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  • Judge orders release of Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi

    Judge orders release of Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi


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    Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi was detained earlier this month during an immigration interview. Last year, he helped organized pro-Palestinian protests on campus. A federal judge today ordered him released on bail, as he fights his deportation. NBC News’ Stephanie Gosk reports Mahdawi had a defiant message for the Trump administration after his release.

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  • Republicans hit early snags as they start crafting a massive bill for Trump’s agenda

    Republicans hit early snags as they start crafting a massive bill for Trump’s agenda



    WASHINGTON — Republicans are already hitting some snags as they begin the work of crafting a bill for President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda. And they haven’t even made some of their hardest decisions yet.

    Fresh off a two-week recess, House committees have begun marking up their respective pieces of the package, which aims to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, boost funding for immigration enforcement and the military, and increase the debt ceiling. In their hunt for steep savings to pay for it all, Republicans are starting with some of the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to spending cuts.

    But that process has already sparked some skirmishes among Republican lawmakers, offering a preview of the bigger intraparty fights — such as whether to slash funding for anti-poverty programs like Medicaid — that are still to come.

    Follow live politics coverage here

    Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., the chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, on Wednesday was forced at the eleventh hour to yank a provision out of his panel’s portion of the package that would have created a new $20 annual fee on nearly all passenger vehicles after conservatives revolted.

    Separately, on the Judiciary Committee, a push by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., to codify Trump’s proposal of a “gold card” visa for wealthy foreigners was rejected by conservatives opposed to expanding visa programs.

    And on the Education and Workforce Committee, Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., on Tuesday pushed through an overhaul of student loan programs that would cut $351 billion in federal spending, drawing criticisms from Democrats. The most contentious part of that overhaul, Walberg said, is a “risk-sharing” provision that would make colleges, universities and trade schools partially responsible for unpaid student loan balances.

    “All the committees are making tough decisions, and we’re gonna build this bill,” said Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of conservatives on Capitol Hill.

    After passing their budget framework for Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” earlier this month, House Republicans are now trying to fill out the details.

    Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he thinks the House can cobble together all the separate pieces and send the package to the Senate by Memorial Day — an ambitious but not impossible deadline. But it means Republican leaders, committee chairpeople and rank-and-file members are now having the politically tricky conversations about how to pay for the bill and what might get cut.

    And every House Republican’s opinion matters in the process because of the party’s fragile 220-213 majority.

    “Just about every step of the way has been difficult with a small majority,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters, adding that he’s also had “a lot” of conversations with senators as well to make sure both chambers are on the same page.

    Perhaps the trickiest issue Republicans still need to resolve is how to handle potential Medicaid cuts, which vulnerable and moderate Republicans have strongly warned against.

    The Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the program and is responsible for finding a whopping $880 billion in cuts for the bill, is planning to hold a markup on May 7, but has to finalize its portion of the package. The committee’s chairman has been meeting with members from all across the ideological spectrum as they try to find a solution.

    But even smaller, less innocuous issues can trip up the entire process. The vehicle fee was an example of an issue that unexpectedly blew up at the last minute. Graves, the Transportation Committee chairman, had included the provision in his panel’s package to help meet the committee’s so-called “reconciliation” instructions, which dictate what each panel is required to cut or allowed to spend.

    Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the former chair of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, offered an amendment to kill it as conservatives disparaged it as a “car tax.” Graves’ team checked in with committee members to gauge support for the fee, two Republican sources said, but it became clear there was too much opposition and Graves made the call Tuesday night to pull it from the package.

    The committee was then forced to find other ways to hit its saving goals. The package will now boost an annual fee for electric vehicles to $250, up from the originally proposed $200, as well as reduce funding for air traffic control modernization to $12.5 billion, down from the initial $15 billion that was proposed.

    “EV owners have not been paying anything into the highway trust fund and justifiably, now they will,” said Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, who opposed the $20 passenger car fee. “I’m very glad there won’t be any fees on gasoline driven vehicles whose owners and drivers have already been paying their fair share into the highway trust fund through the federal gasoline tax.”

    Another GOP spat emerged on the Judiciary Committee over visas. Issa, a senior member of the panel, had hoped to include in Wednesday’s committee’s markup Trump’s idea to sell $5 million gold card visas that would offer immigrants legal permanent residency and a path to citizenship.

    Issa argued the proposal could bring in at least an additional $150 billion to pay for the bill. But Issa said another member of the panel, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, effectively vetoed the idea.

    “I got screwed out of the gold card because a few of our members wouldn’t go along with having an expansion of revenue related to visas, EB-5 and H-1,” Issa said in an interview Wednesday. “The president’s point [is] that we should be able to generate revenue by bringing the investors in to invest, and we have a program that brings in very little by comparison. But Chip killed it.”

    “I would be voting for reconciliation,” Issa added, “but I would be disappointed when it’s left out.”

    Roy did not respond to a request for comment. A Judiciary Committee spokesman suggested that Republicans still could revisit the gold card issue.

    “We are working hand-in-glove with the White House and totally support President Trump’s agenda,” spokesman Russell Dye said in a statement Wednesday.

    These types of decisions, however, are the easy ones. The hard ones will need to be resolved in the coming days and weeks. On Wednesday afternoon, Johnson hosted a meeting with Republicans from blue states like New York, New Jersey and California who are aggressively pushing to raise the cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction in the package.

    The House Ways and Means Committee, where that issue will be decided, will likely meet sometime next week.

    “It was a lively discussion but we’re still far away from a deal,” Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., said as he left the nearly hourlong SALT meeting. “I want to ensure we make whole as many of our middle class families as possible.”

    On Medicaid, Republicans facing tough re-election fights in the 2026 midterm elections are worried it’s not mathematically possible to achieve their spending targets without a steep cut to Medicaid, citing estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

    Republican leaders have said they only want to target waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicaid system. Leaving a meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chair of the Budget Committee, reiterated that the GOP wants to impose work requirements for Medicaid eligibility to raise the revenue needed to fund Trump’s agenda.

    “The whole idea of using Medicaid to help able-bodied people who could be working, most Americans will say no to,” Graham said. “Medicaid was designed to help poor people and disabled people … We got a chance to fix it. And if we fail, I think we’ll pay a heavy price.”



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  • Man plunges from the stands at Pirates game

    Man plunges from the stands at Pirates game


    A man fell several feet from the stands to the ground at a Pittsburgh Pirates home game at PNC Park on Wednesday, the team confirmed.

    The man was seen tumbling in the air before landing on the warning track area of right field during the seventh inning, causing the game to stop as players looked visibly shocked.

    “Pittsburgh EMS, as well as the Pirates and Cubs athletic training teams and other PNC Park personnel reacted and responded immediately and administered care,” the team said in a statement.

    Image: Chicago Cubs v Pittsburgh Pirates Andrew McCutchen
    Andrew McCutchen #22 of the Pittsburgh Pirates looks on after a fan fell from the stands during the seventh inning against the Chicago Cubs at PNC Park, in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Wednesday.Joe Sargent / Getty Images

    The man was transported to Allegheny General Hospital.

    A person who witnessed the incident said it happened fast, and that the man fell from the 21-foot wall.

    “It was quick, I couldn’t tell if he jumped or fell,” Sam Miller said. EMS staff strapped the man to a stretcher to immobilize him, Miller said.

    A spokesperson for Pittsburgh Public Safety said that they were gathering information about the incident and that updates would be posted to social media.

    “No further information is available at this time. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family,” the team said.



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  • Officer killed in gunman’s Pennsylvania hospital siege was hit by friendly fire, prosecutor says

    Officer killed in gunman’s Pennsylvania hospital siege was hit by friendly fire, prosecutor says


    YORK, Pa. — An officer killed while responding to a Pennsylvania hospital siege was struck by a shotgun blast fired by police that also hit an armed man holding hostages, a prosecutor disclosed at a news conference Wednesday.

    The attacker and West York Patrolman Andrew W. Duarte were killed in the gunfire in York on Feb. 22, while several other people were injured.

    The shotgun blast also wounded a second officer responding to the intensive care unit, York County District Attorney Tim Barker said in announcing the results of his investigation.

    Barker called the officers heroes who ran into a dangerous situation, ready to risk their lives and save hostages. He said attacker Diogenes Archangel-Ortiz “unleashed a torrent of evil” and directly caused Duarte’s death.

    “I looked at every moment of video and I saw on every person’s face that willingness to walk into, to run into the path of gunfire and potential death. They were willing to lay down their lives for every single person at that hospital,” Barker said. He called their actions “100% justified and legally appropriate.”

    The attack at UPMC Memorial Hospital occurred after the gunman learned from a doctor that the woman he lived with had died after treatment there, Barker told reporters. Investigators seeking a motive in Archangel-Ortiz’s “mental state” came up empty, he said.

    Pennsylvania Hospital Shooting
    Law enforcement officers arrive at the scene of the shooting at UPMC Memorial Hospital on Feb. 22.Mark Scolforo / AP file

    “There was no description provided whatsoever that would lead anyone to have believed that the actor was going to commit this type of mass violence,” Barker said.Duarte’s last act was to run toward the threat, Chief Matthew Millsaps had said previously at the officer’s funeral.

    Archangel-Ortiz, 49, had purchased zip ties and a knife that morning and used a gun stolen in 2017 from a neighboring county during the attack, Barker said. He said Archangel-Ortiz appeared to become nauseous when a doctor told him the woman had been moved to the hospital morgue.

    Moments later, he displayed a gun and announced: “This is what we’re going to talk about,” Barker said. Archangel-Ortiz shot the doctor, grazing his arm and piercing a jacket. The doctor, who had texted to warn colleagues of the gunman, fled from the ICU.

    What ensued was a chaotic series of events in which Archangel-Ortiz threatened hostages and patients and made one hospital worker zip tie others. A hospital worker who had been shot in the leg was able to flee and lock herself in a bathroom.

    Barker said Archangel-Ortiz also called his brother during the siege, telling him to clean up his home and give away his jewelry. “This is how I’m going out,” Archangel-0rtiz told his brother, Barker said.

    Police tried to negotiate and de-escalate the crisis, Barker said, as they also organized teams at the intensive care doors and formulated a plan to have officers follow someone with a tactical shield into the unit.

    He said Duarte was hit in the shoulder and chest.

    In all, Barker said, four workers were hurt — the doctor and worker who were shot, a third person with head trauma and a fourth with a minor injury. Two police officers were shot, a third was injured by shrapnel and Duarte was killed. He did not disclose the name of the officer who fired the shotgun.

    When police recovered Archangel-Ortiz’s 9mm handgun, it was not loaded.

    Barker said they had no details on why Archangel-Ortiz did what he did, noting, “sometimes there is no ‘why.’”

    “The only thing that we can state is that he, on his own, decided to enter UPMC that day, fully prepared to take hostages and kill people,” Barker said.

    Some of the nurses who survived the attack have shared their accounts in social media, disclosing details about injuries and treatment and how the attack has haunted the survivors. The attack highlighted rising violence against U.S. health care workers and the challenges of protecting them.

    Nurse Tosha Trostle said in a Facebook post that she was held against him as a shield at gunpoint, arms zip-tied behind her back, as they walked through a doorway and encountered a phalanx of responding police officers. She said she begged Archangel-Ortiz to let her go and that he pushed the gun against her neck and spine. She heard gunshots and fell onto the floor under his body, then was able to get to safety.



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  • 1 dead in flooding in Oklahoma as downpours hit region

    1 dead in flooding in Oklahoma as downpours hit region


    An Oklahoma man died after he was swept away by flooding Wednesday as heavy rain struck the state and Texas, where around 16 million people were under high water alerts, officials said.

    The man in Pottawatomie County died after his vehicle was swept off a roadway around 12:30 p.m., and after a sheriff’s deputy who tried to save him also became trapped in the water, the sheriff’s office said. The deputy was rescued by firefighters.

    “Tragically, despite every effort made, the individual in distress could not be reached in time and passed away at the scene,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement on social media. “Our hearts are heavy tonight for this loss of life, and we extend our deepest condolences to the man’s family and loved ones.”

    Flooding in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, on April 30, 2025.
    Water rescue near Highway 102 and Macomb after flooding in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, on Wednesday.KFOR
    Water rescue near Highway 102 and Macomb after flooding in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, on April 30, 2025.
    Water rescue near Highway 102 and Macomb after flooding in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, on Wednesday.KFOR

    The death occurred as roadways and other areas in Oklahoma and the Dallas area flooded due to heavy rainfall caused by a stalled frontal boundary, the National Weather Service said.

    The heavy rainfall there came a day after severe weather contributed to the deaths of four people in Pennsylvania, one of whom was electrocuted as he tried to extinguish a mulch fire, police there said.

    Around 2 inches of rain in Wichita Falls, Texas, and 2.8 inches in Lawton, Oklahoma, forecasters at the weather service in Norman, Oklahoma, said.

    Around 16 million people were under flood watches or warnings in Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri on Wednesday afternoon, according to the weather service.

    Tornado watches also covered an area where almost 5 million people live, from eastern Texas to northern Louisiana and most of Arkansas Wednesday afternoon, it said.

    The heaviest rain threat was for southeastern Oklahoma, into northeastern Texas and western Arkansas, the weather service said.

    Flooding in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, on April 30, 2025.
    Flooding in Pottawatomie County, Okla., on Wednesday.KFOR
    Flooding in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, on April 30, 2025.
    Flooding in Pottawatomie County, Okla., on Wednesday.KFOR

    The heaviest rain had moved out southeastern Oklahoma by late Wednesday afternoon, the weather service in Norman said, but rivers were expected to continue to flood through Thursday.

    In the Dallas area, a flood warning remained in place for the Rowlett Creek Near Sachse until 7:50 a.m. Thursday. Moderate flooding was expected, the weather service said.

    The rainfall for the south-central United States is expected to end Thursday, but the risk of thunderstorms will then move to the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee valleys, the weather service said.



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  • U.S., Ukraine sign economic deal with terms for natural resources in the war-torn country

    U.S., Ukraine sign economic deal with terms for natural resources in the war-torn country


    The White House announced Wednesday night that it signed an economic partnership with Ukraine that includes an agreement on the ownership and extraction of natural resources from the war-torn nation.

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the agreement, established as the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, will allow the U.S. to “invest alongside Ukraine” to unlock its growth assets and ultimately accelerate its economic recovery.

    “As the President has said, the United States is committed to helping facilitate the end of this cruel and senseless war. This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Bessent said. “President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.”

    “To be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine,” he added.

    Follow live politics coverage here

    Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s economy minister, provided more details on the minerals deal outlined in the agreement, first noting in a post on X that “it is the Ukrainian state that determines what and where to extract” and that “subsoil remains under Ukrainian ownership.”

    Ukraine and the U.S. will jointly manage and maintain co-ownership of the investment fund, with neither side holding a dominant vote, Svyrydenko said. It will be financed by new Ukrainian oil, gas and critical mineral licenses, with 50% of all revenue from the licenses going toward the fund.

    Svyrydenko indicated in her post that the U.S. will also contribute to the fund, through it is unclear exactly how much.

    This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.



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  • Christian group plagued by allegations of child sex abuse faces new lawsuit

    Christian group plagued by allegations of child sex abuse faces new lawsuit



    A Florida-based Christian organization with a history of child sex abuse allegations against it has been hit with a lawsuit claiming one of its missionaries sexually assaulted a minor overseas 15 years ago.  

    Ethnos360, a nonprofit formerly known as New Tribes Mission, sends missionaries and their families throughout the globe. In 2019, multiple women told NBC News that they had been sexually abused decades earlier by their “dorm dads” — missionaries who were supposed to care for children at the mission’s boarding schools while their parents served in foreign countries. 

    The group settled several suits related to those allegations and issued a public apology to the abuse survivors following the 2019 NBC News report. It also said it had “incorporated significant child safety training” after an independent party commissioned by New Tribes Mission shared recommendations in 2010 amid the abuse allegations. 

    But Wednesday’s lawsuit, filed in Circuit Court in Seminole County, Florida, says the group “failed to offer any care or professional assistance” to the family of an American child who came forward to report inappropriate sexual conduct in 2012, two years after those recommendations were issued.  

    The girl, Kayla McClain, is now 24, lives in Michigan and recently graduated from nursing school. NBC News does not normally identify alleged victims of sexual assault, but McClain opted to be identified by her full name in the legal filing. 

    “I’m tired of being quiet and tired of being invisible,” McClain said in her first public remarks about the case. “I just want people to know what really happened and that there’s actually a face and a name behind what’s going on.” 

    David Doyle, an attorney for Ethnos360, said the group “takes allegations of this nature very seriously” and “categorically denies any merit to allegations made against it.”    

    McClain was around 5 years old in 2005 when she met her alleged abuser, Nate Horling, the lawsuit said. Like McClain and her family, Horling lived with his wife and children in housing in Indonesia provided by what was then New Tribes Mission. He had a child about McClain’s age whom McClain would play with, the legal complaint said, adding that the alleged abuse by Horling started with inappropriate touching while McClain was playing with his child. Afterward, Horling would allegedly tell McClain “he was sorry and instructed her not to tell anyone and blamed her for what occurred,” the lawsuit said.  

    The abuse escalated after both families relocated to a different part of Indonesia in 2009, where Horling later allegedly sexually assaulted McClain in a closet, according to the lawsuit. 

    Horling, who is not named as a defendant, told NBC News in an email that he “absolutely” denies all allegations. 

    The lawsuit comes less than a year after another legal filing against Ethnos360, which alleged the group failed to protect a girl from repeated sexual misconduct by a peer at its missionary training center in Missouri in 2016 and failed to adequately investigate the abuse allegations.  

    That lawsuit is ongoing, though Ethnos360 has filed a motion to dismiss it, arguing in court documents that because the alleged abuse occurred in private residences on Ethnos360 property, not while children were under Ethnos360 staff supervision, the group did not have “any right and /or duty to control, occupy, or monitor the families and activities within the residences.” 

    Boz Tchividjian, the attorney who filed last year’s lawsuit as well as Wednesday’s, said Ethnos360 needs to examine why it has faced so many allegations of inappropriate behavior. 

    “It’s not in a vacuum. This is over, and over, and over again,” said Tchividjian, who was the founder and former executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, or GRACE, the group hired to make the 2010 recommendations on handling abuse to Ethnos360 when it was called New Tribes Mission. He is no longer part of GRACE. 

    Wednesday’s lawsuit said the GRACE report outlined multiple instances of sexual abuse within Ethnos360 and accused the organization’s leadership of failing to properly respond to child sexual abuse allegations. On its website, Ethnos360 acknowledges past missteps and has a section dedicated to child safety, in which it says it has safeguards to protect kids, including background checks for anyone applying for Ethnos360 membership and specialized training for all new members. 

    Yet the lawsuit claims that when McClain’s family contacted Ethnos360’s child safety leadership team in Indonesia, there was limited response. 

    McClain said her father had reached out to the child safety team in 2012 after she disclosed to her parents that she was engaging in sexual conduct with other children — a behavior that can be an indicator of a child being abused by an adult. The lawsuit said that several members spoke with her parents in the months that followed but did not open an investigation into the sexualized behavior. It also said Ethnos360 did not offer any care or help to McClain or the other minors and acted as if the conduct “was typical sexual exploration between children.”  

    McClain said it was not until years later that her parents found out she had been sexually abused by an adult. Her attorney said that, at that time, her emotional state was too fragile to consider filing charges. 

    “The child safety team never talked to me. I really needed someone who was trained to and knew how to talk to a kid in this situation, because I didn’t know how to share what had happened,” McClain said. 

    McClain started struggling profoundly with her mental health in 2018 once she and her family returned to the United States from Indonesia, the lawsuit said, adding that she had flashbacks of her alleged abuse and attempted to take her own life in 2019. After undergoing treatment, she decided to report her experience to Ethnos360 in 2021 through IHART, a review team commissioned by Ethnos360 to investigate claims of abuse, according to the lawsuit. After several hours-long interviews, Ethnos360 allegedly offered no counseling to McClain and did not report the allegations to child protection agencies, the lawsuit said. 

    The lawsuit accuses Ethnos360 of negligence in failing to protect McClain from abuse and failing to provide adequate training to its employees to identify and report child abuse. It seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial. 

    McClain said her experience has caused her to have post-traumatic stress disorder and has made her question her view of God. 

    “The abuse that happened was horrible, but what has really affected me is the response from Ethnos and the child safety team and IHART,” she said. “They need to be held accountable. I want the silence to stop.” 

    If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. The hotline, run by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), can put you in contact with your local rape crisis center. You can also access RAINN’s online chat service at www.rainn.org/get-help. Confidential chats are available in English and in Spanish. 

    If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.



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  • Education Department opens investigation into Chicago Public Schools

    Education Department opens investigation into Chicago Public Schools



    The U.S. Education Department is investigating Chicago Public Schools amid allegations that a new program designed to improve academic success and retention among Black students and educators violates federal law.

    The investigation announced Tuesday is based on a February complaint by the nonprofit Parents Defending Education, now known as Defending Education, which alleged the school system’s academic-achievement initiative for Black students racially discriminates against students, violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

    The investigation appears to be the first time since President Donald Trump took office in January that the department has investigated a public school system for instituting a racially based program.

    The school district is the fourth-largest in the nation with 321,000 students, of which 35% were Black in the 2023-2024 academic school year. 

    Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said Chicago Public Schools sought through the Black Student Success Plan to allocate resources favoring students based on race.

    “Chicago Public Schools have a record of academic failure, leaving students from all backgrounds and races struggling and ill-prepared to meet the challenges and enjoy the rewards of contemporary American life,” Trainor said in a statement.

    Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in education programs receiving federal funding. Schools found in violation of the act can lose federal funds, the department said.

    “Chicago Public Schools does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation,” the school system said Wednesday. 

    School officials said the Black Student Success Plan was designed to ensure students had an equitable learning experience. 

    The school system announced the Black Student Success Plan during Black History Month in February, saying it aimed to improve academic achievement and to recruit and retain educators and leaders.

    “The District is committed to removing these obstacles and calls upon the community to support efforts to better serve Black students,” Chicago Public Schools Chief Education Officer Bogdana Chkoumbova said when the initiative was made public.

    Defending Education said in its complaint that “members oppose discrimination on the basis of race and political indoctrination in America’s schools” and called the plan “racially exclusive.”

    The organization could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

    The plan was scheduled to start this spring with the goal of shortening education gaps and fostering engagement with Black students and families, school officials said.

    Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates said the investigation was an attempt to hinder progress in the school system.

    “Rather than using the Department to create opportunities for students, Trump and (Education Secretary Linda E.) McMahon appear determined to transform it into a debt collection agency and a vehicle to dismantle the civil rights protections that support students and their families,” she said in a statement.



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  • Most Americans oppose trans women competing in female sports, including 2 of 3 in Gen Z

    Most Americans oppose trans women competing in female sports, including 2 of 3 in Gen Z



    For 22-year-old Alex Ann, conversations about transgender women are black and white.

    “Trans women are women,” said Ann, who identifies as a nonbinary trans person.

    And when it comes to trans women competing in female sports — an issue that the Trump administration has made part of its policy agenda since Inauguration Day — Ann said that trans women should have all the same rights as cisgender women.

    “When you are talking about what a woman is, well now you’re talking about checking to see if you’re really a woman,” said Ann, a South Florida resident. “And the kind of violation that in and of itself poses” goes too far, Ann continued.

    Ann represents the views of just over a third of Gen Z, or 36%, that trans women should be allowed to participate in female sports, according to the new NBC News Stay Tuned Poll, powered by SurveyMonkey. That level of support, from respondents ages 18-29, was the highest of any generation in the poll of 19,682 American adults.

    Overall, 1 in 4 respondents, or 25%, said they supported trans women participating in female sports in a yes/no question. The other 75% of American adults said they do not believe trans women should be permitted to participate in female sports.

    Cecilia Pogue, a 21-year-old college student from Virginia, said she believes that allowing trans women to compete in female sports comes at the expense of cisgender women.

    “We want people to feel comfortable in their skin, and we want them to have opportunities, but we also need to make sure we’re not taking opportunities away from the majority to please the minority,” Pogue said.

    Many Gen Zers who spoke with NBC News about the topic discussed the complexity and nuances around it, such as how going through male puberty or taking hormone suppressants could affect a trans woman’s physical development.

    “A lot could be fixed by having a separate column for trans sports,” said Julian Miller, 22, from Texas. “Just like how we separate male and females, we should separate trans males and trans females to compete against each other. I know there might not be a lot of competition at first, but as the sport grows, so will the competition.”

    The poll found a significant gender gap between young men and women on the issue. About 3 in 4 Gen Z men (72%) say transgender women should not be allowed to play female sports as compared to about half of young women (56%).

    Advocates of trans women competing in female sports say that the marginal number of trans women competing at an elite level makes the topic a nonissue. In December, NCAA President Charlie Baker testified that he was aware of fewer than 10 transgender athletes out of more than 500,000 total NCAA college student-athletes, which would equal 0.002% of this college student-athlete population.

    “This is really a distraction,” Ann said. “It matters, but it’s not what is most important right now.”

    Jay Baca, a 26-year-old who identifies as nonbinary, noted that when trans men compete in men’s sports “nobody bats an eye about it.” 

    “It still comes down to patriarchy, sexism and transphobia,” the Colorado native said.

    But despite the criticism and the relatively low numbers of people involved, it has undeniably become a hot-button political issue in recent years.

    Critics of trans women in female sports say trans women have an unfair advantage past puberty due to their body composition. Differences in body mass, bone density and height that trans women may have, Pogue said, can create a “dangerous” environment.

    “I don’t really want to play soccer against a 6-[foot]-2 person who already went through puberty and then changed late high school or in early college,” she said.

    Vito Milino, 22, of California, said trans women should not compete in “full-contact or highly physical sports alongside cisgender women” but sees no problem in other sports.

    San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball program became a flashpoint in the national conversation over trans women and women’s sports recently, as has swimming, a noncontact sport. In 2022, Lia Thomas made history when she became the first openly trans woman to win an NCAA championship while competing for the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team. Thomas had spent the first two years of her collegiate career on Penn’s men’s team. 

    The NCAA in February changed its rules following an executive order from President Donald Trump, with the collegiate athletics organization instituting a new policy that “limits competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only.”

    Then, on Monday, the Trump administration said that Penn violated laws that guaranteed equal protections for women in sports by allowing a trans swimmer to compete on the school’s women’s team and into team facilities. The Education Department previously announced an investigation of San Jose State.

    Still, some medical experts caution against misconceptions that fuel much of the dialogue around trans women in female sports.

    “Trans women are people who want to participate in society as the gender they identify as being — women,” said Bradley Anawalt, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who rejects the notion that trans women are changing for athletic advantages.

    “They are not undergoing gender-affirming hormone therapy to attempt to have greater success in sports,” he said. “Gender-affirming therapy, hormone therapy is not easy. It requires doctor visits, blood tests and frequent doses of medications that might include shots.”

    When it comes to body composition, he added, “The competitive advantage of elite male athletes starts with puberty when blood testosterone concentrations increase to adult male levels.”

    Alithia Zamantakis, an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing, sees the higher Gen Z poll numbers in support of trans women competing in female sports as compared with older demographics as an indicator of a shift in “society at large.”

    “We can expect greater and greater support for transgender rights as the myths and anti-trans” rhetoric are demystified, she said. 

    Missing from the conversation is a “balancing of equities,” according to Lanae Erickson, senior vice president for social policy, education and politics at Third Way, a Democratic-aligned Washington, D.C., think tank.

    “Sports are fabulous ways to learn all kinds of values — teamwork, persistence and healthy habits,” she said. “And just saying that an entire class of people can’t participate in any sport at any level, it really goes against those values and is a real detriment to that group of people.” 

    “We also do need rules about participation in sports,” Erickson added.

    “But I think those rules should be made based on fairness and safety, not based on animus towards a certain group of people,” she continued.

    This NBC News Stay Tuned poll was powered by SurveyMonkey, the fast, intuitive feedback management platform where 20 million questions are answered daily. It was conducted online April 11-20 among a national sample of 19,682 adults ages 18 and over. Reported percentages exclude item nonresponse and round to the nearest percentage point. The estimated margin of error for this survey among all adults is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.



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  • Mets superfan Seymour Weiner dies at 98

    Mets superfan Seymour Weiner dies at 98


    “Had they not dropped the atomic bomb, he was actually going to be going to the Far East, but instead they sent him to Italy,” Beth Weiner explained. He was honorably discharged in 1947.

    At the opening day game in March, Weiner was presented a flag by Mookie Wilson and John Franco — two all-time Mets greats. As he made his way through the tunnel, Weiner met Keith Hernandez, a former Mets player and broadcaster, and Howie Rose, one of the teams’ great announcers.

    “He was so excited and delighted,” Beth Weiner said of the special day.

    That day also catapulted Weiner into online stardom with social media users cracking jokes about his name.

    “There were a lot of adult men making juvenile boy jokes about ‘see more weiner,’” his daughter said. “All of a sudden, my dad’s name was everywhere!”

    The Athletic covered the frenzy about Weiner’s viral fame last year.

    The Mets last April held a $1 hot dog night promotion using a photo of Weiner in its advertising that said: “A Seymour Weiner approved message” and “Everyone loves a Weiner.”

    “They put his head on the rapper Lil Yachty’s body dancing with a hot dog and my father was loving it. People would say he must hate being made fun of. My dad said, ‘Doesn’t bother me at all! I love the attention!’” Beth Weiner said.

    Weiner wasn’t well enough to attend the game himself, but his family received tickets to enter the field.

    “People were chanting his name the way they chant players names. Every open opportunity, they would chant his name, and at the end of the game, they said we sold a record number of hot dogs,” she recalled.

    Beth Weiner said that when she informed the Mets that her father had died, “I got the loveliest email back and they said were going to do a tribute to your dad.”

    Seymour Weiner.
    Beth Weiner described her father Seymour as a “lifelong social activist,” passionate about true patriotism, inclusivity and diversity.

    Courtesy Dr. Beth Weiner

    “He had this kind of lifelong connection. He was watching games while he was really in the last days of his life, he was listening on his phone,” Beth Weiner said.

    “The day that before he passed, was the day that they scored 19 to 1 runs and I said, ‘They’re doing it for my dad,’” she said.

    Beth Weiner described her father as a “lifelong social activist,” passionate about true patriotism, inclusivity and diversity.

    “He lived those ideals to the very end,” she said.

    “My father would be so tickled, because he grew up as a child in poverty and during the Great Depression, his family had nothing. He had immigrant parents. He had what we would now probably call learning disabilities, and some low self-esteem because of it. He was just so tickled to become a little superstar,” she said.

    Seymour Weiner.
    Tributes have poured in online for Weiner.

    Courtesy Dr. Beth Weiner

    Weiner’s wife preceded him in death. He is survived by Beth Weiner and her children, Juliette Wilder and Jonathan Wilder. 

    Tributes poured in online for Weiner.

    “RIP Seymour. From defeating Nazis to being there for the Mets crazy 2024 season is a hell of a life I gotta say,” one user wrote on Reddit.

    “2024 Mets magic season started with him, RIP,” one user wrote, as another added, “Seymour Weiner, the Mets’ glizzy king, WWII vet, and proud face of Dollar Dog Night. The man lived a hell of a life and still had the sense of humor to become a viral sensation for having the name of the season.”



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