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NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks shook off an early stumble to finish with slim gains on Wall Street Thursday and close out their first winning week since the start of the Iran war.The early decline for stocks was driven by a surge in oil prices following a national address late Wednesday from President Donald Trump. He vowed the U.S. will continue to attack Iran and failed to offer a clear timetable for ending the conflict in the Middle East. Oil prices eased slightly during the day, but still remain elevated well above $100 per barrel.The S&P 500 rose 7.37 points, or 0.1%, to 6,582.69. Several days of solid gains this week helped the benchmark index notch a 3.4% gain for the week. That’s the first weekly gain since the conflict started for index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts. Stock markets will be closed for Good Friday.The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 61.07 points, or 0.1%, to 46,504.67. The Nasdaq composite rose 38.23 points, or 0.2%, to 21,879.18. Both indexes also notched weekly gains.A barrel of U.S. crude oil rose 11.3% to $111.54, though prices rose close to $114 at one point during the day. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, jumped 7.8% to $109.03 per barrel. Crude oil prices have been the main force behind the sharp swings for stocks globally. Shipping traffic has been severely curtailed in the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes through during peacetime.Crude oil prices had been sliding back toward $100 per barrel prior to Trump’s address on Wednesday. The U.S. only relies on the Persian Gulf for a fraction of the oil it imports, but oil is a commodity and prices are set in a global market. A disruption anywhere affects prices everywhere.Stocks have been broadly sliding since the war began, with indexes often rising and falling sharply along with statements from Trump about the direction of the war. Just on Monday, the S&P 500 briefly neared a 10% drop from its record, a steep-enough fall that professional investors have a name for it: a “correction. The index gained ground Tuesday and Wednesday on hope that the war could end soon.“For markets, a prolonged conflict increases the risk of sustained pressures on inflation, global growth, interest rates, and equity valuations,” wrote Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist for LPL Financial, in a note to investors.Airlines and other travel-related companies were among the biggest losers on Thursday. United Airlines fell 3% and Carnival shed 3.5%.Tesla fell 5.4% after a report showing that sales over the past three months fell short of analysts' expectations.Several big technology stocks gained ground to help counter losses elsewhere in the market. Intel jumped 4.9% and Advanced Micro Devices rose 3.5%.Treasury yields remained relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to to 4.30% from 4.32%.Wall Street is worried that higher energy prices are adding to already stubbornly high inflation. Rising fuel prices take a bigger chunk out of consumers' wallets in several ways. Directly, gasoline prices in the U.S. have surged 36 percent from a month ago to average $4.08 per gallon, according to the auto club AAA.Indirectly, rising fuel prices tend to make a wide range of services and goods more expensive. Flights become more expensive as airlines raise ticket prices to offset rising fuel costs. Consumer goods become more expensive as shipping and transportation costs rise.Inflation has been stubbornly above the Federal Reserve's 2% target. The war and its corresponding surge in energy prices effectively pushes inflation higher and that has dashed hopes for the Fed to cut interest rates. Wall Street had hoped for the central bank to cut rates in order to help offset a weakening job market. Lower interest rates could help stimulate the economy by lowering borrowing costs, but they also risk worsening inflation.Traders came into 2026 forecasting several cuts to the Fed's benchmark interest rate, which influences rates for mortgages and other loans. They are now expecting the benchmark rate to remain steady this year.The war has also caused an anomaly of sorts in the oil market. Brent crude oil futures are typically priced higher than those for U.S. crude oil, but the war flipped that on its head. Because of the supply constraints, the sooner a buyer needs a barrel of oil, the more they’ll have to pay. Right now, the most actively traded futures contract for U.S. crude oil is for delivery in May, while the Brent futures contract is for delivery in June. That shorter timeframe is why U.S. crude is trading for more than Brent.Tom Kloza, chief energy adviser at Gulf Oil, points out that a buyer who needs oil immediately will pay about $3 to $5 a barrel above the futures price for U.S. crude and an even steeper premium for Brent.___An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the weekly percentage change for the S&P 500.___Associated Press journalists Chan Ho-Him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The president of the University of Wisconsin system said in letters obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday that he’s been told to either resign or be fired, but has been given no reason and won’t step aside.Jay Rothman, president of the multi-campus 165,000-student university system since 2022, said in a letter addressed to the head of the Board of Regents dated March 26 that he's been given no reason why regents want him to leave.Rothman said he's been told that his options are to resign or retire, and that if he doesn't then the board “was prepared to terminate my employment despite all that has been accomplished.”The Board of Regents held a closed emergency meeting on Wednesday night to discuss personnel matters.“The Board is responsible for the leadership of the Universities of Wisconsin and is having discussions about its future," Amy Bogost, board president, said in a statement to AP. "We don’t comment on personnel matters.”Rothman declined to comment when reached via email on Thursday.“I believe my letter speaks for itself,” he said.In the letter addressed to Bogost, Rothman said he had not been “provided any substantive reason or reasons for the Board’s finding of no confidence in my leadership.”Because of that, Rothman said, “I am not prepared, as a matter of principle, to submit my resignation.”Rothman also refused to resign in a second letter sent to two other regents on Wednesday after he said they urged him to step down during a Tuesday meeting. Rothman said the regents told him if he didn’t resign, the board was prepared to meet this weekend to fire him.Rothman said those regents also could not give a reason for them wanting him to resign or be fired.“I find this process to be nearly (if not completely) indefensible,” Rothman wrote.Rothman said he asked for an opportunity to discuss the situation with the board and was told that would not happen.Rothman's tenure has been marked by his efforts to increase state funding amid federal cuts, debates over free speech on campus amid pro-Palestinian protests, and declining enrollment leading to eight branch campus closures.Rothman raised the possibility of resigning in 2023 when the Board of Regents rejected a deal reached with the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature over diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The board later reversed its vote and approved the deal.Rothman noted in the March letter that “among so many other things,” the university will need to replace the chancellor of the flagship Madison campus this year. Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin is leaving to take the job as president of Columbia University.“I do not believe my resignation at this time is in the best interests of either the Universities of Wisconsin or the state of Wisconsin,” Rothman said.Rothman said in the letter that he has devoted his “heart and soul to the mission of the Universities of Wisconsin” and that he was surprised when told “an unidentified majority of the Board of Regents had lost confidence" in his leadership.“When I asked you to articulate reasons for the Board’s conclusion and apparent lack of confidence in me, you merely noted that each Regent has his or her own perspective on the matter,” Rothman wrote. “You did not provide any tangible reasons for the Board’s determination.”Rothman, the former chair and CEO of the Milwaukee-based Foley & Lardner law firm, was chosen as UW president in 2022. He had no prior experience administering higher education.The Universities of Wisconsin consists of 13 universities and several other branch campuses.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The near-daily changes in U.S. gas prices are dizzying for drivers, who are left feeling frustrated and cash-strapped by the highest fuel costs since 2022.With the Iran war pushing up prices worldwide, the U.S. average for a gallon of gas topped $4 on Tuesday, according to AAA. The uncertainty at the pump is trickling down from a massive, volatile oil and gas market that’s making it hard for gas stations to keep up.Oil prices soared when U.S. markets opened Thursday following President Donald Trump’s speech Wednesday promising to hit Iran “extremely hard” in the coming weeks. He asked Americans for patience.U.S. drivers have spent the past month gaming out when to fill up or hunting for deals as gas prices can change from one day to the next, or from one nearby station to another.Lonnie McQuirter, director of operations at 36 Lyn Refuel Station in south Minneapolis, said wholesale fuel prices are going up, sometimes multiple times a day, and are the main reason he’s had to charge more for gas than a month ago.About a mile (1.6 kilometers) off Interstate 35, the neighborhood convenience store posted $3.399 a gallon for regular gas on Thursday, which is about 20 cents lower than the metro average, according to AAA.“We price based on what we’re able to buy fuel at, and how well we can operate,” McQuirter said. He declined to speculate about his competitors, saying, “They’ve got different economics.”McQuirter said his margins have gotten much tighter. He’s also facing higher credit card fees and rising costs to maintain pumps. Still, in times like these, with consumers “screaming for help,” McQuirter said small operators like him act on emotion more than greed.“We’re in our stores every day looking our customers in the eye,” he said. “It really takes a toll when people are having to cut back on certain things in order to afford to live.”What factors into gas prices?A lot of it is outside the gas retailer’s control. Roughly half the price at the pump pays for the cost of crude oil, the main ingredient in gasoline, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. About 20% goes to refiners who turn crude into gas.Those costs have risen as crude oil prices jumped in response to the war and shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. Gas retailers are adjusting the price at the pump to account for the higher price they just paid for their next shipment of gasoline.Taxes — federal, state and local — account for nearly 20% of the price, while about 10% is left for retailers, who still have to pay for transportation, labor and other expenses.Retailers' markup has averaged about 38 cents a gallon over the past five years, according to the convenience store trade group NACS, citing data from research firm OPIS. After expenses, stations may keep roughly 15 cents per gallon, said Jeff Lenard, a vice president at NACS.“Some make more, some make less,” Lenard said.Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, compared it to a homeowner’s role in setting their sale price.“If I was selling a house today, I’d be beholden to whatever the housing market is,” De Haan said. “That’s the same for gas station owners. Whatever the price of oil and gasoline are, they are a price taker, not maker.”Why might prices differ from one gas station to the next?Although the national average just passed $4 a gallon, the price that drivers pay varies widely by state, city and station.Taxes alone can create large gaps. California's gas taxes and fees totaled about 71 cents per gallon last year, compared with roughly 9 cents in Alaska.Distance from refineries, the type of retailer, how much volume the location goes through and whether there are other fuel options nearby also play a role.Gas stations near competitors may choose to price gasoline competitively on large outdoor signs to attract drivers, hoping they'll come inside and buy higher-margin items, said Neal Walters, a partner focused on energy at the global management consulting firm Kearney.“It’s one of the only retail locations where you don’t have to go into the store to find out what you’re paying,” Walters said.Who benefits from rising prices?While U.S. retailers sell hundreds of millions of gallons of gas a day nationwide, they typically won't see large gains when prices rise.“The margins shrink when prices go up because it’s harder for them to pass along the increases as quickly as they themselves get them,” De Haan of GasBuddy said.When oil prices start to fall, retailers may recover some of those losses, particularly if there’s uncertainty about future supply costs. Prices can rocket up but tend to drift down like a falling feather, said Garrett Golding, assistant vice president for energy programs at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.Higher gas prices can also hurt sales inside the gas stations, if customers who are being squeezed at the pump spend less on other things.“So it’s not always the case that higher prices mean the service station owners are actually doing better,” Golding said.Most profits in the oil and gas supply chain are made upstream, he said, by companies that extract and refine crude oil. Still, Golding said they aren't necessarily celebrating; at some point, a significant spike in prices could hurt demand.“It may be a good stretch of days or weeks for them,” he said, “but they’re also cautious of what it could portend.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced a plan Wednesday to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security, moving past a split between the two Republican leaders that resulted in Congress leaving Washington last week without a fix to a record-setting partial government shutdown.They said in a joint statement that “in the coming days” Republicans in Congress will pursue a two-track approach. The first track returns to the Senate plan to fund most of the department, with the exception of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol. On the second track, Republicans would try later to fund those agencies through party-line spending legislation.Neither outcome is guaranteed, and the strategy could potentially still face opposition from the GOP’s own ranks even though President Donald Trump has given his support.“We appreciate and share the President’s determination to once and for all bring an end to the Democrat DHS shutdown,” said Johnson, R-La., and Thune, R-S.D.The plan represents a do-over of what senators had in mind when they passed a bipartisan funding agreement through unanimous consent last Friday. The Senate could approve that same legislation again as soon as Thursday morning, but even if that happens, it's unclear how quickly the bill could move through the House. It will likely take several months for Republicans to act on the second part of Trump's plan and pass budgeting legislation to fund ICE and Border Patrol.House Republicans refused to go along with the Senate last week, instead changing the bill to fund all of DHS for 60 days.As a result, the shutdown continued as lawmakers left for their home states and congressional districts for a two-week recess. The DHS shutdown reached its 47th day on Wednesday.Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer credited Democratic unity for the GOP's new strategy, saying, "for days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction."The announcement from the GOP leaders showed that for now, Thune and Johnson are on the same page. Their working relationship experienced a rupture late last week when Johnson — at the urging of many House Republicans — rejected Thune’s plan.The top Republicans hope the path ahead will win over skeptical GOP colleagues, but the most conservative lawmakers are likely to seek full funding for all of Trump’s immigration and deportation operations.“Let’s make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., posted on X. “If that’s the vote, I’m a NO.”It is uncertain whether Johnson could find enough support from the House to recall lawmakers back to Washington before their spring recess ends in mid-April.Meanwhile, the narrow budget package being prepared for later this year is expected to fund ICE and Border Patrol through the remainder of Trump’s term, as a way to try to ensure those agencies are no longer at risk from a funding lapse due to Democrats objecting to the president’s immigration enforcement agenda.Earlier Wednesday, Trump weighed in on the shutdown, using a social media post to call on Republicans to fund the immigration portions of DHS through a bill that would not require Democratic support. He said he wanted the legislation on his desk by June 1.“We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” Trump said.House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries released a statement saying, “It’s time to pay TSA agents, end the airport chaos and fully fund every part of the Department of Homeland Security that does not relate to Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine.”The vast majority of Homeland Security workers continue to report to work during the shutdown, but many thousands have been going without pay. That led to more Transportation Security Administration agents calling out from work, causing frustrating security lines at some of the nation's biggest airports. Those bottlenecks appeared to be clearing this week as agents began receiving backpay, per an executive order from Trump.__Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed reporting.
NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk's space exploration company has filed preliminary paperwork to sell shares to the public, according to two sources familiar with the filing, a blockbuster offering that would likely rank as the biggest ever and could make its founder the world's first trillionaire.A SpaceX IPO promises to be one of the biggest Wall Street events of the year, with several investment banks lining up to help raise tens of billions to fund Musk's ambitions to set up a base on the moon, put datacenters the size of several football fields in orbit and possibly one day send a man to Mars.The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the confidential registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission.SpaceX did not respond immediately to a request for comment.Exactly how much SpaceX plans to raise has not been disclosed but the figure is reportedly as much as $75 billion. At that level, the offering would easily eclipse the $29 billion that Saudi Aramco raised in its IPO in 2019.The offering, coming possibly in June, could value all the shares of SpaceX at $1.5 trillion, nearly double what the company was valued in December when some minority owners sold their stakes, according to research firm Pitchbook, before an acquisition that increased its size.Musk owns 42% of the SpaceX now, according to Pitchbook, though that figure will change with the IPO when new owners are issued shares. In any case, he is likely to pierce the trillion dollar mark because he is already close. Forbes magazine estimates Musk's net worth at roughly $823 billion.In addition to making reusable rockets to hurl astronauts and hardware into orbit, SpaceX owns Starlink, the world’s largest satellite communications company. The company also recently brought under its roof two other Musk businesses, social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and artificial intelligence business, xAI, in a controversial transaction because both the seller and the buyer were controlled by him.SpaceX has become the biggest commercial launch company in its industry, responsible for sending payloads into orbit for customers across the globe, but has also benefited from big taxpayer spending. That has raised conflicts of interest issues given that Musk was the biggest donor to President Donald Trump's campaign and is still a big backer.In the past five years, SpaceX won $6 billion in contracts from NASA, the Defense Department and other U.S. government agencies, according to USAspending.gov.Among current SpaceX owners is Donald Trump Jr, the president's oldest son. He owns a shares through 1789 Capital. That venture capital firm made him a partner shortly after his father won the presidency for a second time and has been buying up federal contractors seeking to win taxpayer money ever since.The White House and Trump himself have repeatedly denied there are any conflicts of interest between his role as president and his family's businesses.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rushed higher worldwide, and oil prices eased Wednesday as hopes built that the war with Iran could end soon. That’s even though some of the signals investors saw as hopeful are already under dispute, and several earlier bouts of optimism in financial markets quickly got undercut by continued, fierce fighting in the war.The S&P 500 rose 0.7% and added to its leap from the day before, which was its best since last spring. That followed even bigger gains for stock markets across Europe and Asia, including an 8.4% surge in South Korea, which were catching up to Wall Street’s rally from Tuesday.The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 224 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.2%.Oil prices also fell back toward $100 per barrel after President Donald Trump said late Tuesday that the U.S. military could end its offensive in two to three weeks.That added to optimism following a couple tenuous signals of hope from earlier Tuesday that Wall Street latched onto, including a news report quoting Iran’s president as saying that it has “the necessary will to end the war” as long as certain requirements are met, including “guarantees to prevent a recurrence of aggression.”The worry on Wall Street has been that the war may last a long time and keep oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf out of global markets, which could create a brutal blast of inflation.But hope has been quick to reverse to doubt on Wall Street, triggering manic swings back and forth for financial markets since the war with Iran began. Trump has also made statements that lifted markets, only to see the gains quickly disappear after increasing his military threats.Shortly before Wall Street began trading on Wednesday, Trump claimed in a post on his social media network that Iran “has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!”“We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”But Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, quickly called that claim “false and baseless,” according to a report on Iranian state television.Oil prices also remain high, even if they’ve eased recently. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, was sitting around $101 following its declines, which is still up from roughly $70 before the war began.U.S. gasoline prices rose again overnight to a national average of $4.06 per gallon, according to the auto club AAA.Iran, meanwhile, hit an oil tanker off the coast of Qatar and Kuwait’s airport on Wednesday while airstrikes battered Tehran as the fighting continued. Iran also continues to hold a grip on the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes during peacetime.“De-escalation hopes have given markets a lift, but we think the effects of the war would, in many cases, persist even if the war did end soon,” Thomas Mathews, head of markets, Asia Pacific at Capital Economics, said in a research note Wednesday.“It’s worth thinking through how markets might fare if the war were to end ‘very soon,’” he wrote. “Do markets have further to recover if sentiment continues to improve? The answer is almost certainly yes.”The White House said Trump will deliver a public address Wednesday evening on the Iran war.On Wall Street, three out of every five stocks within the S&P 500 rose as Big Tech powered the move higher. Gains of 3.4% for Alphabet and 0.8% for Nvidia were two of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500.Eli Lilly rallied 3.8% after U.S. regulators approved its GLP-1 pill for weight loss.Such gains have pulled the S&P 500, which sits at the heart of many 401(k) accounts, back to within 5.8% of its all-time high set early this year. Just on Monday, the index briefly neared a 10% drop from its record, a steep-enough fall that professional investors have a name for it: a “correction.”Nike sank 15.5% even though it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. Analysts said it gave some lackluster financial forecasts.Oil companies also fell with the price of crude. Exxon Mobil slumped 5.2%, and Chevron dropped 4.6%.All told, the S&P 500 rose 46.80 points to 6,575.32. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 224.23 to 46,565.74, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 250.32 to 21,840.95.In stock markets abroad, indexes leaped more than 2% in France and Germany. Asian markets had even bigger gains.Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 5.2% after a survey showed business sentiment for major Japanese manufacturers improved despite worries about the Iran war.In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady after a report said U.S. retailers made more money in February than economists expected. A separate report said U.S. manufacturing growth last month was slightly faster than economists expected.The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.32% from 4.30% late Tuesday.___AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed.
Advocacy groups and experts condemned YouTube for serving up low-quality artificial intelligence-generated videos to its most vulnerable audience: children.In a letter to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and Sundar Pichai, the CEO of YouTube’s parent company Google, children’s advocacy group Fairplay expresses “serious concern” about the spread of AI-generated videos on both YouTube and YouTube Kids. The letter, which was sent on Wednesday morning, was signed by more than 200 organizations and individual experts such as child psychiatrists and educators.“This ’ AI slop ’ harms children’s development by distorting their sense of reality, overwhelming their learning processes and hijacking their attention, thereby extending time online and displacing offline activities necessary for their healthy development,” the letter reads. “These harms are particularly acute for young children.” The letter calls on YouTube to clearly label all AI-generated content and ban any AI-generated content on YouTube Kids. They also propose barring AI-generated videos from being recommended to users under 18 and implementing an option for parents to turn off AI-generated content even if their child searches for it.The letter is signed by 135 organizations including the American Federation of Teachers and the American Counseling Association, and around 100 individual experts like “The Anxious Generation” author Jonathan Haidt. The letter is part of a larger campaign from Fairplay that also includes a petition.Much of this AI-generated content is fast-paced with bright colors, lively music and clickbait titles that work to grab the attention of young viewers, the letter outlines. There has been a growing movement online against AI-generated content, particularly when it looks or feels low quality or leans into the meaninglessness of “ brainrot.”Spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle said in a statement that YouTube has “high standards for the content in YouTube Kids, including limiting AI-generated content in the app to a small set of high-quality channels.”“We also provide parents the option to block channels. Across YouTube, we prioritize transparency when it comes to AI content, labeling content from our own AI tools, and requiring creators to disclose realistic AI content,” Bullwinkle said. “We’re always evolving our approach to stay current as the ecosystem evolves.”YouTube's current policy regarding AI-generated content requires creators to disclose when content that's “realistic” is made with altered or synthetic media, including generative AI. Creators are not required to disclose when generative AI is used to create content that is clearly unrealistic, including animated videos and those with special effects.YouTube said it is actively working on developing labels for YouTube Kids.In its letter, Fairplay argues that voluntary disclosure policy and what it sees as an “extremely limited” definition of altered and synthetic content mean kids still see a flood of AI-generated videos that are not labeled as such. They also argue that many children who watch YouTube videos are not yet able to read or to comprehend something like an AI disclosure. That leaves children “to fend for themselves or their parents to play whack-a-mole,” the letter reads.Fairplay's campaign comes shortly after Google’s AI Futures Fund invested $1 million into Animaj, an AI animation studio that makes videos for kids and draws in staggeringly high viewership numbers, according to Bloomberg.The campaign follows a landmark verdict in a social media addiction trial in which a California jury found that YouTube designed its platform to hook young users without concern for their well-being. Meta was also found liable on the same counts as YouTube in the same case.“Pushing AI slop onto young children is just another testament to how YouTube and YouTube Kids are designed to maximize children’s time online — including babies. AI slop hypnotizes young children, making it hard for them to get off their screens and move onto essential activities like play, sleep and social interaction,” said Rachel Franz, the director of Fairplay’s Young Children Thrive Offline program, in a statement. “What’s more, YouTube’s algorithm makes it impossible for kids to avoid AI slop.”Earlier this year, YouTube head Mohan listed out “managing AI slop” as one of the company's priorities for 2026. In a January blog post, he wrote that the company was “actively building on our established systems that have been very successful in combatting spam and clickbait, and reducing the spread of low quality, repetitive content.”
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California woman who had been living in the U.S. for 27 years before the Trump administration deported her to Mexico in February reunited with her daughter this week after a judge ordered her return.Mexican citizen Maria de Jesús Estrada Juárez was among the hundreds of thousands of people shielded from deportation under an Obama-era program allowing people brought to the U.S. as children to stay in the country if they generally stay out of trouble.But that changed Feb. 18 when she showed up for an immigration hearing and was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deported the next day.“I didn't get to say goodbye," the 42-year-old mother said at a news conference Tuesday in Sacramento. "It all happened so fast. This has been one of the most painful experiences of my life.”Estrada Juárez held hands with her daughter and began to choke up as she recounted those experiences.“It's hard to describe what it feels like to lose your mother so suddenly, especially when you believed she was safe," said Damaris Bello, Estrada Juárez's 22-year-old daughter. "It was like grieving someone who was still alive.”The federal government has arrested several other recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, during President Donald Trump's second term. The events come amid the Trump administration's reshaping of immigration policy more broadly.Immigration advocates say Estrada Juárez’s removal highlights the need to offer more permanent protections for DACA recipients, often referred to as “Dreamers.”The case is a rare example of a judge ordering a person’s return to the United States after being deported, said Talia Inlender, deputy director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law.“But, perhaps unsurprisingly, it feels like this is happening with more frequency under the current administration which is prioritizing speed and quotas, rather than fairness and process, in facilitating removals,” Inlender said in a statement.The federal administration said Estrada Juárez was deported because of a 1998 removal order when Estrada Juárez was a teenager, shortly after she arrived in the U.S. She was sent to Mexico at the time but returned to the U.S. weeks later and has had DACA status since 2013. Federal officials reinstated the 1998 order in February after arresting her.Estrada Juárez spent the next few weeks after being deported with relatives, stressed about being separated from her daughter.“You can’t enjoy life when the most important part of your life is not there,” she said.U.S. District Judge Dena Coggins, who was appointed by then-President Joe Biden, issued a temporary restraining order on March 23, giving the federal government seven days to facilitate Estrada Juárez's return to the U.S. Her deportation was a “flagrant violation” of her DACA protections and infringed upon her due process rights, Coggins wrote.The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has defended the deportation.“ICE follows all court orders,” a department spokesperson said in a statement. “This is yet another ruling from a Biden-appointed activist judge."But Estrada Juárez wasn't aware of the 1998 order, which her lawyer argues wasn't final.“DACA gives you a vested right to not be deported once it's granted,” said Stacy Tolchin, an immigration attorney based in Pasadena, California. “I really don’t understand what they’re doing.”Bello, who was reunited with her mother Monday night, said she is recovering from the events and hopes other families don't have to endure the same thing.“Having her back home means everything to me," she said. “It means we can begin to heal, to rebuild and to move forward together as a family.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — President Donald Trump lashed out Tuesday at allies who have been unwilling to do more to support the U.S. war effort against Iran, telling them to “go get your own oil” and saying it was not America's job to secure the Strait of Hormuz.The president said the military could end its offensive in two to three weeks and that the U.S. “will not have anything to do with” what happens next in the strait that has been closed by the Islamic Republic. Instead, he told reporters, the responsibility for keeping the vital waterway open will rest with countries that rely on it.There’s “no reason for us to do this,” Trump said after signing an executive order that seeks to restrict mail-in voting. “That’s not for us. That’ll be for France. That’ll be for whoever’s using the strait.”The White House said Trump would deliver a prime-time address Wednesday evening to update the public on the war.In other developments, the closure of the strait sent average U.S. gas prices past $4 a gallon, and U.S. strikes hit the central city of Isfahan, sending a massive fireball into the sky. Tehran attacked a fully loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker in the Persian Gulf.The attacks showed the intensity of the war more than a month after the U.S. and Israel launched it. The conflict has left more than 3,000 dead and caused major disruptions to the world’s supply of oil and natural gas, roiling global markets and pushing up the cost of many basic goods.Trump, whose comments have vacillated between talk that diplomatic progress is being made with Iran and threats to widen the war, had earlier shared footage of the attack on Isfahan.Fuel prices rise, rattling global marketsIran’s stranglehold on the strait, the waterway leading out of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported during peacetime, has driven up global oil prices, as have Tehran's attacks on regional energy infrastructure.Spot prices of Brent crude, the international standard, hovered around $107 a barrel Tuesday, up more than 45% since the war started Feb. 28.In a social media post, Trump directed blame at U.S. allies such as the United Kingdom and France that have refused to enter a war with no clear endgame that they were not consulted on.“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!” Trump wrote.He singled out France for not letting planes fly over French territory while taking military supplies to Israel.France has allowed the U.S. Air Force to use the Istres base in southern France because it had guarantees that planes landing there would not be involved in carrying out strikes.Allies have refused to get involvedSpain, which has emerged as Europe's loudest critic of the war, said Monday that it had closed its airspace for U.S. planes involved in the conflict.Italy recently refused to allow U.S. military assets to use the Sigonella air base in Sicily for an operation linked to the offensive, an official with knowledge of the matter said, confirming a local press report. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto wrote on X that Italy is still allowing the U.S. to use its bases, adding that there has been no cooling of relations between the two countries.Journalist kidnapped in IraqAn American journalist was kidnapped Tuesday in Baghdad, and Iraqi security forces are pursuing her captors, Iraqi officials said. The journalist was identified as freelancer Shelly Kittleson by Al-Monitor, one of the news outlets she worked for.A U.S. official blamed the Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah.Two cars were involved in the kidnapping, one of which crashed, and a person inside was apprehended. The journalist was then transferred to a second car that fled the scene, according to two Iraqi security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.Dylan Johnson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for public affairs, said on X that the State Department had "fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them.”In a statement, Al-Monitor said it stands by her “vital reporting.” Kittleson has been a longtime freelancer in the region, reporting extensively from Syria and Iraq.Another aircraft carrier deploys to Middle EastThe aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush deployed Tuesday from Norfolk, Virginia, and is slated to head to the Middle East, two U.S. officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans.It would be the third carrier sent out to support the Iran war, along with the USS Gerald R. Ford, which is now undergoing repairs, and the USS Abraham Lincoln, which arrived in the region in January.Trump warned this week that if a ceasefire is not reached “shortly,” and if the strait is not reopened, the U.S. would broaden its offensive, including by attacking the Kharg Island oil export hub and possibly desalination plants.Speaking at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would not say if U.S. ground forces would enter the war. “We don’t want to have to do more militarily than we have to,” he said.A ground invasion could alienate Iranians who despise the ruling theocracy and who rose up in mass protests that were crushed earlier this year. Some could see it as an attack on Iran itself and rally around the flag.Since the Iran war began, 13 U.S. service members have been killed and 348 wounded, six seriously, according to a formal count provided Tuesday by Capt. Tim Hawkins, spokesman for U.S. Central Command.Iran hits oil tanker as Israel strikes Iran and LebanonThe Israeli military said early Wednesday that it had killed a senior Hezbollah commander and another senior leader in two separate strikes in the Beirut area.Military officials said they launched strikes targeting what they described as Hezbollah infrastructure in the Lebanese capital. Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel plans to control the area south of the Litani River — some 20 miles (about 30 kilometers) north of the border.Israel invaded southern Lebanon after Hezbollah began launching missiles into northern Israel days after the outbreak of the wider war. Many Lebanese fear another prolonged military occupation.Elsewhere, the United Arab Emirates has barred Iranians from entering or transiting the country as the war rages, three major airlines said. The long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad, as well as the lower-cost airline FlyDubai, made the announcements Wednesday on their websites.In Iran, authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.Two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank. In Lebanon, officials said more than 1,200 people have been killed, and more than 1 million displaced.Ten Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon, including four announced Tuesday.___Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Superville from Washington. David Rising in Bangkok, Abby Sewell and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Amir-Hussein Radjy in Cairo, Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Giada Zampano in Rome, Giovanna Dell’Orto in Miami and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Army pilots who hovered two helicopters near Kid Rock’s Tennessee home during a training run while he clapped and saluted have had their suspension lifted, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday.“No punishment. No Investigation. Carry on, patriots,” Hegseth said in a social media post.Earlier, a U.S. Army spokesperson said the crews of the two AH-64 Apache helicopters from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Campbell were suspended from flying, pending an investigation into their actions. The suspension was a discretionary — but not unusual — step when an investigation is underway, Maj. Montrell Russell said in statement.The Army would review whether the flight complied with FAA regulations and aviation safety protocol, Russell said in the statement, which he emailed fewer than three hours before Hegseth's social media post. The Army takes “allegations of unauthorized or unsafe flight operations very seriously and is committed to enforcing standards and holding personnel accountable,” the statement said.Asked about Hegseth's announcement, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez said he had nothing to add to the secretary's social media post. An Army spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.Kid Rock, who is an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump, told WKRN-TV on Monday that it's not uncommon for helicopters from nearby Fort Campbell to fly near his home. He said he is a big supporter of the military and he's performed for troops overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries.“I think they know this is a pretty friendly spot,” he said. He noted that last Thanksgiving he was at Fort Campbell, a sprawling Army base on the Tennessee-Kentucky border, with Vice President JD Vance. “I've talked to some of these pilots. I've told them, ‘You guys see me waving when you come by the house?' I’m like, ‘You guys are always welcome to cruise by my house, any time,’” he said.Kid Rock posted two short videos on social media Saturday. Each shows a helicopter hovering alongside his swimming pool while the entertainer claps, salutes and raises his fist in the air. One post included a caption by Kid Rock disparaging Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a frequent Trump critic.Speaking at the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump suggested maybe the crews shouldn’t have done it before adding, “I like Kid Rock, maybe they were trying to defend him, I don’t know.”In the videos, Kid Rock stands next to a replica of the Statue of Liberty and a sign by the pool that reads, “The Southern White House.” His home on a hill overlooking Nashville was built to resemble the White House.The helicopters were on a training mission when they stopped by Kid Rock's house, said Maj. Jonathon Bless, public affairs officer for the 101st Airborne Division. The helicopters also flew over a “No Kings” protest against Trump in downtown Nashville, but Bless said their presence had nothing to do with the protest.Kid Rock said he thought it was “really cool” that they stopped to hover at his house.“If it makes their day a little brighter for their service to our country, protecting us, I think that’s a great thing,” he said.Asked about possible repercussions for the crews, he said, “I think they’re going to be all right. My buddy’s the commander in chief.”__Associated Press reporters Collin Binkley and Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu contributed to this story.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the University of Pennsylvania to hand over records about Jewish employees on campus to a federal agency as part of an investigation into antisemitic discrimination but said it did not have to reveal any employee’s affiliation with a specific group.U.S. District Judge Gerald Pappert said employees can refuse to take part in the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation but the agency “needs the opportunity to talk to them directly to learn if they have evidence of discrimination.”He mostly upheld an administrative subpoena but said Penn does not have to disclose any worker’s affiliation with a Jewish-related organization nor must it provide information about three Jewish-affiliated groups. He set a deadline of May 1 to comply.A university spokesperson said in an emailed response that the school is committed to confronting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination and has “taken multiple steps to prevent and address these despicable events.” Penn plans to appeal.“While we acknowledge the important role of the EEOC to investigate discrimination, we also have an obligation to protect the rights of our employees. We continue to believe that requiring Penn to create lists of Jewish faculty and staff, and to provide personal contact information, raises serious privacy and First Amendment concerns. The University does not maintain employee lists by religion,” the university’s statement read.It is not unusual for federal investigators looking into employment discrimination to request identities of employees of a particular religion, to facilitate outreach to people who may have been victims, according to a former federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.Pappert wrote that the university and others who joined the litigation “significantly raised the dispute’s temperature by impliedly and even expressly comparing the EEOC’s efforts to protect Jewish employees from antisemitism to the Holocaust and the Nazis’ compilation of ‘lists of Jews.’” The judge called that “unfortunate and inappropriate.”Pappert wrote that Penn and the others who opposed the subpoena were primarily concerned about linking employees to Jewish groups, saying “the EEOC no longer seeks any employee’s specific affiliation with a particular Jewish-related organization on campus.”The judge exempted information about three Jewish organizations from the subpoena -- MEOR, Penn Hillel and Chabad Lubavitch House. Executive directors with all three groups had declared in court filings they were legally and financially separate from the university.“The privacy of persons making use of Chabad at Penn’s services and facilities is vital to Chabad at Penn’s operations,” Rabbi Menachem Schmidt said in a January declaration. “Chabad at Penn is accordingly concerned about the impact that non-consensual disclosure of personal information could have on its mission and activities.”The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation was prompted in part by a series of incidents, including that someone had shouted antisemitic obscenities and destroyed property at a Jewish student life center, a Nazi swastika was painted on an academic building and “hateful graffiti” was left outside a fraternity.The investigation has also focused on actions related to protests over the war in Gaza, and Penn’s response to that and other incidents.The EEOC claimed in a November filing that Penn’s “workplace is replete with antisemitism,” and it told the judge that investigators think “identification of those who have witnessed and/or been subjected to the environment is essential for determining whether the work environment was both objectively and subjectively hostile.”___Binkley reported from Washington, D.C.
JUPITER ISLAND, Fla. (AP) — Tiger Woods showed signs of impairment and was arrested at crash scene on suspicion of DUI, sheriff says.
