiancee, a full-time job and a puppy has been challenging for Mosley, but it also provided a way to model studious behavior for his son.

“Instead of me just telling him he needs to do his, now he’s seeing me doing schoolwork, so that actually helped out with him wanting to do his work more,” Mosley said. “We actually take time to sit down together some days to work on our homework, so it’s been a life-changing situation.”

Share your stories and questions about workplace wellness at cbussewitz@ap.org. Follow AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health at https://apnews.com/hub/be-well

Margaret Giles, Morningstar

Many of the best investing moves are made on autopilot. Just look at the track record of automatic payroll deductions and savings increases.

Other investing decisions, like a transition into retirement, require a more hands-on approach.

Christine Benz, Morningstar’s director of personal finance and retirement planning, recommends taking a preemptive approach as you get closer to retirement. The key is to visualize what you want your retirement to look like while you have enough time to make any adjustments you might need to get you there.

Here are five steps to take now if you plan to retire in the next five years:

1. Consider the role of work in retirement

Decide whether some kind of work is realistically part of your retirement plan. That income stream can make your retirement spending simpler, but it shouldn’t be the linchpin of your whole plan. That’s because you may not be able to work even if you want to.

2. Track your expenses

Understand what you’re actually spending today and see whether your spending will change over the next few years and into retirement. Getting a grasp of your future spending needs will help you determine whether your plan is on track.

3. Check up on Social Security

For most people, Social Security is a key source of income in retirement. Create an account on the Social Security website and make sure they have your correct information. This will let you model out different Social Security claiming dates using your own information.

4. Assess your current retirement savings

Look at your spending and subtract Social Security to get a sense of what you’ll need from your portfolio. If your spending doesn’t align with roughly 4% or less of your portfolio, you may need to make some changes. Consider saving more, investing differently, putting off your planned retirement date, or adjusting how much you plan to spend in retirement.

5. Derisk your portfolio

As you get within 10 years of retirement, you’ll want to make sure that your asset allocation can help protect your retirement plan from getting derailed by market volatility. If equity losses happen early on in your retirement, you can spend from your safer assets and wait until the market recovers to pull from your stock portfolio.

By thinking about retirement preemptively, you’ll have a better sense of when you want to retire and what you want it to be like. Plus, you can make any course corrections needed to make it happen.

This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance

Margaret Giles is a senior editor of content development for Morningstar.

By KATE PAYNE and ED WHITE, Associated Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

White reported from Detroit.

By MARTHA BELLISLE, Associated Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By CHRIS MEGERIAN and ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

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

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

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

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

Trump faces pressure from his own supporters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was Trump’s allies who excavated the Epstein debacle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By CHRISTINA LARSON

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

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

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

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

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

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

Viewing of each shower lasts through August 12.

What is a meteor shower?

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

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

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

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

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

How to view a meteor shower

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

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

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

When is the next meteor shower?

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

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

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By MATT O’BRIEN, Associated Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where some see pragmatism, others see capitulation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dozens of colleges are facing federal investigations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More universities are pulling back from DEI

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

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

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

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

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

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

By MARK SHERMAN and JACK DURA, Associated Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota.

By JOHN O’CONNOR and SARAH RAZA, Associated Press

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raza reported from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.