Pope Francis, historys first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change, died Monday. He was 88.

Bells tolled in church towers across Rome after the announcement, which was read out by Cardinal Kevin Ferrell, the Vatican camerlengo, from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, where Francis lived.

At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church, Ferrell said.

Francis, who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14, 2025, for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. He spent 38 days there, the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy.

But he emerged on Easter Sunday a day before his death to bless thousands of people in St. Peters Square and treat them to a surprise popemobile romp through the piazza, drawing wild cheers and applause.

From his first greeting as pope a remarkably normal Buonasera (Good evening) to his embrace of refugees and the downtrodden, Francis signaled a very different tone for the papacy, stressing humility over hubris for a Catholic Church beset by scandal and accusations of indifference.

After that rainy night on March 13, 2013, the Argentine-born Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought a breath of fresh air into a 2,000-year-old institution that had seen its influence wane during the troubled tenure of Pope Benedict XVI, whose surprise resignation led to Francis election.

But Francis soon invited troubles of his own, and conservatives grew increasingly upset with his progressive bent, outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and crackdown on traditionalists. His greatest test came in 2018 when he botched a notorious case of clergy sexual abuse in Chile, and the scandal that festered under his predecessors erupted anew on his watch.

And then Francis, the crowd-loving, globe-trotting pope of the peripheries, navigated the unprecedented reality of leading a universal religion through the coronavirus pandemic from a locked-down Vatican City.

He implored the world to use COVID-19 as an opportunity to rethink the economic and political framework that he said had turned rich against poor.

We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, Francis told an empty St. Peters Square in March 2020. But he also stressed the pandemic showed the need for all of us to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.

Reforming the Vatican

Francis was elected on a mandate to reform the Vatican bureaucracy and finances but went further in shaking up the church without changing its core doctrine. Who am I to judge? he replied when asked about a purportedly gay priest.

The comment sent a message of welcome to the LGBTQ+ community and those who felt shunned by a church that had stressed sexual propriety over unconditional love. Being homosexual is not a crime, he told The Associated Press in 2023, urging an end to civil laws that criminalize it.

Stressing mercy, Francis changed the churchs position on the death penalty, calling it inadmissible in all circumstances. He also declared the possession of nuclear weapons, not just their use, was immoral.

In other firsts, he approved an agreement with China over bishop nominations that had vexed the Vatican for decades, met the Russian patriarch and charted new relations with the Muslim world by visiting the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq.

He reaffirmed the all-male, celibate priesthood and upheld the churchs opposition to abortion, equating it to hiring a hitman to solve a problem.

Roles for women

But he added women to important decision-making roles and allowed them to serve as lectors and acolytes in parishes. He let women vote alongside bishops in periodic Vatican meetings, following longstanding complaints that women do much of the churchs work but are barred from power.

Sister Nathalie Becquart, whom Francis named to one of the highest Vatican jobs, said his legacy was a vision of a church where men and women existed in a relationship of reciprocity and respect.

It was about shifting a pattern of domination from human being to the creation, from men to women to a pattern of cooperation, said Becquart, the first woman to hold a voting position in a Vatican synod.

The church as refuge

While Francis did not allow women to be ordained, the voting reform was part of a revolutionary change in emphasizing what the church should be: a refuge for everyone todos, todos, todos (everyone, everyone, everyone) not for the privileged few. Migrants, the poor, prisoners and outcasts were invited to his table far more than presidents or powerful CEOs.

For Pope Francis, it was always to extend the arms of the church to embrace all people, not to exclude anyone, said Cardinal Kevin Farrell, whom Francis named as camerlengo, taking charge after a pontiffs death or retirement.

Francis demanded his bishops apply mercy and charity to their flocks, pressed the world to protect Gods creation from climate disaster, and challenged countries to welcome those fleeing war, poverty and oppression.

After visiting Mexico in 2016, Francis said of then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump that anyone building a wall to keep migrants out is not Christian.

While progressives were thrilled with Francis radical focus on Jesus message of mercy and inclusion, it troubled conservatives who feared he watered down Catholic teaching and threatened the very Christian identity of the West. Some even called him a heretic.

A few cardinals openly challenged him. Francis usually responded with his typical answer to conflict: silence.

He made it easier for married Catholics to get an annulment, allowed priests to absolve women who had had abortions and decreed that priests could bless same-sex couples. He opened debate on issues like homosexuality and divorce, giving pastors wiggle room to discern how to accompany their flocks, rather than handing them strict rules to apply.

St. Francis of Assisi as a model

Francis lived in the Vatican hotel instead of the Apostolic Palace, wore his old orthotic shoes and not the red loafers of the papacy, and rode in compact cars. It wasnt a gimmick.

I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful, he told a Jesuit journal in 2013. I see the church as a field hospital after battle.

If becoming the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope wasnt enough, Francis was also the first to name himself after St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th century friar known for personal simplicity, a message of peace, and care for nature and societys outcasts.

Francis sought out the unemployed, the sick, the disabled and the homeless. He formally apologized to Indigenous peoples for the crimes of the church from colonial times onward.

And he himself suffered: He had part of his colon removed in 2021, then needed more surgery in 2023 to repair a painful hernia and remove intestinal scar tissue. Starting in 2022 he regularly used a wheelchair or cane because of bad knees, and endured bouts of bronchitis.

He went to societys fringes to minister with mercy: caressing the grossly deformed head of a man in St. Peters Square, kissing the tattoo of a Holocaust survivor, or inviting Argentinas garbage scavengers to join him onstage in Rio de Janeiro.

We have always been marginalized, but Pope Francis always helped us, said Coqui Vargas, a transgender woman whose Roman community forged a unique relationship with Francis during the pandemic.

His first trip as pope was to the island of Lampedusa, then the epicenter of Europes migration crisis. He consistently chose to visit poor countries where Christians were often persecuted minorities, rather than the centers of global Catholicism.

Friend and fellow Argentine, Bishop Marcelo Snchez Sorondo, said his concern for the poor and disenfranchised was based on the Beatitudes -- the eight blessings Jesus delivered in the Sermon on the Mount for the meek, the merciful, the poor in spirit and others.

Why are the Beatitudes the program of this pontificate? Because they were the basis of Jesus Christs own program, Snchez said.

Missteps on sexual abuse scandal

But more than a year passed before Francis met with survivors of priestly sexual abuse, and victims groups initially questioned whether he really understood the scope of the problem.

Francis did create a sex abuse commission to advise the church on best practices, but it lost its influence after a few years and its recommendation of a tribunal to judge bishops who covered up for predator priests went nowhere.

And then came the greatest crisis of his papacy, when he discredited Chilean abuse victims in 2018 and stood by a controversial bishop linked to their abuser. Realizing his error, Francis invited the victims to the Vatican for a personal mea culpa and summoned the leadership of the Chilean church to resign en masse.

As that crisis concluded, a new one erupted over ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington and a counselor to three popes.

Francis had actually moved swiftly to sideline McCarrick amid an accusation he had molested a teenage altar boy in the 1970s. But Francis nevertheless was accused by the Vaticans one-time U.S. ambassador of having rehabilitated McCarrick early in his papacy.

Francis eventually defrocked McCarrick after a Vatican investigation determined he sexually abused adults as well as minors. He changed church law to remove the pontifical secret surrounding abuse cases and enacted procedures to investigate bishops who abused or covered for their pedophile priests, seeking to end impunity for the hierarchy.

He sincerely wanted to do something and he transmitted that, said Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean abuse survivor Francis discredited who later developed a close friendship with the pontiff.

A change from Benedict

The road to Francis 2013 election was paved by Pope Benedict XVIs decision to resign and retire the first in 600 years and it created the unprecedented reality of two popes living in the Vatican.

Francis didnt shy from Benedicts potentially uncomfortable shadow. He embraced him as an elder statesman and adviser, coaxing him out of his cloistered retirement to participate in the public life of the church.

Its like having your grandfather in the house, a wise grandfather, Francis said.

Francis praised Benedict by saying he opened the door to others following suit, fueling speculation that Francis also might retire. But after Benedicts death on Dec. 31, 2022, he asserted that in principle the papacy is a job for life.

Francis looser liturgical style and pastoral priorities made clear he and the German-born theologian came from very different religious traditions, and Francis directly overturned several decisions of his predecessor.

He made sure Salvadoran Archbishop scar Romero, a hero to the liberation theology movement in Latin America, was canonized after his case languished under Benedict over concerns about the credos Marxist bent.

Francis reimposed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass that Benedict had relaxed, arguing the spread of the Tridentine Rite was divisive. The move riled Francis traditionalist critics and opened sustained conflict between right-wing Catholics, particularly in the U.S., and the Argentine pope.

Conservatives oppose Francis

By then, conservatives had already turned away from Francis, betrayed after he opened debate on allowing remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments if they didnt get an annulment a church ruling that their first marriage was invalid.

We dont like this pope, headlined Italys conservative daily Il Foglio a few months into the papacy, reflecting the unease of the small but vocal traditionalist Catholic movement that was coddled under Benedict.

Those same critics amplified their complaints after Francis approved church blessings for same-sex couples, and a controversial accord with China over nominating bishops.

Its details were never released, but conservative critics bashed it as a sellout to communist China, while the Vatican defended it as the best deal it could get with Beijing.

U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, a figurehead in the anti-Francis opposition, said the church had become like a ship without a rudder.

Burke waged his opposition campaign for years, starting when Francis fired him as the Vaticans supreme court justice and culminating with his vocal opposition to Francis 2023 synod on the churchs future.

Twice, he joined other conservative cardinals in formally asking Francis to explain himself on doctrine issues reflecting a more progressive bent, including on the possibility of same-sex blessings and his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.

Francis eventually sanctioned Burke financially, accusing him of sowing disunity. It was one of several personnel moves he made in both the Vatican and around the world to shift the balance of power from doctrinaire leaders to more pastoral ones.

Francis insisted his bishops and cardinals imbue themselves with the odor of their flock and minister to the faithful, voicing displeasure when they didnt.

His 2014 Christmas address to the Vatican Curia was one of the greatest public papal reprimands ever: Standing in the marbled Apostolic Palace, Francis ticked off 15 ailments that he said can afflict his closest collaborators, including spiritual Alzheimers, lusting for power and the terrorism of gossip.

Trying to eliminate corruption, Francis oversaw the reform of the scandal-marred Vatican bank and sought to wrestle Vatican bureaucrats into financial line, limiting their compensation and ability to receive gifts or award public contracts.

He authorized Vatican police to raid his own secretariat of state and the Vaticans financial watchdog agency amid suspicions about a 350 million euro investment in a London real estate venture. After a 2 1/2-year trial, the Vatican tribunal convicted a once-powerful cardinal, Angelo Becciu, of embezzlement and returned mixed verdicts to nine others, acquitting one.

The trial, though, proved to be a reputational boomerang for the Holy See, showing deficiencies in the Vaticans legal system, unseemly turf battles among monsignors, and how the pope had intervened on behalf of prosecutors.

While earning praise for trying to turn the Vaticans finances around, Francis angered U.S. conservatives for his frequent excoriation of the global financial market that favors the rich over the poor.

Economic justice was an important themes of his papacy, and he didnt hide it in his first meeting with journalists when he said he wanted a poor church that is for the poor.

In his first major teaching document, The Joy of the Gospel, Francis denounced trickle-down economic theories as unproven and naive, based on a mentality where the powerful feed upon the powerless with no regard for ethics, the environment or even God.

Money must serve, not rule! he said in urging political reforms.

He elaborated on that in his major eco-encyclical Praised Be, denouncing the structurally perverse global economic system that he said exploited the poor and risked turning Earth into an immense pile of filth.

Some U.S. conservatives branded Francis a Marxist. He jabbed back by saying he had many friends who were Marxists.

Soccer, opera and prayer

Born Dec. 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the eldest of five children of Italian immigrants.

He credited his devout grandmother Rosa with teaching him how to pray. Weekends were spent listening to opera on the radio, going to Mass and attending matches of the familys beloved San Lorenzo soccer club. As pope, his love of soccer brought him a huge collection of jerseys from visitors.

He said he received his religious calling at 17 while going to confession, recounting in a 2010 biography that, I dont know what it was, but it changed my life. ... I realized that they were waiting for me.

He entered the diocesan seminary but switched to the Jesuit order in 1958, attracted to its missionary tradition and militancy.

Around this time, he suffered from pneumonia, which led to the removal of the upper part of his right lung. His frail health prevented him from becoming a missionary, and his less-than-robust lung capacity was perhaps responsible for his whisper of a voice and reluctance to sing at Mass.

On Dec. 13, 1969, he was ordained a priest, and immediately began teaching. In 1973, he was named head of the Jesuits in Argentina, an appointment he later acknowledged was crazy given he was only 36. My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative, he admitted in his Civilta Cattolica interview.

Life under Argentinas dictatorship

His six-year tenure as provincial coincided with Argentinas murderous 1976-83 dictatorship, when the military launched a campaign against left-wing guerrillas and other regime opponents.

Bergoglio didnt publicly confront the junta and was accused of effectively allowing two slum priests to be kidnapped and tortured by not publicly endorsing their work.

He refused for decades to counter that version of events. Only in a 2010 authorized biography did he finally recount the behind-the-scenes lengths he used to save them, persuading the family priest of feared dictator Jorge Videla to call in sick so he could say Mass instead. Once in the junta leaders home, Bergoglio privately appealed for mercy. Both priests were eventually released, among the few to have survived prison.

As pope, accounts began to emerge of the many people -- priests, seminarians and political dissidents -- whom Bergoglio actually saved during the dirty war, letting them stay incognito at the seminary or helping them escape the country.

Bergoglio went to Germany in 1986 to research a never-finished thesis. Returning to Argentina, he was stationed in Cordoba during a period he described as a time of great interior crisis. Out of favor with more progressive Jesuit leaders, he was eventually rescued from obscurity in 1992 by St. John Paul II, who named him an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires. He became archbishop six years later, and was made a cardinal in 2001.

He came close to becoming pope in 2005 when Benedict was elected, gaining the second-most votes in several rounds of balloting before bowing out.

A slow-moving, active storm system brought heavy rain, large hail and tornadoes to parts of Texas and Oklahoma and left two people dead as severe weather warnings Sunday continue to threaten parts of the south-central and Midwest U.S.

On Easter Sunday, communities in Texas and Oklahoma were beginning to assess the damage wreaked by tornadoes. There were 17 reported events Saturday, according to Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. Five were confirmed in south-central Oklahoma, including one that inflicted at least EF1 damage on a small town that was still recovering from a March tornado.

The storm also brought heavy rain to a broad swath of north-central Texas across central-eastern Oklahoma, which saw 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) accumulate Saturday into Sunday.

Police in Moore, about 10 miles south of Oklahoma City, received dozens of reports of high-water incidents over the weekend, including two cars stranded in flood waters Saturday evening. One car was swept away under a bridge, and police said they were able to rescue some people, but a woman and 12-year-old boy were found dead.

This was a historical weather event that impacted roads and resulted in dozens of high-water incidents across the city, Moore police said in a statement Sunday. Moore has a about 63,000 residents.

Oravec said the system wasn't moving much over Texas and Oklahoma Saturday, leaving the area stuck under a very active thunderstorm pattern that produced large hail, flash flooding and tornadoes.

Bill Macon, emergency management director in Oklahoma's Marshall County, said their early assessments show a tornado skipped and jumped around over a path of 6 to 7 miles in the rural area that left at least 20 homes damaged, with some destroyed completely.

Macon said people were mostly home when the late night tornado came through, downing huge trees and dozens of electric poles and power lines, but there had not been reports of injuries or fatalities.

We take those things pretty serious down here in Oklahoma, Macon said of the National Weather Service's warnings.

One Oklahoma town that was still rebuilding from an early March tornado was hit again late Saturday. The north side of Ada, a town home to about 16,000 people, sustained damage that the weather service said indicated at least an EF1 tornado based on a preliminary survey.

In a video posted to Facebook, Jason Keck, Ada director of emergency management, said the tornado seemed to track across the north side of town, leaving a lot of damage to buildings, power lines and trees.

Other social media posts showed roofs ripped off businesses in town, storefront windows blown in and billboards knocked sideways.

At least two tornadoes crossed west Parker County, Texas, on Saturday, the countys emergency services said on Facebook, causing significant damage and power outages.

The whole storm system is moving northeast into Arkansas, Missouri and southeastern Iowa, Oravec said. While it's moving faster, he said, the active system still carries the threat of large hail, high winds and tornadoes to the region.

While heavy rain was subsiding in Texas and Oklahoma by late Sunday afternoon, additional heavy rain is expected across parts of the Plains this week, Oravec said. With streams already swollen and the ground saturated, that leaves the area at risk of additional flooding.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia on Sunday of creating a false appearance of honoring an Easter ceasefire, saying Moscow continued to launch attacks after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a unilateral temporary truce.

As of Easter morning, we can say that the Russian army is trying to create a general impression of a ceasefire, but in some places, it does not abandon individual attempts to advance and inflict losses on Ukraine, Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT | Putin announces an Easter ceasefire as Russia and Ukraine swap hundreds of POWs

Despite Putins declaration of an Easter ceasefire on Saturday, Zelenskyy said Sunday morning that Ukrainian forces had recorded 59 instances of Russian shelling and five assaults by units along the front line, as well as dozens of drone strikes.

In a later update, Zelenskyy said that despite Ukraine declaring a symmetrical approach to Russian actions, there had been an increase in Russian shelling and drone attacks since 10 a.m. He said, however, that it was a good thing, at least, that there were no air raid sirens.

In practice, either Putin does not have full control over his army, or the situation proves that in Russia, they have no intention of making a genuine move toward ending the war, and are only interested in favorable PR coverage, he wrote.

Zelenskyy said that Russia must fully adhere to the ceasefire conditions and reiterated Ukraines offer to extend the truce for 30 days, starting midnight Sunday. He said the proposal remains on the table and added: "We will act in accordance with the actual situation on the ground.

Zelenskyy said Saturday night that some areas were quieter since the ceasefire was announced, which he claimed showed Putin to be the true cause of the war. As soon as Putin gave an order to scale back the attacks, the intensity of strikes and killings dropped. The only source of this war and its prolongation is in Russia, he wrote on X.

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Russias Defense Ministry said Sunday that Ukrainian forces launched overnight attacks in the Donetsk region despite the ceasefire, and had sent 48 drones into Russian territory. According to the ministry, there were dead and wounded among the civilian population, without giving details. It claimed Russian troops had strictly observed the ceasefire.

Russia-installed officials in the partially occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson also said that Ukrainian forces continued their attacks.

Just hours after announcing the ceasefire, Putin attended an Easter service late Saturday at Moscows Cathedral of Christ the Saviour led by Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a vocal supporter of Putin and the war in Ukraine.

According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday to midnight following Easter Sunday.

Putin offered no details on how the ceasefire would be monitored or whether it would cover airstrikes or ongoing ground battles that rage around the clock.

His announcement came after U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are coming to a head and insisted that neither side is playing him in his push to end the grinding three-year war.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance met briefly with Pope Francis on Sunday to exchange Easter greetings, after they got into a long-distance tangle over the Trump administration's migrant deportation plans.

Francis, who is recovering from a near-fatal bout of pneumonia, received Vance in one of the reception rooms of the Vatican hotel where he lives. The 88-year-old pope offered the Catholic vice president three big chocolate Easter eggs for Vance's three young children, who did not attend, as well as a Vatican tie and rosaries.

I know you have not been feeling great but it's good to see you in better health, Vance told the pope. Thank you for seeing me.

Vances motorcade entered Vatican City through a side gate while Easter Mass was being celebrated in St. Peters Square. Francis had delegated the celebration of the Mass to another cardinal.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT | Pope arrives home at Vatican after 5-week hospital stay to beat life-threatening bout of pneumonia

The Vatican said they met for a few minutes at the Domus Santa Marta to exchange Easter greetings. Vance's office said that they met, but provided no further details. In all, Vance's motorcade was on Vatican territory for 17 minutes.

He later joined his family for Easter Mass at St. Paul Outside the Walls, one of the four pontifical basilicas in Rome. The Vances visited the tomb of the apostle St. Paul that is said to be located there.

Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, and the pope have tangled sharply over migration and the Trump administrations plans to deport migrants en masse. Francis has made caring for migrants a hallmark of his papacy.

Just days before he was hospitalized in February, Francis blasted the deportation plans, warning that they would deprive migrants of their inherent dignity. In a letter to U.S. bishops, Francis also appeared to respond to Vance directly for having claimed that Catholic doctrine justified such policies.

Vance has acknowledged Francis criticism but has said he will continue to defend his views. During a Feb. 28 appearance at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Vance didnt address the issue specifically but called himself a baby Catholic and acknowledged there are things about the faith that I dont know.

Vance met Saturday with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher.

Vances office said he and Parolin discussed their shared religious faith, Catholicism in the United States, the plight of persecuted Christian communities around the world, and President Trumps commitment to restoring world peace.

The Vatican, for its part, said there was an exchange of opinions including over migrants and refugees and current conflicts.

The Holy See has responded cautiously to the Trump administration while seeking to continue productive relations in keeping with its tradition of diplomatic neutrality. It has expressed alarm over the administrations crackdown on migrants and cuts in international aid while insisting on peaceful resolutions to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Opponents of President Donald Trump's administration took to the streets of communities large and small across the U.S. on Saturday, decrying what they see as threats to the nation's democratic ideals.

The disparate events ranged from a march through midtown Manhattan and a rally in front of the White House to a demonstration at a Massachusetts commemoration marking the start of the American Revolutionary War 250 years ago. In San Francisco, protesters formed a human banner reading "Impeach & Remove" on the sands of Ocean Beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Thomas Bassford was among those who joined demonstrators at the reenactment of the Battles of Lexington and Concord outside of Boston. "The shot heard 'round the world" on April 19, 1775, heralded the start of the nation's war for independence from Britain.

The 80-year-old retired mason from Maine said he believed Americans today are under attack from their own government and need to stand up against it.

"This is a very perilous time in America for liberty," Bassford said, as he attended the event with his partner, daughter and two grandsons. "I wanted the boys to learn about the origins of this country and that sometimes we have to fight for freedom."

Elsewhere, protests were planned outside Tesla car dealerships against billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk and his role in downsizing the federal government. Others organized more community-service events, such as food drives, teach-ins and volunteering at local shelters.

The protests come just two weeks after similar nationwide protests against the Trump administration drew thousands to the streets across the country.

Organizers say they're protesting what they call Trump's civil rights violations and constitutional violations, including efforts to deport scores of immigrants and to scale back the federal government by firing thousands of government workers and effectively shutter entire agencies.

Some of the events drew on the spirit of the American Revolutionary War, calling for "no kings" and resistance to tyranny.

Boston resident George Bryant, who was among those protesting in Concord, Massachusetts, said he was concerned Trump was creating a "police state" in America as he held up a sign saying, "Trump fascist regime must go now!"

"He's defying the courts. He's kidnapping students. He's eviscerating the checks and balances," Bryant said. "This is fascism."

In Washington, Bob Fasick said he came out to the rally by the White House out of concern about threats to constitutionally protected due process rights, as well as Social Security and other federal safety-net programs.

The Trump administration, among other things, has moved to shutter Social Security Administration field offices, cut funding for government health programs and scale back protections for transgender people.

"I cannot sit still knowing that if I don't do anything and everybody doesn't do something to change this, that the world that we collectively are leaving for the little children, for our neighbors is simply not one that I would want to live," said the 76-year-old retired federal employee from Springfield, Virginia.

And in Manhattan, protesters rallied against continued deportations of immigrants as they marched from the New York Public Library north towards Central Park past Trump Tower.

"No fear, no hate, no ICE in our state," they chanted to the steady beat of drums, referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Marshall Green, who was among the protesters, said he was most concerned that Trump has invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 by claiming the country is at war with Venezuelan gangs linked to the South American nation's government.

"Congress should be stepping up and saying no, we are not at war. You cannot use that," said the 61-year-old from Morristown, New Jersey. "You cannot deport people without due process, and everyone in this country has the right to due process no matter what."

Meanwhile, Melinda Charles, of Connecticut, said she worried about Trump's "executive overreach," citing clashes with the federal courts to Harvard University and other elite colleges.

"We're supposed to have three equal branches of government and to have the executive branch become so strong," she said. "I mean, it's just unbelievable."

Love them or hate them, those marshmallow Peeps that come in blindingly bright colors and an array of flavors are inescapable around the Easter holiday.

Millions are made daily in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, by Just Born Quality Confections, a family-owned candy manufacturer that also churns out Hot Tamales, Mike and Ike fruit chews and Goldenberg's Peanut Chews.

Peeps is Just Born's most recognizable brand and one of a handful of candies that evoke strong reactions good and bad. Some say an Easter basket isn't complete without Peeps while others deride them as being indestructible. Some use them in recipes or even artwork.

"Even if you're not usually one to gravitate to eating the Peeps, there's always so many other fun ways to include them in your celebrations," said Caitlin Servian, brand manager for Peeps.

How many Peeps are made each year?

On average, about 5.5 million are made each day.

That adds up to 2 billion a year or roughly 6 Peeps for every man, woman and child across the U.S.

How many different varieties and colors are there?

First hatched in yellow, the sugary chicks and bunnies come in nine colors for this Easter season, including pink, blue and lavender. And there are even more flavors 14 for Easter from cookies and cream, to fruit punch and sour watermelon. The varieties and colors vary throughout the year with different holiday seasons.

How long does it take to make a Peep?

Before the early 1950s, making the candies by hand took 27 hours.

Bob Born, who became known as the "Father of Peeps," came up with a way to speed up the process. He and a company engineer designed a machine to make them in less than six minutes. The same process is used today.

How are they made?

The main ingredients sugar, corn syrup and gelatin are cooked and combined to create marshmallows, which are then shaped and sent through a "sugar shower."

A whopping 400 pounds (181 kilograms) of sugar is used per batch for Peeps' colored sugars.

Freshly made Peeps each chick weighs one-third of an ounce then move along a conveyor so that they can cool before being packaged.

The Boston Marathon and Mayor Michelle Wu insisted on Friday that international runners and other foreign visitors remain welcome in the city and said there is no evidence that travel for this year's race has fallen off in the face of increased border scrutiny.

"Regardless of what's happening at other levels, and particularly now at the federal level, in Boston we welcome everyone," Wu said at a public safety media briefing not far from the finish line. "We seek to be a home for everyone."

A cherished event for runners and spectators alike, staged on the state holiday of Patriots' Day, commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord that sparked the American Revolution 250 years ago, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest and most prestigious annual 26.2-mile race.

It has taken on even greater significance and popularity since 2013, when two pressure-cooker bombs exploded near the finish line, killing three people and wounding hundreds more. (Allen Davis, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, said at the briefing that there were "no credible or specific threats" to Monday's race.)

This year's marathon has more than 30,000 entrants from 128 countries. Boston Athletic Association President Jack Fleming said the 129th edition of the race was full thousands more are turned away and there's been no indication that those registered are staying home.

"We have a lot of demand this year, as we do every year," he said.

But as U.S. officials track plummeting tourism numbers, with many would-be visitors angered by President Donald Trump's tariffs and rhetoric and alarmed by stories about tourists being arrested at the border, reports say at least some potential marathon attendees have decided to skip the race.

Canadians have been especially put off by Trump's talk of making the country the 51st U.S. state. Paula Roberts-Banks, a writer and photographer from Rosseau, Ontario, who has run Boston 12 times, wrote in Canadian Running magazine that she earned a coveted bib for this year's race but decided not to run because she has "soured" on the U.S.

"I simply don't want to go there," she said. "It feels like a breakup."

British runner Calli Hauger-Thackery, a 2024 Olympian who is entered in the women's professional field, said she has never experienced a problem coming to the U.S. but she worries now that that might change.

"It does scare me traveling a little bit, at the moment," she said, adding that she is married to an American and has a visa. "I hope it's enough for them to not flag me or anything coming in and out of the States."

Most of the 31,941 entrants in Monday's race were required to qualify at another marathon, and many of them view running Boston as a lifelong athletic goal. Still, about 10% of the field typically does not toe the starting line in Hopkinton for reasons that range from injuries to weather to the 2010 eruption of a volcano in Iceland that halted flights and prevented hundreds of Europeans from traveling to Boston.

In last year's field of 29,333 entrants, there were 2,838 who failed to start. Race officials say they will not know how many no-shows there are this year until Monday; even then, they won't know why.

"We do not have data as to why people may or may not be coming to Boston," Fleming said. "At the BAA, our goal is to create a marathon experience that is very welcoming and joyous. Every year, we focus on that goal and we are confident that we have done everything in our power to achieve that this year."

Wu said she hoped visitors would look past the geopolitical climate and "participate in this very, very important global tradition that should transcend politics and should transcend the issues of the day."

And that's just what Australian Patrick Tiernan plans to do.

"There are some unfortunate situations going on in the U.S. right now, but I don't think that should have to taint what's happening here, and the history of this race," said the two-time Olympian, who was an NCAA cross country champion at Villanova. "I think everybody's very excited to be here and excited to compete on Monday."

Amid the abandoned chemistry notes and other debris left behind after a deadly shooting at Florida State University are lingering questions about how the stepson of a beloved sheriff's deputy tasked with school safety at a middle school became the accused gunman.

Political science student Phoenix Ikner was a long-standing member of a sheriff's office youth advisory council and was steeped in the family-like culture of the agency. When officers rushed to the university's student union on reports of gunfire, authorities say it was the 20-year-old who used his stepmother's former service weapon to open fire, killing two men and wounding six others.

As people fled in terror, Ikner was shot and taken into custody. He invoked his right not to speak to investigators, and his motive remains unknown as he lies in a hospital bed.

The prosecutor's office is weighing possible charges as stories emerge about a darker side. One classmate recalled him being kicked out of a student club over comments that other members found troubling.

RELATED STORY | Florida State University shooting victims expected to recover, doctor says

"This is horrific," Jimmy Williams, the chief of safety for Leon County Schools, said of the shooting. "This is a horrible, horrible event."

Williams, who has known Ikner's stepmother, Jessica Ikner, for a decade, said the allegations underscore that "none of us are immune to tragedy."

Classes and business operations will resume Monday, Florida State announced over the weekend.

"I know it won't feel like a normal week," FSU President Richard McCullough said in message to students and employees Saturday. "It's the last one before finals, and many of you are still processing what happened. Please take care of yourself."

Suspect is the stepson of a beloved deputy

His stepmother, whose own alma mater is Florida State, was reassigned from her position as a school resource officer Friday and granted the personal leave she requested, a sheriff's office spokesperson told The Associated Press.

When the alert went out of an active shooter at Florida State University, Jessica Ikner was on duty around 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away at Raa Middle School. A sheriff's office spokesperson said Jessica Ikner worked to secure the campus to prevent anyone from entering as Raa went into "lockout mode," along with all of the county's public schools. She was practiced at this work.

Last year, she was named an "employee of the month" by the sheriff's office, where she has worked for 18 years.

Police said they believed Phoenix Ikner shot the victims using his stepmother's former service handgun, which she had kept for personal use after the force upgraded its weapons.

Leon County Sheriff Walter McNeil described Phoenix Ikner on Thursday as having been "steeped in the Leon County Sheriff's Office family" and engaged in a number of sheriff's office training programs, adding that it wasn't a surprise that he would have access to guns.

There was no record of him having a criminal record. And in Florida, training and a background check are not required to carry concealed guns in public.

RELATED STORY | Lawmakers react after deadly shooting at Florida State University

Custody disputes and name change in his childhood

When Ikner was a child, his parents were involved in several custody disputes with his biological mother, court records show.

In 2015, when he was 10, his biological mother, Anne-Mari Eriksen, said she was taking him to South Florida for spring break in 2015 but instead traveled to Norway. After returning to the U.S., she pleaded no contest to removing a minor from the state against a court order and was sentenced to 200 days in jail. She later moved to vacate her plea, but that was denied.

In the fall of that same year, Eriksen filed a civil libel-slander complaint against Jessica Ikner, along with several other family members. The complaint, which was later dismissed, accused them of harassing Eriksen and abusing Ikner's position at the sheriff's office.

In 2020, at age 15, the suspect received court approval to change his name from Christian Eriksen to Phoenix Ikner, court documents show. His old name was a constant reminder of a "tragedy" he suffered, in the words of administrative magistrate James Banks, who approved the request, NBC News reported.

Banks observed that Ikner was a "mentally, emotionally and physically mature young adult who is very articulate" and "very polite" and he chose the new name as a representation of "rising from the ashes anew."

Classmate says there were concerns about the accused shooter

Reid Seybold and his classmates were working on a group project in a building located a short, three-minute walk from the student union when someone ran in and warned them about the gunfire. They huddled together, the 22-year-old said, frantically firing off what they thought might be their final text messages to loved ones.

When Seybold found out who the suspect in the shooting was that it was someone he knows he was overcome with anger. Seybold was the president of a club that Phoenix Ikner joined when they were both studying at the local community college, now called Tallahassee State College.

Seybold said Ikner was known for espousing racist and white supremacist views that so alienated other members that the club asked him to leave the group.

"He made people that uncomfortable," said Seybold, who is now also studying political science at Florida State. "I personally know him to have complained about how multiculturalism and communism are ruining America."

Accused shooter transferred to Florida State from community college

Ikner transferred to Florida State after earning an associate degree at the community college, school officials said.

He didn't attract the attention of the school paper, other than commenting in an FSU story about a rally on campus against President Donald Trump.

Ikner, a registered Republican, described the protesters as "entertaining" because Trump was already set to be inaugurated. The comments have since been removed from the story, an editor's note saying the move was to "avoid amplifying the voice of an individual responsible for violence."

Before Ikner's Instagram was taken down, his bio quoted a verse from the Old Testament book of Jeremiah. "Thou art my battle ax and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms," reads Jeremiah 51:20, which scholars have interpreted to depict God's judgment on Babylon. The empire is a symbol in the Bible of sinfulness and immorality.

Deputy's family has stayed quiet for now

A Tallahassee Police Department patrol car was stationed Thursday evening near the street where the family lives, blocking reporters from approaching the family's home in a well-kept suburban neighborhood on the city's east side.

Phone messages left for Jessica Ikner at a number listed for her on a school resource website and another phone connected to her through public records were not immediately returned Friday. And a sheriff's office spokeswoman said she is not aware of the family putting out a statement or having a family spokesperson.

The only insight comes from the past statements. Nearly a decade ago, Jessica Ikner wrote a story posted on the Tallahassee Family Magazine website about children's safety while surfing the internet, including tips to strengthen family bonds.

"Build a trusting relationship with your child," she wrote. "Let them know that if they do make a mistake they can still come to you about anything."

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary Easter ceasefire in Ukraine starting Saturday, citing humanitarian reasons, as Russia and Ukraine swapped hundreds of captured soldiers in the largest exchange since Moscow's full-scale invasion started over three years ago.

According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time (1500 GMT) on Saturday to midnight (2100 GMT) following Easter Sunday.

"We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example. At the same time, our troops must be ready to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations from the enemy, any of its aggressive actions," Putin said at a meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, in a video shared by the Kremlin's Press Service.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the ceasefire "another attempt by Putin to play with human lives." He wrote on X that "air raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine," and "Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin's true attitude toward Easter and toward human life."

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Largest POW exchange so far

The two sides meanwhile exchanged hundreds of POWs on Saturday. Russia's Ministry of Defense said that 246 Russian service members were returned from territory controlled by Kyiv, and that "as a gesture of goodwill" 31 wounded Ukrainian POWs were transferred in exchange for 15 wounded Russian soldiers in need of urgent medical care.

Zelenskyy said that 277 Ukrainian "warriors" have returned home from Russian captivity.

Both sides thanked the United Arab Emirates for their mediation.

Putin's ceasefire announcement came after U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are "coming to a head" and insisted that neither side is "playing" him in his push to end the grinding three-year war.

Trump spoke shortly after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the U.S. may "move on" from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting.

In January 2023, Putin had ordered his forces in Ukraine to observe a unilateral, 36-hour cease-fire for Orthodox Christmas. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had stopped short of stating his forces would reject Putin's request, but dismissed the Russian move as playing for time to regroup its invasion forces and prepare additional attacks.

Russia says its forces have retaken nearly all of Kursk

Russia's Defense Ministry said Saturday its forces pushed Ukrainian troops from the village of Oleshnya, one of their last remaining footholds in Russia's Kursk region where the Ukrainians staged a surprise incursion last year.

Gerasimov said Saturday in a report to Putin, quoted by Russian state media, that Russia had retaken nearly all of the territory from Ukrainian forces.

"The main part of the region's territory, where the invasion took place, has now been liberated. This is 1,260 square kilometers, 99.5%," Gerasimov said.

Zelenskyy wrote on X that Ukrainian forces "continued their activity on the territory of the Kursk region and are holding their positions."

The Associated Press was unable to immediately verify the claim by Russia. Russian and North Korean soldiers have nearly deprived Kyiv of a key bargaining chip by retaking most of the region.

According to Russian state news agency Tass, Russia is still fighting to push Ukrainian forces out of the village of Gornal, some 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of Oleshnya.

"The Russian military has yet to push the Ukrainian armed forces out of Gornal ... in order to completely liberate the Kursk region. Fierce fighting is underway in the settlement," the agency reported, citing Russia security agencies.

In other developments, the Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired 87 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Saturday. It said 33 of them were intercepted and another 36 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

Russian attacks damaged farms in the Odesa region and sparked fires in the Sumy region overnight, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said Saturday. Fires were contained, and no casualties were reported.

Russia's Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, said its air defense systems shot down two Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday.

The Supreme Court on Saturday blocked, for now, the deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under an 18th-century wartime law.

In a brief order, the court directed the Trump administration not to remove Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center "until further order of this court."

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

The high court acted in an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union, contending that immigration authorities appeared to be moving to restart removals under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The Supreme Court had said earlier in April that deportations could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given "a reasonable time" to contest their pending removals.

"We are deeply relieved that the Court has temporarily blocked the removals. These individuals were in imminent danger of spending the rest of their lives in a brutal Salvadoran prison without ever having had any due process," ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said in an email.

On Friday, two federal judges refused to step in as lawyers for the men launched a desperate legal campaign to prevent their deportation, even as one judge said the case raised legitimate concerns. Early Saturday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also refused to issue an order protecting the detainees from being deported.

The administration is expected to return to the Supreme Court quickly in an effort to persuade the justices to lift their temporary order.

RELATED STORY | Kilmar Abrego Garcia is 'traumatized' by his experience in CECOT prison, senator says

The ACLU had already sued to block deportations of two Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet facility and sought an order barring removals of any immigrants in the region under the Alien Enemies Act.

In an emergency filing early Friday, the ACLU warned that immigration authorities were accusing other Venezuelan men held there of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which would make them subject to President Donald Trump's use of the act.

The act has only been invoked three previous times in U.S. history, most recently during World War II to hold Japanese-American civilians in internment camps. The Trump administration contended it gave them power to swiftly remove immigrants they identified as members of the gang, regardless of their immigration status.

Following the unanimous high court order on April 9, federal judges in Colorado, New York and southern Texas promptly issued orders barring removal of detainees under the AEA until the administration provides a process for them to make claims in court.

But there had been no such order issued in the area of Texas that covers Bluebonnet, which is located 24 miles north of Abilene in the far northern end of the state.

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, this week declined to bar the administration from removing the two men identified in the ACLU lawsuit because Immigration and Customs Enforcement filed sworn declarations that they would not be immediately deported. He also balked at issuing a broader order prohibiting removal of all Venezuelans in the area under the act because he said removals hadn't started yet.

But the ACLU's Friday filing included sworn declarations from three separate immigration lawyers who said their clients in Bluebonnet were given paperwork indicating they were members of Tren de Aragua and could be deported by Saturday. In one case, immigration lawyer Karene Brown said her client, identified by initials, was told to sign papers in English even though the client only spoke Spanish.

"ICE informed F.G.M. that these papers were coming from the President, and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it," Brown wrote.

Gelernt said in a Friday evening hearing before District Judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, D.C., that the administration initially moved Venezuelans to its south Texas immigration facility for deportation. But since a judge banned deportations in that area, it has funneled them to the Bluebonnet facility, where no such order exists. He said witnesses reported the men were being loaded on buses Friday evening to be taken to the airport.

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With Hendrix not agreeing to the ACLU's request for an emergency order, the group turned to Boasberg, who initially halted deportations in March. The Supreme Court ruled the orders against deportation could only come from judges in jurisdictions where immigrants were held, which Boasberg said made him powerless Friday.

"I'm sympathetic to everything you're saying," Boasberg told Gelernt. "I just don't think I have the power to do anything about it."

Boasberg this week found there's probable cause that the Trump administration committed criminal contempt by disobeying his initial deportation ban. He was concerned that the paper that ICE was giving those held did not make clear they had a right to challenge their removal in court, which he believed the Supreme Court mandated.

Drew Ensign, an attorney for the Justice Department, disagreed, saying that people slated for deportation would have a "minimum" of 24 hours to challenge their removal in court. He said no flights were scheduled for Friday night and he was unaware of any Saturday, but the Department of Homeland Security said it reserved the right to remove people then.

ICE said it would not comment on the litigation.

Also Friday, a Massachusetts judge made permanent his temporary ban on the administration deporting immigrants who have exhausted their appeals to countries other than their home countries unless they are informed of their destination and given a chance to object if they'd face torture or death there.

Some Venezuelans subject to Trump's Alien Enemies Act have been sent to El Salvador and housed in its notorious main prison.

Just days after being promoted to acting IRS commissioner, the whistleblower who testified publicly about investigations into Hunter Bidens taxes is out of the job, according to three people familiar with the decision.

Gary Shapley, who previously testified to Congress as Republicans reviewed the business dealings of Joe Bidens son, will be replaced by Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender, according to the three people, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the move and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

Faulkender will be the fourth IRS leader since President Donald Trump took office in January, a sign of the turmoil within the agency in the early months of the president's second term in the White House.

Shapley's short-lived tenure comes as a stream of high-ranking officials have exited the federal tax collection agency via a mix of resignations over Trump's policy decisions, layoffs and demotions.

Shapley's ouster and subsequent replacement were first reported by The New York Times, which said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had complained to Trump that Shapley had been installed without his knowledge and at the behest of Trump adviser Elon Musk, who has butted heads with Cabinet officials in his role spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency.

Late Thursday night, Musk shared an X post from Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who has criticized certain administration officials for a lack of loyalty to Trump, a Republican.

Loomer accused Bessent of inviting a Trump hater to work with him on financial literacy efforts. I am going to personally tell President Trump and personally show him these receipts, Loomer wrote, adding shame on Bessent.

Musk responded, troubling.

Bessent said in an emailed statement that trust must be brought back to the IRS and that he is confident that Faulkender is the right man for the moment. He added that Shapley remains among my most important senior advisors at the U.S. Treasury as we work together to rethink and reform the IRS.

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As a result of the latest upheaval, the IRS has put a temporary pause on its reduction in force plan, according to two of the people also familiar with Shapleys ouster. The pause in layoffs is due to the whiplash changes in leadership at the tax collection agency, the people said.

Earlier this month, the IRS began layoffs that could end up cutting as many as 20,000 staffers up to 25% of the total workforce.

Shapley had been installed to replace Melanie Krause, who resigned from her role as acting IRS commissioner over a deal between the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security to share immigrants tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help it identify and deport people illegally in the U.S.

Krause had replaced acting Commissioner Douglas ODonnell, who announced his retirement from the agency after roughly 40 years of service in February as furor spread over DOGE gaining access to IRS taxpayer data.

Trump's nominee to head the IRS, former U.S. Rep. Billy Long of Missouri, has not yet been confirmed.

A federal judge who blocked President Donald Trump's administration from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ruled Friday that the bureau can't go forward immediately with plans to mass fire hundreds of employees.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she is "deeply concerned" that Trump administration officials aren't complying with her earlier order that maintains the bureau's existence until she rules on the merits of a lawsuit seeking to preserve it.

During a hearing, Jackson said she will bar officials from carrying out any mass firings or cutting off employees' access to bureau computer systems on Friday.

RELATED STORY | Trump fires the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Jackson scheduled a hearing on April 28 to hear testimony from officials who were working on the reduction in force, or RIF, procedures.

"I'm willing to resolve it quickly, but I'm not going to let this RIF go forward until I have," she said.

Roughly 1,500 employees are slated to be cut, leaving around 200 people.

Trump, a Republican, has sought to reshape the federal government, saying it's rife with fraud, waste and abuse. Conservatives and businesses have often chafed at the bureau's oversight and investigations, and Trump adviser Elon Musk made it a top target of his Department of Government Efficiency.

RELATED STORY | Federal judge blocks Trump from dismantling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

More than 1,000 international students have had their visas or legal status revoked in recent weeks, and several have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, arguing the government denied them due process when it suddenly took away their permission to be in the U.S.

The actions by the federal government to terminate students' legal status have left hundreds of scholars at risk of detention and deportation. Their schools range from private universities like Harvard and Stanford to large public institutions like the University of Maryland and Ohio State University to some small liberal arts colleges.

At least 1,024 students at 160 colleges, universities and university systems have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since late March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements, correspondence with school officials and court records.

In lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security, students have argued the government lacked justification to cancel their visa or terminate their legal status.

Why is the government canceling international students' visas?

Visas can be canceled for a number of reasons, but colleges say some students are being singled out over infractions as minor as traffic violations, including some long in the past. In some cases, students say it's unclear why they were targeted.

"The timing and uniformity of these terminations leave little question that DHS has adopted a nationwide policy, whether written or not, of mass termination of student (legal) status," ACLU of Michigan attorneys wrote in a lawsuit on behalf of students at Wayne State University and the University of Michigan.

In New Hampshire, a federal judge last week issued a restraining order in the case of a Dartmouth College computer science student from China, Xiaotian Liu, who had his status terminated by the government. Attorneys have filed similar challenges in federal court in Georgia and California.

Homeland Security officials did not respond to a message seeking comment.

In some high-profile cases, including the detention of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, President Donald Trump's administration has argued it should be allowed to deport noncitizens over involvement in pro-Palestinian activism. But in the vast majority of visa revocations, colleges say there is no indication affected students had a role in protests.

"What you're seeing happening with international students is really a piece of the much greater scrutiny that the Trump administration is bringing to bear on immigrants of all different categories," said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of public affairs at the Migration Policy Institute.

How do student visas work?

Students in other countries must meet a series of requirements to obtain a student visa, usually an F-1. After gaining admission to a school in the U.S., students go through an application and interview process at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad.

Students on an F-1 visa must show they have enough financial support for their course of study in the U.S. They have to remain in good standing with their academic program and are generally limited in their ability to work off-campus during their academic program.

Entry visas are managed by the State Department. Once they're in the U.S., international students' legal status is overseen by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program under the Department of Homeland Security.

In recent weeks, leaders at many colleges learned the legal residency status of some of their international students had been terminated when college staff checked a database managed by Homeland Security. In the past, college officials say, legal statuses typically were updated after colleges told the government the students were no longer studying at the school.

After losing legal residency, students are told to leave the country

Historically, students who had their visas revoked were allowed to keep their legal residency status and complete their studies.

The lack of a valid entry visa only limited their ability to leave the U.S. and return, something they could reapply for with the State Department. But if a student has lost legal residency status, they risk detention by immigration authorities. Some students already have left the country, abandoning their studies to avoid being arrested.

Higher education leaders worry the arrests and visa revocations could discourage students overseas from pursuing higher education in the United States.

The lack of clarity of what is leading to revocations can create a sense of fear among students, said Sarah Spreitzer, vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education.

"The very public actions that are being taken by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security around some of these students, where they are removing these students from their homes or from their streets, that's not usually done unless there is a security issue when a student visa is revoked," she said. "The threat of this very quick removal is something that's new."

Colleges are trying to reassure students

In messages to their campuses, colleges have said they are asking the federal government for answers on what led to the terminations. Others have re-emphasized travel precautions to students, recommending they carry their passports and other immigration documents with them.

College leaders spoke of a growing sense of uncertainty and anxiety.

"These are unprecedented times, and our normal guiding principles for living in a democratic society are being challenged," University of Massachusetts Boston Chancellor Marcelo Surez-Orozco wrote in an email. "With the rate and depth of changes occurring, we must be thoughtful in how we best prepare, protect, and respond."

Surez-Orozco said the legal residency status had been canceled for two students and "five other members of our university community including recent graduates participating in training programs."

Young volunteers who respond to natural disasters and help with community projects across the U.S. have been discharged as a result of the Trump administration's campaign to shrink the government workforce and services.

AmeriCorps' National Civilian Community Corps informed volunteers Tuesday that they would exit the program early "due to programmatic circumstances beyond your control," according to an email obtained by The Associated Press.

More than 2,000 people ages 18 to 26 serve for nearly a year, according to the program's website, and get assigned to projects with nonprofits and community organizations or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It celebrated its 30th year last year.

The volunteers are especially visible after natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Helene last year. The organization said on social media last month that teams have served 8 million service hours on nearly 3,400 disaster projects since 1999.

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Jordan Kinsler, 23, has worked with FEMA Corps for the last nine months, traveling from Minnesota communities impacted by floods to ones in North Carolina touched by Hurricane Helene. He and his team were on their final project at FEMA headquarters in Washington when they got word Tuesday that they wouldn't be able to finish.

Kinsler, who is from Long Island, New York, said they packed that night and left Wednesday morning for their home base in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Kinsler said he's proud of the work he's done and had hoped to apply for a permanent position.

"To have this ripped right from us at the very end, it felt insulting," he said.

A White House official said the Trump administration questioned using taxpayer money for the program. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. The AP sent an email Wednesday seeking comment from AmeriCorps.

Funding for AmeriCorps and NCCC has long been included when there are talks in Congress of budget trims. The federal agency's budget showed NCCC funding amounted to nearly $38 million last fiscal year.

The unsigned memo to members said NCCC's "ability to sustain program operations" was impacted by "new operational parameters" laid out by the Trump administration's priorities and President Donald Trump's executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency. Members who receive a living allowance and have basic expenses covered would be paid through the end of April, according to the memo.

The program also provides members who complete their 1,700-hour service term with funding for future education expenses or to apply to certain student loans. That benefit was worth about $7,300 this service year.

The memo stated that those who have completed 15% or more of their term would be eligible for a prorated amount, but those who have completed less would not be eligible.

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There's always been "bipartisan support" of NCCC "and bipartisan criticism," said Kate Raftery, who was NCCC director from 2011 to 2014.

Raftery said the abrupt departure of these service teams would have lasting damage both on the NCCC members who were gaining education and launching careers as well as the organizations that depend on them and the neighborhoods where they served.

"It was a very unique mixture of incredible heartbreak and incredible rage, outrage," Raftery said of her reaction to the news. "The two were battling themselves most of the day."

Bud Maynard, mayor of Vinton, Iowa, which is home to a regional NCCC campus, said the program "has been without a doubt, a blessing for Vinton" and celebrated the opportunity to host "hundreds of people over the years with an unmatched passion and selflessness to want to help others."

"All of Vinton should never forget what a great program, filled with great people, this has been for not only Vinton but every community that benefited from their mission," Maynard said in a statement Wednesday.

An American military veteran was fatally shot after he hijacked a small passenger plane in Belize on Thursday, officials in Belize and the United States confirmed.

After the Tripoc Air plane carrying 14 passengers and two crew members landed safely, police in Belize identified the hijacker as Akinyela Taylor.

Chester Williams, Belize police commissioner, said that Taylor wielded a knife and stabbed two passengers and a pilot on the plane. The three were later taken to the hospital to treat their injuries.

Williams said that Taylor was shot by a passenger who was licensed to carry a firearm, which he later turned over to police. The passenger was among those stabbed and remains in critical condition as he was stabbed in the back and lungs, according to the police commissioner.

We are praying for him, Williams told reporters. Hes our hero.

Williams said that Taylor was demanding that he be flown out of the country and at one point wanted the plane to land to add fuel. U.S. Embassy spokesperson Luke Martin in Belize said Taylor insisted he be taken to the U.S.

U.S. officials did not know the cause or motive but were working with Belizean authorities to determine what happened, Martin said.

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The plane was traveling from Corozal to San Pedro and Belize authorities declared a full emergency after the hijacking, which took place at around 8:30 a.m. local time, according to a statement by the Belize Airport Concession Company.

The plane circled in random directions for hours until landing safely in an airport in the coastal town of Ladyville. All passengers were accounted for, according to the BACC, and those injured were flown to a hospital for treatment.

Williams said Taylor had attempted to enter Belize through the northern border over the northern border through Mexico, but that he was refused entry. It was unclear to law enforcement how he had entered.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen says he was denied entry into an El Savador prison on Thursday while he was trying to check on the well-being of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

Van Hollen is in El Salvador to push for Abrego Garcia's release. The Democratic senator said at a news conference in San Salvador that his car was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint about 3 kilometers from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, even as they let other cars go on.

"They stopped us because they are under orders not to allow us to proceed," Van Hollen said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said this week that they have no basis to send him back, even as the Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake and the U.S. Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return. Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, has ties to the MS-13 gang, but his attorneys say the government has provided no evidence of that and Abrego Garcia has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.

RELATED STORY | Protective order against Kilmar Abrego Garcia complicates narrative amid deportation

Van Hollen's trip has become a partisan flashpoint in the U.S. as Democrats have siezed on Abrego Garcia's deportation as what they say is a cruel consequence of Trump's disregard for the courts. Republicans have criticized Democrats for defending him and argued that his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held a news conference on Wednesday with the mother of a Maryland woman who was killed by a fugitive from El Salvador in 2023.

The Maryland senator told reporters Wednesday that he met with Salvadoran Vice President Flix Ulloa who said his government could not return Abrego Garcia to the United States.

"So today, I tried again to make contact with Mr. Abrego Garcia by driving to the CECOT prison," Van Hollen said, and was stopped.

Van Hollen said Abrego Garcia has not had any contact with his family or his lawyers. "There has been no ability to find out anything about his health and well being," Van Hollen said. He said Abrego Garcia should be able to have contact with his lawyers under international law.

"We won't give up until Kilmar has his due process rights respected," Van Hollen said. He said there would be "many more" lawmakers coming to El Salvador.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is also considering a trip to El Salvador, as are some House Democrats.

While Van Hollen was denied entry, several House Republicans have visited the notorious gang prison in support of the Trump administration's efforts. Rep. Riley Moore, a West Virginia Republican, posted Tuesday evening that he'd visited the prison where Abrego Garcia is being held. He did not mention Abrego Garcia but said the facility "houses the country's most brutal criminals."

"I leave now even more determined to support President Trump's efforts to secure our homeland," Moore wrote on social media.

Missouri Republican Rep. Jason Smith, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, also visited the prison. He posted on X that "thanks to President Trump" the facility "now includes illegal immigrants who broke into our country and committed violent acts against Americans."

The fight over Abrego Garcia has also played out in contentious court filings, with repeated refusals from the government to tell a judge what it plans to do, if anything, to repatriate him.

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Since March, El Salvador has accepted from the U.S. more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants whom Trump administration officials have accused of gang activity and violent crimes and placed them inside the country's maximum-security gang prison just outside of San Salvador. That prison is part of Bukele's broader effort to crack down on the country's powerful street gangs, which has put 84,000 people behind bars and made Bukele extremely popular at home.

Human rights groups have previously accused Bukele's government of subjecting those jailed to "systematic use of torture and other mistreatment." Officials there deny wrongdoing.

Aid groups are raising new alarm over Israel's blockade of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where it has barred entry of all food and other goods for more than six weeks. Thousands of children have become malnourished, and most people are barely eating one meal a day as stocks dwindle, the United Nations says.

The humanitarian aid system in Gaza "is facing total collapse," the heads of 12 independent aid organizations warned in a joint statement. They said many groups have shut down operations because Israel's resumed bombardment the past month has made it too dangerous.

Israeli strikes overnight into Thursday killed at least 23 people, including a family of 10.

A strike in the southern city of Khan Younis killed five children, four women and a man from the same family, all of whom suffered severe burns, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies. Strikes in northern Gaza killed 13 people, including nine children, according to the Indonesian Hospital.

The Israeli military says it targets Hamas militants and tries to limit civilian casualties. It often strikes homes, shelters and public areas, blaming Hamas for civilian deaths because it operates there. There was no immediate comment on the latest strikes.

Israel ended a ceasefire on March 18 and renewed its bombardment, killing hundreds of people and seizing large parts of the territory to pressure Hamas to accept changes to the deal that would speed the release of hostages.

Nearly all rely on charity kitchens

The U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said almost all of Gaza's more than 2 million people now rely on charity kitchens, which can prepare only 1 million meals a day. The meals mainly consist of rice or pasta with no fresh vegetables or meat.

Other food distribution programs have shut down for lack of supplies, and the U.N. and other aid groups have been sending their remaining stocks to the charity kitchens.

The only other way to find food in Gaza is from markets. But prices are spiraling and shortages are widespread, meaning humanitarian aid is the primary food source for 80% of the population, the World Food Program said in its monthly report for April.

"The Gaza Strip is now likely facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the 18 months" since the war began, OCHA said.

Most people in Gaza are now down to one meal a day, said Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council. "It's far lower than what is needed," she said.

Water is also growing scarce, with Palestinians standing in long lines to fill jerry cans from trucks. Omar Shatat, an official with a local water utility, said people are down to six or seven liters per day, well below the amount the U.N. estimates is needed to meet basic needs.

More hungry children, and they are harder to reach

In March, more than 3,600 children were newly admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition, up from around 2,000 the month before, according to OCHA, which said "the rapid deterioration of the nutrition situation is already visible."

Aid groups are also less able to treat malnourished children because of Israel's airstrikes and ground operations.

In March, the number of children under 5 that aid workers could supply with nutrient supplements fell 70% from February, down to 22,300 children a fraction of the 29,000 children they aim to reach. Only around 100 of the original 173 treatment sites still function, OCHA said.

"Humanitarians have been forced to watch people suffer and die while carrying the impossible burden of providing relief with depleted supplies, all while facing the same life-threatening conditions themselves," said Amande Bazerolle, the emergency coordinator in Gaza for Doctors Without Borders.

"This is not a humanitarian failure it is a political choice, and a deliberate assault on a people's ability to survive, carried out with impunity," she said in a statement.

Israeli bombardment endangers aid workers

A survey of 47 aid groups found that 95% of them have reduced or entirely halted their operations, mainly because it was too dangerous amid Israeli bombardment, according to the joint statement by the heads of humanitarian organizations, which included the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Save the Children, CARE and Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Since resuming the war, Israel has largely stopped coordinating with humanitarian groups over their movements in Gaza. That means aid workers have no assurance the military won't strike them. COGAT, the military agency in charge of aid coordination in Gaza, acknowledged stopping the system, which had been in place before the ceasefire.

Since mid-March, Israeli fire has hit the staff or facilities of at least 14 organizations, and around 60 aid workers have been killed, according to the statement.

"When our staff and partners, our convoys, our offices, our warehouses are shelled, the message is loud and clear: even lifesaving aid is no longer protected," the 12 aid organization heads said. "This is unacceptable."

Israel says the blockade is a pressure tactic

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that blocking aid is one of the "central pressure tactics" used against Hamas, which Israel accuses of siphoning off aid to maintain its rule. Aid workers deny there is significant diversion of aid, saying the U.N. closely monitors the distribution of supplies.

Israel is demanding that Hamas release more hostages at the start of any new ceasefire and ultimately agree to disarm and leave the territory. Katz said that even afterward, Israel will continue to occupy large "security zones" inside Gaza.

Hamas is currently holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive. It says it will only return them in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a lasting truce, as called for in the now-defunct ceasefire agreement reached earlier this year.

Hani Almadhoun, co-founder of Gaza Soup Kitchen, said his kitchen has food for about three more weeks.

"But food is loosely defined. We have pasta and rice but nothing much beyond that. No fresh produce. There is no chicken or beef. The only thing we have is canned meat," he said. Up to one in five of those who come to his kitchen for food leave empty-handed, he said..

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Most of the hostages have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israel has rescued eight and recovered dozens of bodies.

Israel's offensive has killed over 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war has destroyed vast parts of Gaza and most of its food production capabilities. The war has displaced around 90% of the population, with hundreds of thousands of people living in tent camps and bombed-out buildings.

A power blackout hit all of Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the heavily Catholic U.S. territory prepared to celebrate the Easter weekend.

All 1.4 million customers were affected, Hugo Sorrentini, spokesman for Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, told The Associated Press. By late Wednesday night, crews had restored power to 175,000 customers, or 12%. Those affected included the main international airport and several hospitals, and at least 328,000 customers were without water.

Hotels were near capacity, with thousands of tourists celebrating Easter vacations on the island. Tourism officials rushed to reassure them that many hotels and other businesses were operating with generators.

It is unacceptable that we have a failure of this magnitude in the transmission of the electrical system, said Gov. Jenniffer Gonzlez, who cut short her weeklong vacation and flew back to Puerto Rico on Wednesday night.

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Officials said 90% of clients would likely have electricity 48 to 72 hours after the blackout occurred.

It was not immediately clear what caused the shutdown, the latest in a string of major blackouts on the island in recent years.

Thousands of Puerto Ricans were fuming over the latest outage, with many renewing their calls that the government cancel the contract with Luma and Genera PR, which oversees generation of power on the island.

This is a total disaster, said Orlando Huertas, 68, as he sipped a drink with a friend at a streetside bar and criticized the government for not doing enough to tackle the chronic outages.

Dozens of people were forced to walk on an overpass next to the rails of the rapid transit system that serves the capital, San Juan, while scores of businesses including the biggest mall in the Caribbean were forced to close. Professional baseball and basketball games were cancelled as the hum of generators and smell of smoke filled the air. Traffic became snarled as police officers were deployed to busy intersections.

Reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny echoed the collective rage, writing on X: When are we going to do something?

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The governor pledged late Wednesday that she would cancel the contract with Luma, but noted that while government officials have started analyzing the contract and finding possible replacements, it wouldn't be a quick process.

Gonzlez also said that she has requested an in-depth investigation into the blackout, noting that officials already have warned there won't be enough generation of power for this summer, when demand peaks.

Puerto Rico cant be the island where the power goes out all the time, Gonzlez said. Were going to take action. Let people have no doubts.

While power restoration on the main island of Puerto Rico was moving slowly to protect equipment, emergency generation stations restored power to the tiny neighboring island of Culebra and parts of neighboring Vieques, said Josu Coln, the islands so-called energy czar and former executive director of Puerto Ricos Electric Power Authority.

Those without generators crowded around grocery stores and other businesses to buy ice across Puerto Rico.

I'm desperate. My generator is broken, said Carmen Suriel, who worried about the impact of the blackout on her two children, a six-month-old and a five-year-old with Down syndrome, as the temperature rose across Puerto Rico on Wednesday.

Alma Ramrez, 69, said she was frustrated with the constant outages, some of which had already damaged her TV and microwave, forcing her to buy new appliances.

They have to improve," she said of the government. Those who are affected are us, the poor.

The island of 3.2 million residents has a more than 40% poverty rate, and not everyone can afford solar panels or generators. While there was a push to use more renewable energy sources under the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden, which provided Puerto Rico with mega generators and other resources, experts worry that won't happen under U.S. President Donald Trump.

Roughly 117,000 homes and businesses on the island have solar rooftops. Meanwhile, petroleum-fired power plants provide 62% of Puerto Rico's power, natural gas 24%, coal 8% and renewables 7%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

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Daniel Hernndez, vice president of operations at Genera PR, said at a news conference that a disturbance hit the transmission system shortly after noon on Wednesday, during a time when the grid is vulnerable because there are not many machines regulating frequency at that hour.

Vernica Ferraiuoli, acting governor and secretary of state for Puerto Rico, said the White House reached out to local officials and said they are available if needed.

Pablo Jos Hernndez, Puerto Rico's representative in Congress, said he would work to ensure that Washington understands the real and urgent situation Puerto Ricans face every day.

The electric grid crisis is frustrating, and after years of blackouts, it feels like its going from bad to worse," he said.

The last islandwide blackout occurred on New Years Eve.

Puerto Rico has struggled with chronic outages since September 2017 when Hurricane Maria pummeled the island as a powerful Category 4 storm, razing a power grid that crews are still struggling to rebuild.

The grid already had been deteriorating as a result of decades of a lack of maintenance and investment under Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority, which is struggling to restructure more than $9 billion in debt.

Actor Michelle Trachtenberg died as a result of complications from diabetes, New York City's medical examiner said Wednesday.

The office said in a statement that it amended the cause and manner of death for the 39-year-old New York City native following a review of laboratory test results.

Trachtenberg, who was known for "Gossip Girl," " Buffy the Vampire Slayer " and "Harriet the Spy," was found unconscious and unresponsive in her luxury apartment tower in Manhattan in February.

Officials at the time said no foul play was suspected, and the medical examiner's office had listed her death as "undetermined."

Trachtenberg's family had objected to an autopsy, which the medical examiner's office honored because there was no evidence of criminality.

Her representative didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday.

Sarah Michelle Gellar, Taylor Momsen and Blake Lively were among the celebrities who mourned Trachtenberg when her Feb. 26 death was announced.

Trachtenberg was 8 when she began playing Nona Mecklenberg on Nickelodeon's "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" from 1994 to 1996 and then starred in the title role in the film adaptations of "Harriet the Spy" and "Inspector Gadget," opposite Matthew Broderick.

In 2000 Trachtenberg joined the cast of "Buffy," playing Dawn Summers, the younger sister of the title character played by Gellar between 2000 and 2003.

Trachtenberg went on to recurring roles on "Six Feet Under," "Weeds" and "Gossip Girl," where she played the gang's scheming nemesis, Georgina Sparks. She was one of the original series' stars to return for a pair of guest appearances in the 2021 "Gossip Girl" revival.

Trachtenberg's later credits included the 2004 teen sex comedy "EuroTrip" and 2009's "17 Again" with Zac Efron and Leslie Mann.