WASHINGTON (AP) —

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has been clear about his red line as the Senate takes up the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act: no Medicaid cuts.

But what, exactly, would be a cut?

Hawley and other Republicans acknowledge that the main cost-saving provision in the bill – new work requirements on able-bodied adults who receive health care through the Medicaid program — would cause millions of people to lose their coverage. All told, estimates are 10.9 million fewer people would have health coverage under the bill’s proposed changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. That includes some 8 million fewer in the Medicaid program, including 5.2 million dropping off because of the new eligibility requirements.

“I know that will reduce the number of people on Medicaid,” Hawley told a small scrum of reporters in the hallways at the Capitol.

“But I’m for that because I want people who are able bodied but not working to work.”

Hawley and other Republicans are walking a politically fine line on how to reduce federal spending on Medicaid while also promising to protect a program that serves some 80 million Americans and is popular with the public.

As the party pushes ahead on President Donald Trump’ s priority package, Republicans insist they are not cutting the vital safety net program but simply rooting out what they call waste, fraud and abuse. Whether that argument lands with voters could go a long way toward determining whether Trump’s bill ultimately ends up boosting — or dragging down — Republicans as they campaign for reelection next year.

Republicans say that it’s wrong to call the reductions in health care coverage “cuts.” Instead, they’ve characterized the changes as rules that would purge people who are taking advantage of the system and protect it for the most vulnerable who need it most.

What’s in the bill

House Republicans wrote the bill with instructions to find $880 billion in cuts from programs under the purview of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has a sprawling jurisdiction that includes Medicaid.

In the version of the bill that the House passed on a party-line vote last month, the overall cuts ended up exceeding that number. The Kaiser Family Foundation projects that the bill will result in a $793 billion reduction in spending on Medicaid.

Additionally, the House Ways & Means Committee, which handles federal tax policy, imposed a freeze on a health care provider tax that many states impose. Critics say the tax improperly boosts federal Medicaid payments to the states, but supporters like Hawley say it’s important funding for rural hospitals.

“What we’re doing here is an important and, frankly, heroic thing to preserve the program so that it doesn’t become insolvent,” Speaker Mike Johnson said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, meanwhile, has denounced the bill as an “assault on the healthcare of the American people” and warned years of progress in reducing the number of uninsured people is at risk.

Who would lose health coverage

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the GOP’s proposed changes to federal health programs would result in 10.9 million fewer people having health care coverage.

Nearly 8 million fewer people would be enrolled in Medicaid by 2034 under the legislation, the CBO found, including 5.2 million people who would lose coverage due to the proposed work requirements. It said 1.4 million immigrants without legal status would lose coverage in state programs.

The new Medicaid requirements would apply to nondisabled adults under age 65 who are not caretakers or parents, with some exceptions. The bill passed by the U.S. House stipulates that those eligible would need to work, take classes, or record community service for 80 hours per month.

The Kaiser Family Foundation notes that more than 90% of people enrolled in Medicaid already meet those criteria.

The legislation also penalizes states that fund health insurance for immigrants who have not confirmed their immigration status, and the CBO expects that those states will stop funding Medicaid for those immigrants altogether.

Why Republicans want Medicaid changes

Republicans have cited what they call the out-of-control spending in federal programs to explain their rationale for the changes proposed in the legislation.

“What we are trying to do in the One Big Beautiful Bill is ensuring that limited resources are protected for pregnant women, for children, for seniors, for individuals with disabilities,”

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso that Medicaid recipients who are not working spend their time watching television and playing video games rather than looking for employment.

Republicans also criticize the CBO itself, the congressional scorekeeper, questioning whether its projections are accurate.

The CBO score for decades has been providing non-partisan analysis of legislation and budgetary matters. Its staff is prohibited from making political contributions and is currently led by a former economic adviser for the George W. Bush administration.

What polling shows

While Republicans argue that their signature legislation delivers on Trump’s 2024 campaign promises, health care isn’t one of the president’s strongest issues with Americans.

Most U.S. adults, 56%, disapproved of how Trump was handling health care policy in AP VoteCast, about 6 in 10 voters in the November election said they wanted the government “more involved” in ensuring that Americans have health care coverage. Only about 2 in 10 wanted the government less involved in this, and about 2 in 10 said its involvement was about right.

Half of American adults said they expected the Trump administration’s policies to increase their family’s health care costs, according to a , and about 6 in 10 believed those policies would weaken Medicaid. If the federal government significantly reduced Medicaid spending, about 7 in 10 adults said they worried it would negatively impact nursing homes, hospitals, and other health care providers in their community.

For Hawley, the “bottom lines” are omitting provisions that could cause rural hospitals to close and hardworking citizens to lose their benefits.

He and other Republicans are especially concerned about the freeze on the providers’ tax in the House’s legislation that they warn could hurt rural hospitals.

“Medicaid benefits for people who are working or who are otherwise qualified,” Hawley said. “I do not want to see them cut.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel unleashed airstrikes across Iran for a third day on Sunday and threatened even greater force as some Iranian missiles evaded Israeli air defenses to strike buildings in the heart of the country. Planned talks on Iran’s nuclear program, which could provide an off-ramp, were called off.

The region braced for a protracted conflict after Israel’s surprise bombardment of Iran’s nuclear and military sites on Friday killed several top generals and nuclear scientists, and neither side showed any sign of backing down. Israel reportedly targeted a gas installation, raising the prospect of a broader assault on Iran’s heavily sanctioned energy industry that could affect global markets.

U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed full support for Israel’s actions while warning Iran that it can only avoid further destruction by agreeing to a new nuclear deal.

New explosions echoed across Tehran and were reported elsewhere in the country early Sunday, but there was no update to a death toll put out the day before by Iran’s U.N. ambassador, who said 78 people had been killed and more than 320 wounded.

In Israel, at least 10 people were killed in Iranian strikes overnight and into Sunday, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service, bringing the country’s total death toll to 13.

Israeli strikes targeted Iran’s Defense Ministry early Sunday after hitting air defenses, military bases and sites associated with its nuclear program. The killing of several top generals and nuclear scientists in targeted strikes indicated that Israeli intelligence has penetrated Iran at the highest levels.

Death toll mounts in Israel

In Israel, at least six people, including two children, were killed when a missile hit an apartment building in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. Daniel Hadad, a local police commander, said 180 people were wounded and seven are still missing.

An Associated Press reporter saw streets lined with damaged and destroyed buildings, bombed out cars and shards of glass. Responders used a drone at points to look for survivors. Some people could be seen leaving the area with suitcases.

Four people were killed when a missile struck a building in the northern Israeli town of Tamra and another 24 were wounded. A strike on the central city of Rehovot wounded 42 people.

The Weizmann Institute of Science, an important center for research in Rehovot, said “there were a number of hits to buildings on the campus.” It said no one was harmed.

Israel has a sophisticated multi-tiered missile defense system that is able to intercept most projectiles fired at it, but officials have always said it is imperfect.

Urgent calls to deescalate

World leaders made urgent calls to deescalate. The attack on nuclear sites set a “dangerous precedent,” China’s foreign minister said. The region is already on edge as Israel seeks to annihilate Hamas, an Iranian ally, in the Gaza Strip, where the war is still raging after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off such calls, saying Israel’s strikes so far are “nothing compared to what they will feel under the sway of our forces in the coming days.”

Israel, the sole though undeclared nuclear-armed state in the Middle East — said it launched the attack to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran has always said its nuclear program was peaceful, and the U.S. and others have assessed it has not pursued a weapon since 2003. But it has enriched ever larger stockpiles of uranium to near weapons-grade levels in recent years and was believed to have been able to develop multiple weapons within months if it chose to do so.

The U.N.’s atomic watchdog censured Iran last week for not complying with its obligations.

Semiofficial Iranian news agencies meanwhile reported that an Israeli drone strike had caused a “strong explosion” at an Iranian natural-gas processing plant, in what could be the first Israeli attack on Iran’s oil and natural gas industry. Israel’s military did not immediately comment.

The extent of damage at the South Pars natural gas field was not immediately clear. Such sites have air defense systems around them, which Israel has been targeting.

Iran calls nuclear talks ‘unjustifiable’

The Arab Gulf country of Oman, which has been mediating indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program, said a sixth round planned for Sunday would not take place.

“We remain committed to talks and hope the Iranians will come to the table soon,” a senior U.S. official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.

Iran’s top diplomat, Abbas Araghchi, said Saturday that the nuclear talks were “unjustifiable” after Israel’s strikes, which he said were the “result of the direct support by Washington.”

In a post on his Truth Social account early Sunday, Trump reiterated that the U.S. was not involved in the attacks on Iran and warned that any retaliation directed against it would bring an American response “at levels never seen before.”

“However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!” he wrote.

‘More than a few weeks’ to repair nuclear facilities

In Iran, satellite photos analyzed by AP show extensive damage at Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz. The images shot Saturday by Planet Labs PBC show multiple buildings damaged or destroyed. The structures hit include buildings identified by experts as supplying power to the facility.

U.N. nuclear chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that the above-ground section of the Natanz facility was destroyed. The main centrifuge facility underground did not appear to have been hit, but the loss of power could have damaged infrastructure there, he said.

Israel also struck a nuclear research facility in Isfahan. The International Atomic Energy Agency said four “critical buildings” were damaged, including its uranium conversion facility. “As in Natanz, no increase in off-site radiation expected,” it added.

An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with official procedures, said that according to the army’s initial assessment “it will take much more than a few weeks” for Iran to repair the damage to the Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites. The official said the army had “concrete intelligence that production in Isfahan was for military purposes.”

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Lidman and Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. (AP) — A massive search was stretching into its second day for a man who authorities say posed as a police officer and fatally shot a Democratic state lawmaker in her suburban Minneapolis home, an act Gov. Tim Walz called “a politically motivated assassination.” Authorities said the suspect also shot and wounded a second lawmaker and was trying to flee the area.

Former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed in their Brooklyn Park home early Saturday. Sen. John Hoffman, also a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, were injured at their Champlin address, about 9 miles (about 15 kilometers) away.

Authorities identified the suspect as 57-year-old Vance Boelter, and the FBI issued a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to his arrest and conviction. They shared a photo taken Saturday of Boelter wearing a tan cowboy hat and asked the public to report sightings. Hundreds of law enforcement officers fanned out in the search for the suspect.

Authorities had not given any details on a possible motive as of Saturday night.

Boelter is a former political appointee who served on the same state workforce development board as Hoffman, records show, though it was not clear if or how well they knew each other.

The attacks prompted warnings to other state elected officials and the cancellation of planned “No Kings” demonstrations against President Donald Trump, though some went ahead anyway. Authorities said the suspect had “No Kings” flyers in his car and writings mentioning the names of the victims as well as other lawmakers and officials, though they could not say if he had any other specific targets.

A Minnesota official told AP the suspect’s writings also contained information targeting prominent lawmakers who have been outspoken in favor of abortion rights. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Law enforcement agents recovered several AK-style firearms from the suspect’s vehicle, and he was believed to still be armed with a pistol, a person familiar with the matter told AP. The person could not publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The shootings happened at a time when political leaders nationwide have been attacked, harassed and intimidated amid deep political divisions.

“We must all, in Minnesota and across the country, stand against all forms of political violence,” said Walz, a Democrat. He also ordered flags to fly at half-staff in Hortman’s honor.

“Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. God Bless the great people of Minnesota, a truly great place!” President Donald Trump said in a statement.

Exchange of gunfire

Police responded to reports of gunfire at the Hoffmans’ home shortly after 2 a.m., Champlin police said, and found the couple with multiple gunshot wounds.

After seeing who the victims were, police sent officers to proactively check on Hortman’s home. There they encountered what appeared to be a police vehicle and a man dressed as an officer at the door, leaving the house.

“When officers confronted him, the individual immediately fired upon the officers who exchanged gunfire, and the suspect retreated back into the home” and escaped on foot, Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley said.

Multiple bullet holes could be seen in the front door of Hoffman’s home.

John and Yvette Hoffman each underwent surgery, according to Walz.

Two Democrats targeted

Hortman, 55, had been the top Democratic leader in the state House since 2017. She led Democrats in a three-week walkout at the beginning of this year’s session in a power struggle with Republicans. Under a power sharing agreement, she turned the gavel over to Republican Rep. Lisa Demuth and assumed the title speaker emerita.

Hortman used her position as speaker in 2023 to champion expanded protections for abortion rights, including legislation to solidify Minnesota’s status as a refuge for patients from restrictive states who travel to the state to seek abortions — and to protect providers who serve them.

Walz called her a “formidable public servant, a fixture and a giant in Minnesota.”

Hortman and her husband had two adult children.

The initial autopsy reports from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office gave their cause of death as “multiple gunshot wounds.”

The reports said Melissa Hortman died at the scene while her husband was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Hoffman, 60, was first elected in 2012 and was chair of the Senate Human Services Committee, which oversees one of the biggest parts of the state budget. He and his wife have one daughter.

The suspect

Boelter was appointed to the workforce development board in 2016 and then reappointed in 2019 to a four-year term that expired in 2023, state records show.

Corporate records show Boelter’s wife filed to create a company called Praetorian Guard Security Services LLC with the same Green Isle mailing address listed for the couple. Boelter’s wife is listed as president and CEO and he is listed as director of security patrols on the company’s website.

The website says the company provides armed security for property and events and features a photo of an SUV painted in a two-tone black and silver pattern similar to a police vehicle. Another photo shows a man in black tactical gear with a military-style helmet and a ballistic vest.

An online resume says Boelter is a security contractor who has worked in the Middle East and Africa, in addition to past managerial roles at companies in Minnesota.

Around 6 a.m., Boelter texted friends to say he had “made some choices,” the .

In the messages, read to reporters by David Carlson, Boelter did not specify what he had done but said: “I’m going to be gone for a while. May be dead shortly, so I just want to let you know I love you guys both and I wish it hadn’t gone this way. … I’m sorry for all the trouble this has caused.”

Political violence

Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a Republican from Cold Spring, called the attack “evil” and said she was “heartbroken beyond words” by the killings.

The shootings are the latest in a series of attacks against lawmakers across parties.

In April a suspect set fire to the home of Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, forcing him and his family to flee during the Jewish holiday of Passover. The suspect said he planned to beat Shapiro with a small sledgehammer if he found him, according to court documents.

In July 2024, Trump was grazed on the ear by one of a hail of bullets that killed a Trump supporter. Two months later a man with a rifle was discovered near the president’s Florida golf course and arrested.

Other incidents include a 2022 hammer attack on the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in their San Francisco home and a 2020 plot by anti-government extremists to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and start a civil war.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he asked Capitol Police to “immediately increase security” for Minnesota Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith. He also asked Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, to hold a briefing on member security.

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Karnowski reported from Minneapolis, and Durkin Richer from Washington. Associated Press writers Giovanna Dell’Orto in Champlin, Minnesota, Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, New York, and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed.

MIAMI (AP) — A South Florida zoo’s oldest resident celebrated his 135th birthday and his first Father’s Day on Sunday.

Goliath, a 517-pound (234-kilogram) Galapagos tortoise at , became a father for the first time earlier this month, zoo officials said.

“Goliath is my hero, and I am sure he will soon be an inspiration to many others!” Zoo Miami spokesman Ron Magill said in a statement. “He is living proof that where there is a will, there is a way and to never give up!”

One egg out of a clutch of eight laid on Jan. 27 successfully hatched on June 4, officials said. Besides being Goliath’s first offspring, it’s also the first time one of the endangered reptiles has hatched at Zoo Miami. The animals’ numbers were drastically reduced before the 20th century by human exploitation and the introduction of invasive species to the Galapagos Islands. Modern threats include climate change and habitat loss.

According to Goliath’s official record, he hatched on the island of Santa Cruz in the Galapagos on June 15, between 1885 and 1890. The island group is located near the equator in the Pacific Ocean, several hundred miles west of mainland Ecuador.

Goliath arrived at the Bronx Zoo in 1929 and moved to Zoo Miami in 1981. He has bred with several different females during his time at Zoo Miami, but he has never sired an offspring. The new hatchling’s mother, Sweet Pea, is estimated to be between 85 and 100 years old.

Both parents are doing well in their public habitat, officials said. The hatchling appears to be healthy in a separate enclosure. Wild hatchlings are not raised by their parents.

It took Crystal Strickland years to qualify for Medicaid, which she needs for a heart condition.

Strickland, who’s unable to work due to her condition, chafed when she learned that the U.S. House has passed a bill that would impose a work requirement for many able-bodied people to get health insurance coverage through the low-cost, government-run plan for lower-income people.

“What sense does that make?” she asked. “What about the people who can’t work but can’t afford a doctor?”

The measure is part of the version of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful” bill that cleared the House last month and is now up for consideration in the Senate. Trump is seeking to have it passed by July 4.

The bill as it stands would cut taxes and government spending — and also upend portions of the nation’s social safety net.

For proponents, the ideas behind the work requirement are simple: Crack down on fraud and stand on the principle that taxpayer-provided health coverage isn’t for those who can work but aren’t. The measure includes exceptions for those who are under 19 or over 64, those with disabilities, pregnant women, main caregivers for young children, people recently released from prisons or jails — or during certain emergencies. It would apply only to adults who receive Medicaid through expansions that 40 states chose to undertake as part of the 2010 health insurance overhaul.

Many details of how the changes would work would be developed later, leaving several unknowns and causing anxiety among recipients who worry that their illnesses might not be enough to exempt them.

Advocates and sick and disabled enrollees worry — based largely on their past experience — that even those who might be exempted from work requirements under the law could still lose benefits because of increased or hard-to-meet paperwork mandates.

Benefits can be difficult to navigate even without a work requirement

Strickland, a 44-year-old former server, cook and construction worker who lives in Fairmont, North Carolina, said she could not afford to go to a doctor for years because she wasn’t able to work. She finally received a letter this month saying she would receive Medicaid coverage, she said.

“It’s already kind of tough to get on Medicaid,” said Strickland, who has lived in a tent and times and subsisted on nonperishable food thrown out by stores. “If they make it harder to get on, they’re not going to be helping.”

Steve Furman is concerned that his 43-year-old son, who has autism, could lose coverage.

The bill the House adopted would require Medicaid enrollees to show that they work, volunteer or go to school at least 80 hours a month to continue to qualify.

A disability exception would likely apply to Furman’s son, who previously worked in an eyeglasses plant in Illinois for 15 years despite behavioral issues that may have gotten him fired elsewhere.

Furman said government bureaucracies are already impossible for his son to navigate, even with help.

It took him a year to help get his son onto Arizona’s Medicaid system when they moved to Scottsdale in 2022, and it took time to set up food benefits. But he and his wife, who are retired, say they don’t have the means to support his son fully.

“Should I expect the government to take care of him?” he asked. “I don’t know, but I do expect them to have humanity.”

There’s broad reliance on Medicaid for health coverage

About 71 million adults are enrolled in Medicaid now. And most of them — around 92% — are working, caregiving, attending school or disabled. Earlier estimates of the budget bill from the Congressional Budget Office found that about 5 million people stand to lose coverage.

A KFF tracking poll conducted in May found that the enrollees come from across the political spectrum. About one-fourth are Republicans; roughly one-third are Democrats.

The poll found that about 7 in 10 adults are worried that federal spending reductions on Medicaid will lead to more uninsured people and would strain health care providers in their area. About half said they were worried reductions would hurt the ability of them or their family to get and pay for health care.

Amaya Diana, an analyst at KFF, points to work requirements launched in Arkansas and Georgia as keeping people off Medicaid without increasing employment.

Amber Bellazaire, a policy analyst at the Michigan League for Public Policy, said the process to verify that Medicaid enrollees meet the work requirements could be a key reason people would be denied or lose eligibility.

“Massive coverage losses just due to an administrative burden rather than ineligibility is a significant concern,” she said.

One KFF poll respondent, Virginia Bell, a retiree in Starkville, Mississippi, said she’s seen sick family members struggle to get onto Medicaid, including one who died recently without coverage.

She said she doesn’t mind a work requirement for those who are able — but worries about how that would be sorted out. “It’s kind of hard to determine who needs it and who doesn’t need it,” she said.

Some people don’t if they might lose coverage with a work requirement

Lexy Mealing, 54 of Westbury, New York, who was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021 and underwent a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgeries, said she fears she may lose the medical benefits she has come to rely on, though people with “serious or complex” medical conditions could be granted exceptions.

She now works about 15 hours a week in “gig” jobs but isn’t sure she can work more as she deals with the physical and mental toll of the cancer.

Mealing, who used to work as a medical receptionist in a pediatric neurosurgeon’s office before her diagnosis and now volunteers for the American Cancer Society, went on Medicaid after going on short-term disability.

“I can’t even imagine going through treatments right now and surgeries and the uncertainty of just not being able to work and not have health insurance,” she said.

Felix White, who has Type I diabetes, first qualified for Medicaid after losing his job as a computer programmer several years ago.

The Oreland, Pennsylvania, man has been looking for a job, but finds that at 61, it’s hard to land one.

Medicaid, meanwhile, pays for a continuous glucose monitor and insulin and funded foot surgeries last year, including one that kept him in the hospital for 12 days.

“There’s no way I could have afforded that,” he said. “I would have lost my foot and probably died.”

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Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut contributed to this article.

WASHINGTON (AP) — There were funnel cakes, stands of festival bling and American flags aplenty. There were mighty machines of war, brought out to dazzle and impress. And there was the spray of tear gas against nonviolent marchers in Atlanta and rolling waves of anti-Trump resistance coast to coast.

In scenes of celebration, protest and trepidation Saturday, masses of Americans cheered for a rousing Army parade like none seen in Washington in generations. Masses more rallied across the country against a president derided by his critics as an authoritarian, would-be king.

On Saturday, the U.S. Army turned 250 and President Donald Trump 79. The double birthday bash energized crowds of well-wishers and military families in the capital while others decried the militarization of city streets — in Los Angeles, where a federalized National Guard and U.S. Marines remained deployed against unrest, and in Washington for the parade.

In these times, the fault lines of American life were evident.

“One nation under distress,” read a sign carried in a crowd of 1,000 protesters on the grounds of Florida’s old Capitol in Tallahassee. Forewarned of a heavy state response if the crowd caused any trouble, organizers implored the peaceful protesters to not so much as jaywalk.

Yet, in his Trump 2024 shirt, retired American Airlines pilot Larry Stallard happily lived out “one thing on my bucket list” from his perch on the parade route. Stallard, 82, came from Kansas City for the event. He declared Trump “one of the best presidents in my lifetime” and concluded, “It’s been a long day, but it’s worth it.”

Protests unfold across the nation

Spirited “No Kings” protests unfolded in cities and towns across the American republic. But in Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz asked people to stay away from anti-Trump demonstrations after the assassination of state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, by a gunman still on the loose.

In Washington, more than 6,000 soldiers set off marching in period-by-period uniforms, dating back to the garb of the ragtag Continental Army and the rise of a nation that would become the world’s most potent military power. In the mix: tanks, parachute jumps and flyovers by more than 60 aircraft.

With evening thunderstorms in the forecast, the parade started well ahead of schedule. In the first 40 minutes, it sped through more than 200 years of Army history, from 1775 to 1991.

Vietnam-era helicopters, including the Huey, roared overhead, as did World War II-vintage aircraft. Sherman tanks, used extensively in that war’s European theater, rumbled in the procession along with modern machinery. The Army’s Golden Knights parachute team jumped early, releasing streaks of red smoke across the sky and making the crowd scream with excitement as they floated to the ground.

At the festival earlier, attendees sported apparel celebrating both the Army and Trump. Vendors moved through the crowd, selling Trump-themed merchandise, while others offered gear commemorating the Army’s milestone.

It was all too much for Wind Euler, 62, who flew from Arizona to join the protesters. “My father was a Marine in Iwo Jima, and he was a Republican,” Euler said. “I think he would be appalled by the fascist display this parade shows.”

Opinions as plentiful as the imagery

In a camouflage jacket and Army baseball hat, Army veteran Aaron Bogner of Culpeper, Virginia, decried how he believes Trump is using the U.S. military to advance a personal agenda. “I think it’s shameful,” Bogner said. “It’s just an engineered birthday party. It’s an excuse to have tanks in your streets like North Korea.”

Above all, Bogner said, he came to protest the deployment of U.S. troops in Los Angeles after lawlessness broke out in pockets of the city along with peaceful demonstrations against Trump’s crackdown on immigrants. “I’m struggling to understand when it became unpatriotic to protest,” he said.

In Atlanta, law enforcement officers deployed tear gas to divert several hundred protesters heading toward Interstate 285 in the northern part of the city. A journalist was also seen being detained.

Police yelled “unlawful assembly” and “you must disperse” into megaphones as they used tear gas to divert protesters off the road. The tear gas caused the crowd to disperse east and away from the interstate. Two police helicopters flew above as the crowd moved.

Police in Charlotte, North Carolina, used bicycles to corral marchers. After the main “No Kings” march ended in Charlotte, a second, unpermitted march began, producing a police confrontation.

Officers formed a barricade with bicycles and yelled “move back” as protesters attempted to march through uptown Charlotte. In response, demonstrators chanted “let us walk” as police continued to shift them back. Protesters also shouted other phrases such as “peaceful protest” and “no more Nazis.”

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Associated Press writers Mike Stewart in Atlanta and Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, contributed.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The death tool from heavy rains that inundated parts of San Antonio has risen to 13, and all those missing have been found, authorities said Saturday.

More than 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain fell over a span of hours on Thursday, causing fast-rising floodwaters to carry more than a dozen cars into a creek.

Some people climbed trees to escape. Firefighters rescued more than 70 people across the nation’s seventh-largest city.

More than a dozen cars got stuck or overturned in Beital Creek. The San Antonio Fire Department said 11 of those who died were found in the Perrin Beitel search area around the creek. One person was found several miles upstream.

The assassination of one Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband, and the shooting of another lawmaker and his wife at their homes, is just the latest addition to a long and unsettling roll call of political violence in the United States.

The list, in the past two months alone: the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C. The firebombing of a Colorado march calling for the release of Israeli hostages, and the firebombing of the official residence of Pennsylvania’s governor — on a Jewish holiday while he and his family were inside.

And here’s just a sampling of some other disturbing attacks before that — the assassination of a health care executive on the streets of New York City late last year, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in small-town Pennsylvania during his presidential campaign last year, the 2022 attack on the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by a believer in right-wing conspiracy theories, and the 2017 shooting by a liberal gunman at a GOP practice for the congressional softball game.

“We’ve entered into this especially scary time in the country where it feels the sort of norms and rhetoric and rules that would tamp down on violence have been lifted,” said Matt Dallek, a political scientist at Georgetown University who studies extremism. “A lot of people are receiving signals from the culture.”

Politics behind both individual shootings and massacres

Politics have also driven large-scale massacres. Gunmen who killed 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, 23 shoppers at a heavily Latino Walmart in El Paso in 2019 and 10 Black people at a Buffalo grocery store in 2022 each cited the conspiracy theory that a secret cabal of Jews were trying to replace white people with people of color. That has become a staple on parts of the right that support Trump’s push to limit immigration.

The Anti-Defamation League found that from 2022 through 2024, all of the 61 political killings in the United States were committed by right-wing extremists. That changed on the first day of 2025, when a Texas man flying the flag of the Islamic State group killed 14 people by driving his truck through a crowded New Orleans street before being fatally shot by police.

“You’re seeing acts of violence from all different ideologies,” said Jacob Ware, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who researches terrorism. “It feels more random and chaotic and more frequent.”

The United States has a long and grim history of political violence, from presidential assassinations dating back to the killing of President Abraham Lincoln to lynchings and violence aimed at Black people in the South to the 1954 shooting inside Congress by four Puerto Rican nationalists. Experts say the past few years, however, have likely reached a level not seen since the tumultuous days of the 1960s and 1970s, when icons like Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated.

Ware noted that the most recent surge comes after the new Trump administration has shuttered units that focus on investigating white supremacist extremism and pushed federal law enforcement to spend less time on anti-terrorism and more on detaining people who are in the country illegally.

“We’re at the point, after these six weeks, where we have to ask about how effectively the Trump administration is combating terrorism,” Ware said.

Of course, one of Trump’s first acts in office was to pardon those involved in the largest act of domestic political violence this century — the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol, intended to prevent Congress from certifying Trump’s 2020 election loss.

Those pardons broadcast a signal to would-be extremists on either side of the political debate, Dallek said: “They sent a very strong message that violence, as long as you’re a Trump supporter, will be permitted and may be rewarded.”

Ideologies aren’t always aligned — or coherent

Often, those who engage in political violence don’t have clearly defined ideologies that easily map onto the country’s partisan divides. A man who died after he detonated a car bomb outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic last month left writings urging people not to procreate and expressed what the FBI called “nihilistic ideations.”

But, like clockwork, each political attack seems to inspire partisans to find evidence the attacker is on the other side. Little was known about the man police identified as a suspect in the Minnesota attacks, 57-year-old Vance Boelter. Authorities say they found a list of other apparent targets that included other Democratic officials, abortion clinics and abortion rights advocates, as well as fliers for the day’s anti-Trump parades.

Conservatives online seized on the fliers — and the fact that Boetler had apparently once been appointed to a state workforce development board by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz — to claim the suspect must be a liberal. “The far left is murderously violent,” billionaire Elon Musk posted on his social media site, X.

It was reminiscent of the fallout from the attack on Paul Pelosi, the former House speaker’s then-82-year-old husband, who was seriously injured by a man wielding a hammer. Right-wing figures theorized the assailant was a secret lover rather than what authorities said he was: a believer in pro-Trump conspiracy theories who broke into the Pelosi home echoing Jan. 6 rioters who broke into the Capitol by saying: “Where is Nancy?!”

On Saturday, Nancy Pelosi posted a statement on X decrying the Minnesota attack. “All of us must remember that it’s not only the act of violence, but also the reaction to it, that can normalize it,” she wrote.

Trump had mocked the Pelosis after the 2022 attack, but on Saturday he joined in the official bipartisan condemnation of the Minnesota shootings, calling them “horrific violence.” The president has, however, consistently broken new ground with his bellicose rhetoric towards his political opponents, who he routinely calls “sick” and “evil,” and has talked repeatedly about how violence is needed to quell protests.

The Minnesota attack occurred after Trump took the extraordinary step of mobilizing the military to try to control protests against his administration’s immigration operations in Los Angeles during the past week, when he pledged to “HIT” disrespectful protesters and warned of a “migrant invasion” of the city.

Dallek said Trump has been “both a victim and an accelerant” of the charged, dehumanizing political rhetoric that is flooding the country.

“It feels as if the extremists are in the saddle,” he said, “and the extremists are the ones driving our rhetoric and politics.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — A large military parade showcasing American power, requested by President Donald Trump to mark the Army’s 250th anniversary, took place in Washington, D.C., featuring tanks, troops and marching bands. Hours before the parade, anti-war protesters displayed signs reading “Homes not drones” near a military equipment exhibit on the National Mall celebrating the Army’s birthday.

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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

In his first words directed specifically to Americans, Pope Leo XIV told young people on Saturday how to find hope and meaning in their lives through God and in service to others.

“So many people who suffer from different experiences of depression or sadness — they can discover that the love of God is truly healing, that it brings hope,” the first American pope said in a video broadcast on the jumbotron at the White Sox baseball stadium in Chicago.

The event — set in Leo’s hometown and at the home stadium of his favorite major league team — was organized by the Archdiocese of Chicago in honor of his recent election as pope. Leo seized the opportunity to speak directly to young people, tying his message to the Catholic Church’s ongoing Jubilee year of hope that was declared by Pope Francis.

In Saturday’s message, Leo urged those listening in the stadium and online to be beacons of hope capable of inspiring others.

“To share that message of hope with one another — in outreach, in service, in looking for ways to make our world a better place — gives true life to all of us, and is a sign of hope for the whole world.”

The afternoon program, emceed by Chicago Bulls announcer Chuck Swirsky, highlighted Leo’s roots, including music by the city’s Leo Catholic High School Choir and a musician from Peru, according to the event’s program. There was also a discussion featuring a former teacher of the pope as well as a high school classmate and fellow Augustinian.

The event also celebrated the mixing of Catholicism and baseball, including a special invitation from the team for Leo to throw out a ceremonial first pitch at a future White Sox game.

Leo, formerly Robert Prevost, was elected May 8, becoming the first American pope in the 2,000-year history of the church. Leo, 69, spent his career serving as an Augustinian missionary and ministering in Peru before taking over the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops. He succeeded Pope Francis, who died April 21.

“When I see each and every one of you, when I see how people gather together to celebrate their faith, I discover myself how much hope there is in the world,” Leo said in the video message.

The program was to be followed by a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago who was part of the conclave that elected Leo.

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

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota House’s top Democrat helped shepherd a package of liberal initiatives to passage when her party had a narrow majority two years ago. After Democrats lost their majority, she helped broker a deal to keep state government funded and provided a crucial vote to pass it, though her party hated it.

State Rep. Melissa Hortman, 55, the House’s Democratic leader and former speaker, was shot to death early Saturday in her Minneapolis-area home along with her husband by someone posing as a law enforcement officer. Another prominent area lawmaker, state Sen. John Hoffman, was shot and wounded, along with his wife, in their home about 15 minutes away in what Gov. Tim Walz described as “targeted political violence.”

The shooting shocked officials in both parties in a state that prides its politics as being “Minnesota nice,” despite higher partisan tensions in recent years. While Minnesota hasn’t voted for a GOP presidential candidate since 1972, and all of its statewide elected officials are Democrats, the Legislature is nearly evenly divided, with the House split 67-67 until Hortman’s death and Democrats holding a 34-33 majority in the Senate.

Hortman led fellow Democrats in boycotting House sessions for almost a month starting Jan. 14 to prevent the GOP from using a temporary vacancy in a Democratic seat to cement power over the chamber instead of working out a power-sharing arrangement.

Yet when the partisan split in the House threatened to prevent the Legislature from passing a budget to keep state government running for the next two years, she not only helped broker the final deal but secured its passage by being the only Democrat to vote yes on a key part of the deal.

“She wasn’t only a leader — she was a damn good legislator, and Minnesotans everywhere will suffer because of this loss,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, a former Minnesota state party chair and a friend of Hortman’s.

The wounded senator chairs a key committee

Hoffman, 60, is chair of the Senate Human Services Committee, which oversees one of the biggest parts of the state budget. He lives in Champlin, in the northwest part of the Minneapolis area, and owns a consulting firm, and he and his wife, Yvette, had one daughter.

He previously was marketing and public relations director for a nonprofit provider of employment services for people with mental illnesses and intellectual and developmental disabilities and supervised a juvenile detention center in Iowa. He was first elected to the Senate in 2012.

In 2023, Hoffman supported budget legislation that extended the state MinnesotaCare health program to immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, starting this year. On Monday, he voted against a bill to end that coverage for adults on Jan. 1 — a GOP goal that was a key part of the budget agreement that Hortman helped broker.

Last year, Hoffman sponsored a bill designed to prevent courts from blocking people with disabilities from adopting children, and in 2023, he proposed an amendment to the state constitution to create a fund to pay for long-term care by taxing the Social Security benefits of the state’s wealthiest residents.

Hortman had served nine years as Democratic leader

Hortman had served as the House Democrats’ leader since 2017, and six years as speaker, starting in 2019. She had to give up the speaker’s job this year after the 2024 elections produced the even partisan split. Her official title this year was speaker emerita.

She and her husband, Mark, lived in Brooklyn Park, another suburb in the northwest part of the Minneapolis area. They had two adult children.

A lawyer, she twice lost races for the House before first winning her seat in 2004. U.S. Sen. and Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar recalled campaigning door to door that year with Hortman, when Klobuchar was the elected chief prosecutor for Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis. Klobuchar praised Hortman’s support for free school lunches, women’s rights and clean energy, calling her “a true public servant to the core.”

“She was beloved by her colleagues,” Klobuchar said in a statement.

Hortman helped push through a sweeping agenda in 2023

Hortman became part of the Democrats’ leadership team at the state Capitol in 2007 and House minority leader in 2017, before Democrats recaptured a House majority in 2019.

In 2023 and 2024, Democrats controlled both chambers and used their majorities to enact a sweeping liberal agenda and practically everything on an ambitious wish list. The measures included expanded abortion and trans rights, paid family and medical leave, universal free school lunches, child care credits and other aid for families.

She previously proposed state emission standards for automobiles like ones imposed in California and a ban on the sale of products containing mercury. She also proposed studying the feasibility of ending state investments in fossil fuel companies.

“She knew how to stand firm on her values but understood the importance of teamwork and compromise and never backed down from hard choices,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement. “She was tough, she was kind, and she was the best of us.”

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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — The first direct flight from the U.S. to Greenland by an American airline landed in the capital city of Nuuk on Saturday.

The United Airlines-operated Boeing 737 Max 8 departed from Newark International Airport in New Jersey at 11:31 a.m. EDT (1531 GMT) and arrived a little over 4 hours later, at 6:38 p.m. local time (1938 GMT), according to

A seat cost roughly $1,200.

Saturday’s flight marks the first direct passage between the U.S. and the Arctic Island for nearly 20 years. In 2007, Air Greenland launched a route between Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and Kangerlussuaq Airport, some 315 kilometers (196 miles) north of Nuuk. It was scrapped the following year due to cost.

The United Airlines flight took place on U.S. President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday, which was being celebrated in Washington with a controversial military parade that’s part of the Army’s long-planned 250th anniversary celebration.

Trump has repeatedly said he seeks control of Greenland, a strategic Arctic island that’s a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, and has not ruled out military force.

The governments of Denmark, a NATO ally, and Greenland have said it is not for sale and condemned reports of the U.S. stepping up intelligence gathering on the mineral-rich island.

United announced the flight in October, before Trump was re-elected. It was scheduled for 2025 to take advantage of the new Nuuk airport, which opened in late November and features a larger runway for bigger jets.

“United will be the only carrier to connect the U.S. directly to Nuuk — the northernmost capital in the world, providing a gateway to world-class hiking and fascinating wildlife under the summer’s midnight sun,” the company said in a statement at the time.

Saturday’s flight kicked off the airline’s twice weekly seasonal service, from June to September, between Newark and Nuuk. The plane has around 165 seats.

Previously, travelers had to take a layover in Iceland or Copenhagen, Denmark, before flying to Greenland.

The new flight is beneficial for the island’s business and residents, according to Greenland government minister Naaja Nathanielsen.

Tourists will spend money at local businesses, and Greenlanders themselves will now be able to travel to the U.S. more easily, Nathanielsen, the minister for business, mineral resources, energy, justice and gender equality, The route is also an important part of diversifying the island’s economy, she said. Fishing produces about 90% of Greenland’s exports.

Tourism is increasingly important. More than 96,000 international passengers traveled through the country’s airports in 2023, up 28% from 2015.

Visit Greenland echoed Nathanielsen’s comments. The government’s tourism agency did not have projections on how much money the new flights would bring to the island.

“We do know that flights can bring in much more than just dollars, and we expect it to have a positive impact — both for the society and travellers,” Tanny Por, Visit Greenland’s head of international relations, told The Associated Press in an email.

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Associated Press writer Stefanie Dazio in Berlin contributed to this report.

BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. (AP) — A Minnesota mayor says two state lawmakers were shot in their homes early Saturday.

Mayor Ryan Sabas of Champlin said state senator John Hoffman and state representative Melissa Hortman were shot, and that Hoffman’s wife was also shot.

A person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that investigators believe that the suspect may have been posing as a law enforcement officer. The person said investigators were still working to establish motive for the attacks and were still in the early stages of an investigation.

Gov. Tim Walz said the shooting was targeted.

The massive military parade commemorating the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army, which coincides with President Donald Trump ’s 79th birthday is being staged Saturday in Washington, D.C. The event is expected to include about 6,600 soldiers, 50 helicopters and 60-ton M1 Abrams battle tanks, as well as possibly 200,000 attendees and heightened security to match.

Opponents of the president’s agenda are simultaneously rallying in hundreds of cities nationwide at “No Kings” protests following days of nationwide demonstrations against federal immigration raids, including in Los Angeles, where Trump deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines against the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Here’s the Latest:

Here’s what to expect at the big parade

The tanks are staged and ready to roll. Fencing and barriers are up. Protective metal plating has been laid out on Washington’s streets.

And more than 6,000 troops are poised to march near the National Mall to honor the Army’s 250th anniversary on Saturday, which happens to be President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday.

One big unknown: Rain is in the forecast and lightning could cause delays, but the White House said the parade must go one, rain or shine. And Trump said Thursday night that the weather “doesn’t matter … Doesn’t affect the tanks at all. Doesn’t affect the soldiers. They’re used to it.”

Daylong festivities celebrating the Army are planned on the National Mall — featuring NFL players, fitness competitions and displays — culminating in the parade, which is estimated to cost $25 million to $45 million. The Army expects as many as 200,000 people to attend.

A special reviewing area is being set up so that the president can watch up close as each formation passes the White House.

Cities brace for large crowds at anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ demonstrations across the US

Cities large and small were preparing for major demonstrations Saturday across the U.S. against Trump, as officials urge calm and National Guard troops mobilize.

A flagship “No Kings” march and rally are planned in Philadelphia, but no events are scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C.

The demonstrations come on the heels of protests flaring up around the country over federal immigration enforcement raids that began last week and Trump ordering National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles where protesters blocked a freeway and set cars on fire.

Police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades while officials enforced curfews in Los Angeles and Democratic governors called Trump’s Guard deployment “an alarming abuse of power” that “shows the Trump administration does not trust local law enforcement.”

The Army is set to celebrate 250 years with a parade that coincides with Trump’s birthday

The massive military parade that President Trump has long wanted is set to step off from the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday evening, with tanks, bands and thousands of troops.

And the biggest question marks are whether it will be overshadowed or delayed by either the weather in Washington or planned protests elsewhere around the country.

Falling on Trump’s 79th birthday, the parade was added just a few weeks ago to the Army’s long-planned 250th anniversary celebration. It has triggered criticism for its price tag of up to $45 million and the possibility that the lumbering tanks could tear up city streets. The Army has taken a variety of steps to protect the streets, including laying metal plates down along the route.

The daylong display of America’s Army comes as Trump has shown his willingness to use his fighting forces in ways other U.S. presidents have typically avoided, inviting an array of lawsuits and accusations that he is politicizing the military.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A sharp rise in global oil prices following Israeli strikes on Iran will benefit Russia and bolster its military capabilities in the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday in comments that were under embargo until Saturday afternoon.

Speaking to journalists in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said the surge in oil prices threatens Ukraine’s position on the battlefield, especially because Western allies have not enforced effective price caps on Russian oil exports.

“The strikes led to a sharp increase in the price of oil, which is negative for us,” Zelenskyy said. “The Russians are getting stronger due to greater income from oil exports.”

Global oil prices rose as much as 7% after Israel and Iran exchanged attacks over the past 48 hours, raising concerns that further escalation in the region could disrupt oil exports from the Middle East.

Zelenskyy to address concerns with the US

Zelenskyy said he planned to raise the issue in an upcoming conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump.

“In the near future, I will be in contact with the American side, I think with the president, and we will raise this issue,” he said.

Zelenskyy also expressed concern that U.S. military aid could be diverted away from Ukraine toward Israel during renewed tensions in the Middle East.

“We would like aid to Ukraine not to decrease because of this,” he said. “Last time, this was a factor that slowed down aid to Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s military needs have been sidelined by the United States in favor of supporting Israel, Zelenskyy said, citing a shipment of 20,000 interceptor missiles, designed to counter Iran-made Shahed drones, that had been intended for Ukraine but were redirected to Israel.

“And for us it was a blow,” he said. “When you face 300 to 400 drones a day, most are shot down or go off course, but some get through. We were counting on those missiles.”

An air defense system, Barak-8, promised to Ukraine by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu was sent to the U.S. for repairs but never delivered to Ukraine, Zelenskyy said.

The Ukrainian president conceded that momentum for the Coalition of the Willing, a group of 31 countries which have pledged to strengthen support for Ukraine against Russian aggression, has slowed because of U.S. ambivalence over providing a backstop.

“This situation has shown that Europe has not yet decided for itself that it will be with Ukraine completely if America is not there,” he said.

Coalition of the Willing offer under consideration

The offer of a foreign troop “reassurance force” pledged by the Coalition of the Willing was still on the table “but they need a backstop, as they say, from America,” Zelenskyy said. “This means that suddenly, if something happens, America will be with them and with Ukraine.”

The Ukrainian president also said the presence of foreign contingents in Ukraine would act as a security guarantee and allow Kyiv to make territorial compromises, which is the first time he has articulated a link between the reassurance force and concessions Kyiv is willing to make in negotiations with Russia.

“It is simply that their presence gives us the opportunity to compromise, when we can say that today our state does not have the strength to take our territories within the borders of 1991,” he said.

But Europe and Ukraine are still waiting on strong signals from Trump.

Without crushing U.S. sanctions against Russia, “I will tell you frankly, it will be very difficult for us,” Zelenskyy said, adding that it would then fall on Europe to step up military aid to Ukraine.

Body and prisoner returns follow Istanbul talks

In other developments, Russia repatriated more bodies of fallen soldiers in line with an agreement reached during peace talks in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, Russian officials said Saturday, cited by Russian state media. The officials said Ukraine did not return any bodies to Russia on Saturday.

Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War confirmed in a statement that Russia returned 1,200 bodies.

The first round of the staggered exchanges took place Monday. The agreement to exchange prisoners of war and the bodies of fallen soldiers was the only tangible outcome of the talks in Istanbul on June 2.

Russia says push continues

Continuing a renewed battlefield push along eastern and northeastern parts of the more than 1,000-kilometer (over 600-mile) front line, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed Saturday that its troops captured another village in the Donetsk region, Zelenyi Kut. The Ukrainian military had no immediate comment on the Russian claim.

Russia launched 58 drones and decoys at Ukraine overnight into Saturday, according to the Ukrainian air force, which said its air defenses destroyed 23 drones while another 20 were jammed.

Russia’s defense ministry said it shot down 66 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Attacks have continued despite discussions of a potential ceasefire in the war. During the June 2 talks in Istanbul, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators traded memorandums containing sharply divergent conditions that both sides see as nonstarters, making a quick deal unlikely.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is in the homestretch of a term that has lately been dominated by the Trump administration’s emergency appeals of lower court orders seeking to slow President Donald Trump’s efforts to remake the federal government.

But the justices also have 21 cases to resolve that were argued between December and mid-May, including a push by Republican-led states to ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors. One of the argued cases was an emergency appeal, the administration’s bid to be allowed to enforce Trump’s executive order denying birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of parents who are in the country illegally.

The court typically aims to finish its work by the end of June.

Here are some of the biggest remaining cases:

Tennessee and 26 other states have enacted bans on certain treatment for transgender youth

The oldest unresolved case, and arguably the term’s biggest, stems from a challenge to Tennessee’s law from transgender minors and their parents who argue that it is unconstitutional sex discrimination aimed at a vulnerable population.

At arguments in December, the court’s conservative majority seemed inclined to uphold the law, voicing skepticism of claims that it violates the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause. The post-Civil War provision requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same.

The court is weighing the case amid a range of other federal and state efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use. In April, Trump’s administration sued Maine for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in girls sports.

Trump also has sought to block federal spending on gender-affirming care for those under 19 and a conservative majority of justices allowed him to move forward with plans to oust transgender people from the U.S. military.

Trump’s birthright citizenship order has been blocked by lower courts

The court rarely hears arguments over emergency appeals, but it took up the administration’s plea to narrow orders that have prevented the citizenship changes from taking effect anywhere in the U.S.

The issue before the justices is whether to limit the authority of judges to issue nationwide injunctions, which have plagued both Republican and Democratic administrations in the past 10 years.

These nationwide court orders have emerged as an important check on Trump’s efforts and a source of mounting frustration to the Republican president and his allies.

At arguments last month, the court seemed intent on keeping a block on the citizenship restrictions while still looking for a way to scale back nationwide court orders. It was not clear what such a decision might look like, but a majority of the court expressed concerns about what would happen if the administration were allowed, even temporarily, to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally.

Democratic-led states, immigrants and rights groups who sued over Trump’s executive order argued that it would upset the settled understanding of birthright citizenship that has existed for more than 125 years.

The court seems likely to side with Maryland parents in a religious rights case over LGBTQ storybooks in public schools

Parents in the Montgomery County school system, in suburban Washington, want to be able to pull their children out of lessons that use the storybooks, which the county added to the curriculum to better reflect the district’s diversity.

The school system at one point allowed parents to remove their children from those lessons, but then reversed course because it found the opt-out policy to be disruptive. Sex education is the only area of instruction with an opt-out provision in the county’s schools.

The school district introduced the storybooks in 2022, with such titles as “Prince and Knight” and “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding.”

The case is one of several religious rights cases at the court this term. The justices have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years. The decision also comes amid increases in recent years in books being banned from public school and public libraries.

A three-year battle over congressional districts in Louisiana is making its second trip to the Supreme Court

Lower courts have struck down two Louisiana congressional maps since 2022 and the justices are weighing whether to send state lawmakers back to the map-drawing board for a third time.

The case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing political boundaries in front of a conservative-led court that has been skeptical of considerations of race in public life.

At arguments in March, several of the court’s conservative justices suggested they could vote to throw out the map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act.

Before the court now is a map that created a second Black majority congressional district among Louisiana’s six seats in the House of Representatives. The district elected a Black Democrat in 2024.

A three-judge court found that the state relied too heavily on race in drawing the district, rejecting Louisiana’s arguments that politics predominated, specifically the preservation of the seats of influential members of Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson. The Supreme Court ordered the challenged map to be used last year while the case went on.

Lawmakers only drew that map after civil rights advocates won a court ruling that a map with one Black majority district likely violated the landmark voting rights law.

The justices are weighing a Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing online pornography

Texas is among more than a dozen states with age verification laws. The states argue the laws are necessary as smartphones have made access to online porn, including hardcore obscene material, almost instantaneous.

The question for the court is whether the measure infringes on the constitutional rights of adults as well. The Free Speech Coalition, an adult-entertainment industry trade group, agrees that children shouldn’t be seeing pornography. But it says the Texas law is written too broadly and wrongly affects adults by requiring them to submit personal identifying information online that is vulnerable to hacking or tracking.

The justices appeared open to upholding the law, though they also could return it to a lower court for additional work. Some justices worried the lower court hadn’t applied a strict enough legal standard in determining whether the Texas law and others like that could run afoul of the First Amendment.

WASHINGTON (AP) —

President Donald Trump has long bet that he can scare allies into submission — a gamble that is increasingly being tested ahead of the Group of Seven summit beginning Monday in Canada.

He’s threatened stiff tariffs in the belief that other nations would crumple. He’s mused about taking over Canada and honor NATO’s obligations to defend partners under attack. And he’s used Oval Office meetings to try to intimidate the leaders of Ukraine and South Africa.

But many world leaders see fewer reasons to be cowed by Trump, even as they recognize the risks if he followed through on his threats. They believe he will ultimately back down — since many of his plans could inflict harm on the U.S. — or that he can simply be charmed and flattered into cooperating.

“Many leaders still seem intimidated by Trump, but increasingly they are catching on to his pattern of bullying,” said Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “In places as diverse as Canada, Iran, China and the EU, we are seeing increasing signs that leaders now recognize that Trump is afraid of anything resembling a fair fight. And so they are increasingly willing to stand up to him.”

In the 22 instances in which Trump has publicly threatened military action since his first term, the U.S. only used force twice, according to a May analysis by Shapiro.

World leaders feel comfortable standing up to Trump

Ahead of the G7 summit, there are already signs of subtle pushback against Trump from fellow leaders in the group. French President Emanuel Macron planned to visit Greenland over the weekend in a show of European solidarity. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said the U.S. is no longer the “predominant” force in the world after Trump’s tariffs created fissures in a decades-long partnership between the U.S. and its northern neighbor.

“We stood shoulder to shoulder with the Americans throughout the Cold War and in the decades that followed, as the United States played a predominant role on the world stage,” Carney said this past week in French. “Today, that predominance is a thing of the past.”

The new prime minister added that with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the U.S. became the global hegemon, a position of authority undermined by Trump’s transactional nature that puts little emphasis on defending democratic values or the rule of law.

“Now the United States is beginning to monetize its hegemony: charging for access to its markets and reducing its relative contributions to our collective security,” Carney said.

Israel’s attack on Iran has added a new wrinkle to the global picture as the summit leaders gather to tackle some of the world’s thorniest problems

A senior Canadian official said it was decided early on that the G7 won’t be issuing a joint communiqué as it has at past summits — an indication of how hard it can be to get Trump on the same page with other world leaders. The White House said individual leader statements will be issued on the issues being discussed.

Speaking last month at a conference in Singapore, Macron called France a “friend and an ally of the United States” but pushed back against Trump’s desire to dominate what other countries do. Macron said efforts to force other nations to choose between the U.S. and China would lead to the breakdown of the global order put in place after World War II.

“We want to cooperate, but we do not want to be instructed on a daily basis what is allowed, what is not allowed, and how our life will change because of the decision of a single person,” Macron said.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba pushed back against Trump’s agenda of levying higher tariffs on imported goods, arguing it would hurt economic growth. The Japanese leader specifically called Trump ahead of the summit to confirm their plans to talk on the sidelines, which is a greater focus for Japan than the summit itself.

“I called him as I also wanted to congratulate his birthday, though one day earlier,” Ishiba said.

Trump cares about being tough, but G7 is a chance to reset relations

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the summit was an opportunity for Trump to “mend” relationships with other countries so China would be unable to exploit differences among the G7.

She said other foreign leaders are “not intimidated” by Trump’s actions, which could be driving them away from tighter commitments with the U.S.

“The conversations that I’ve had with those leaders suggest that they think that the partnership with the United States has been really important, but they also understand that there are other opportunities,” Shaheen said.

The White House did not respond to emailed questions for this story.

Many leaders feel more confident that they can sidestep Trump’s threats

Having originally made his reputation in real estate and hospitality, Trump has taken kindly to certain foreign visitors, such as U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Starmer has sought to keep Trump in line with Europe in supporting Ukraine and NATO instead of brokering any truces that would favor Russia. He has echoed the president’s language about NATO members spending more on defense. But in his Oval Office visit, Starmer also pleased Trump by delivering an invite for a state visit from King Charles III.

The German government said it, too, wanted to send a public signal of unity, saying that while Trump’s recent meeting with Merz at the White House went harmoniously, the next test is how the relationship plays out in a team setting.

There will also be other world leaders outside of the G7 nations attending the summit in mountainous Kananaskis, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom Trump dressed down in the Oval Office.

Italy’s Meloni has positioned herself as a “bridge” between the Trump administration and the rest of Europe. But Italy’s strong support of Ukraine and Trump’s threatened tariffs on European goods have put Meloni, the only European leader to attend Trump’s inauguration, in a difficult position.

Mark Sobel, U.S. chair of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, an independent think tank, said Trump’s “trade policies, backing for right wing European movements, seeming preference for dealing with authoritarians and many of his other actions are alienating our G7 allies,” even if the U.S. president is correct that Europe needs to do more on defense.

But even as other G7 leaders defuse any public disputes with Trump, the U.S. president’s vision for the world remains largely incompatible with they want.

“In short, behind the curtains, and notwithstanding whatever theater, the Kananaskis summit will highlight a more fragmented G7 and an adrift global economy,” Sobel said.

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AP reporters Rob Gillies in Toronto, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Jill Lawless in London, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) —

Two Virginia Democrats are battling Tuesday to be their party’s nominee for attorney general. Yet, the name mentioned most in their campaigns is not that of their opponent, but rather a man who lives just over the Arlington Memorial Bridge: President Donald Trump.

The barrage of changes Trump has wrought to American culture in the first few months of his second White House residency has ignited the campaigns of Virginia Democrats Jay Jones and Shannon Taylor as they appeal unrelentingly to the most devout swaths of their base ahead of down-ballot primary elections. The primary will also determine the party’s nominations this year for lieutenant governor and some contested seats in the House of Delegates.

In one of only two states electing governors in November — the other is New Jersey — the caustic anti-Trump rhetoric could be a hint of what voters nationwide will hear from Democrats in next year’s midterm elections, when the stakes will be higher.

Virginia’s nominees for governor have been settled by default. Democrat Abigail Spanberger became her party’s nominee after running unopposed, and Republican Winsome Earle-Sears was the only contender who gathered enough signatures to be on the ballot. The other statewide races are for attorney general and lieutenant governor, and Democrats in both contests seem to be vying to top each other with anti-Trump rhetoric and caustic ads.

Republicans are not hosting statewide primaries this year, so only Democrats will pick a nominee for lieutenant governor. It’s a part-time position that pays about but is often a stepping stone to higher office. Six Democrats , and most of them have pushed ad after ad on the airwaves and online about their commitment to taking on Trump if elected to the mostly ceremonial role.

In the contest for attorney general, Jones and Taylor are competing in much the same way. Turnout is likely to be sluggish, which means firing up base voters is widely seen as the way to go. The last time a left-wing candidate for governor ran unopposed, Democrats voted for an attorney general nominee compared with this past election cycle.

Still, the AG’s race has been spicy, more so when the candidates’ criticism isn’t directed at each other. Jones and Taylor have lambasted the White House and argued that the administration’s actions should be litigated in court. When they are not lamenting Trump, their attacks are directed toward incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, who is seeking reelection.

In their respective campaigns, the Democrats argue that Miyares submits to the president by not suing him. They say that sets him apart from more progressive attorneys general across the United States, who are going to court over such things as birthright citizenship and elections. Their main message: A Democrat will take the White House to trial when Miyares won’t — and saving democracy starts there.

“The job is to protect Virginians, to fight for them, to work for them, to keep us safe,” Jones said while campaigning in June in Falls Church, Virginia, adding, “I don’t understand why he is not going after them.”

Last month, Taylor told a room full of Democratic voters that Miyares would enable Trump’s overreaches in Virginia, and potentially double down on institutions that don’t comply with the president.

Either way, “the result is the same for Virginians: getting hurt,” she said.

In a wide-ranging interview in May, Miyares said he identifies as a balls-and-strikes Republican. The former Virginia Beach state delegate, elected top prosecutor in 2021, worked to reduce violent crime. He sought settlements from Big Pharma. When he felt President Joe Biden’s administration overstepped, he went to court.

But as Trump was ushered into office for a second term, Miyares entered new political terrain. Unlike most other states, Virginians will elect their attorney general this November, nearly a year after the country voted for the president and his consequential agenda.

Miyares has waded into the political arena. He often spars on social media with progressive prosecutors throughout Virginia for being too lenient in prosecuting criminal cases.

Still, Miyares rebuffed the notion that suing Trump is his top concern. He said the Democrats looking to replace him fail to understand the nature of his position.

The attorney general touted meaningful work his office has shouldered: holding listening sessions for crime victims, designating resources to support law enforcement and beefing up his office’s prosecutions of child support cases.

He flashed his law enforcement badge, tucked within a leather wallet, and described the emblem as a guidepost for being an effective people’s prosecutor.

“They seem very obsessed with Donald Trump, whereas I’m obsessed with how am I going to keep Virginians safe?” Miyares said.

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Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

WASHINGTON (AP) —

On the first weekend: a vision of the nation built upon inclusivity and the tenets of liberalism — a conception of country that incorporates generations of fights for equity, for compassion, for expanding what it means to be an American.

On the second weekend, in the same town: a public show of strength and nationalism constructed on a foundation of military might, law and order, a tour de force of force.

And on the days in between: a city 2,000 miles from the capital locked in pitched battles over the use — abuse, many contend — of federal power and military authority to root out, detain and oust people who the current administration says do not belong.

Today’s United States — its possibility, its strength, its divisiveness, its polarization and fragmentation — is encapsulated in a single week in June 2025, its triumphs and frictions on vivid display.

As events both planned and chaotically spontaneous play out, many Americans are frantically and sometimes furiously pondering assorted iterations of two questions: What is this country right now? And what should it be?

Pride, protests and parades

Consider two quotes from recent days from two very different Americans.

The first came last weekend, during World Pride in Washington, when a 58-year-old gay man from Philadelphia named David Begler summed up what many were messaging in the days leading up to it after months of Donald Trump’s increasing attempts to target the LGBTQ community: “I want us to send a message to the White House to focus on uplifting each other instead of dividing.“

The second came days ahead of the military parade planned Saturday for the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary, from the mouth of the president on whose 79th birthday it will be held: “If there’s any protester that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,” Donald Trump said. “I haven’t even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.”

Among the competing visions of America in 2025: the desire to protest and seek a redress of grievances against the government vs. the desire for control, order — and a respect for the government and for authority.

The volatile combination of demonstrations and the U.S. military is a potent one, with its most recent roots in the protest movement of the 1960s against the Vietnam War. A young generation that would later be known as baby boomers regularly squared off against police and sometimes the military over U.S. involvement in what was framed as a war against communism in Southeast Asia. Historians give those protesters a fair bit of the credit for that war ultimately ending in 1975. President Jimmy Carter ultimately pardoned more than 200,000 people who had dodged the draft for that conflict.

Then, as now, many in the establishment criticized protesters bitterly, saying they were undermining a nation to which they should be grateful. Questions of loyalty and betrayal were thrown around. The role of the military in quelling civilian protests was bitterly contested, particularly after Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire and killed four students during antiwar protests in May 1970 at Kent State University.

There are echoes of that this week, not only in Los Angeles but now in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the deployment of 5,000 state National Guard troops ahead of the “No Kings Day of Defiance” against the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration raids. And as protesters in Los Angeles taunt the military and say guardsmen should be “ashamed” to face off against what they call a just cause, it’s easy to wonder: How can patriotism and protest coexist?

Washington at the epicenter

Democracy has always been messy and resistant to consensus. That’s part of why the national slogan of the United States is “e pluribus unum” — “out of many, one.” And Washington, D.C., as the nation’s capital, has long been the place where the many have come to make themselves known as part of the one — and to be noticed.

It was where the “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans marched in 1932 to demand their promised postwar payments and be heard in a demonstration that ended violently. It was where the first National Boy Scout Jamboree was held on the National Mall in 1937. It was where the “March on Washington,” a centerpiece of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, ended with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s renowned “I Have a Dream” speech. It was where, in 1995, the “Million Man March” was held to address concerns of the American Black community, and where hundreds of thousands of women came to Washington largely in protest of Trump, just a day after his first inauguration.

It is also the place where Americans remember, where the memorials to World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War sit. It is where the country erected stone shrines in various shapes and sizes to the presidents it most admired — Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is the site of museums containing some of the most distilled expressions of culture — from the Holocaust Museum to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to the National Museum of African American History.

Is it so hard to believe, then, that two events as opposite as World Pride and a military parade unfold here, within blocks of each other, within a week’s time? At a politically fractious moment when some families can hardly break bread without political arguments erupting over Trump, Gaza and Israel, immigration and LGBTQ rights, isn’t it possible that the weird and downright uncomfortable juxtaposition of these two starkly different events might be the most American thing of all?

Walt Whitman, one of the most famous poets in American history, had this to say about the the diversity of America when he wrote “I Hear America Singing” to underscore that its citizens all contribute to the nation’s song: “I am large. I contain multitudes.”

And in one week in June, at a time when the fate of the United States is being discussed in every direction we turn, the capital of Whitman’s nation has become a showcase in displaying those messy democratic multitudes to the world. For better or for worse.

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Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation at The Associated Press, has been writing about American culture since 1990.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Cities large and small were preparing for major demonstrations Saturday across the U.S. against President Donald Trump, as officials urge calm, National Guard troops mobilize and Trump attends a military parade in Washington to mark the Army’s 250th anniversary.

A flagship “No Kings” march and rally are planned in Philadelphia, but no events are scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C., where the military parade will take place on Trump’s birthday

The demonstrations are gaining additional fuel from protests flaring up around the country over federal immigration enforcement raids and Trump ordering National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles where protesters blocked a freeway and set cars on fire.

Police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades while officials enforced curfews in Los Angeles and Democratic governors called Trump’s Guard deployment “an alarming abuse of power” that “shows the Trump administration does not trust local law enforcement.”

Governors and city officials vowed to protect the right to protest and to show no tolerance for violence.

Republican governors in Virginia, Texas, Nebraska and Missouri are mobilizing National Guard troops to help law enforcement manage demonstrations.

There will be “zero tolerance” for violence, destruction or disrupting traffic, and “if you violate the law, you’re going to be arrested,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin told reporters Friday.

In Missouri, Gov. Mike Kehoe issued a similar message, vowing to take a proactive approach and not to “wait for chaos to ensue.”

Nebraska’s governor on Friday also signed an emergency proclamation for activating his state’s National Guard, a step his office called “a precautionary measure in reaction to recent instances of civil unrest across the country.”

that one march will go to the gates of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis warned demonstrators that the “line is very clear” and not to cross it.

Governors also urged calm.

On social media, Washington state Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, called for peaceful protests over the weekend, to ensure Trump doesn’t send military to the state.

“Donald Trump wants to be able to say that we cannot handle our own public safety in Washington state,” Ferguson said.

In a statement Friday, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, urged “protestors to remain peaceful and calm as they exercise their First Amendment right to make their voices heard.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said his administration and state police are working with police in Philadelphia ahead of what organizers estimate could be a crowd approaching 100,000 people.

Philadelphia’s top prosecutor, District Attorney Larry Krasner, warned that anyone coming to Philadelphia to break the law or immigration agents exceeding their authority will face arrest. He invoked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. as a guide for demonstrators.

“If you are doing what Martin Luther King would have done, you’re going to be fine,” Krasner told a news conference.

Some law enforcement agencies announced they were ramping up efforts for the weekend. In California, state troopers will be on “tactical alert,” which means all days off are cancelled for all officers.

Why is it called ‘No Kings’?

The “No Kings” theme was orchestrated by the , to support democracy and against what they call the authoritarian actions of the Trump administration. The name 50501 stands for 50 states, 50 protests, one movement.

Protests earlier this year have denounced Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk. Protesters have called for Trump to be “dethroned” as they compare his actions to that of a king and not a democratically elected president.

Why are they protesting on Saturday?

The No Kings Day of Defiance has been organized to reject authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics and the militarization of the country’s democracy, according to a statement by organizers.

Organizers intend for the protests to counter the Army’s 250th anniversary celebration — which Trump has ratcheted up to include a military parade, which is estimated to cost $25 million to $45 million that the Army expects to attract as many as 200,000 people.

The event will feature hundreds of military vehicles and aircraft and thousands of soldiers. It also happens to be Trump’s 79th birthday and Flag Day.

“The flag doesn’t belong to President Trump. It belongs to us,” the “No Kings” website says. “On June 14th, we’re showing up everywhere he isn’t — to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings.”

What is planned at the ‘No Kings’ protests?

Protests in , from city blocks to small towns, from courthouse steps to community parks, organizers said.

Demonstrations are expected to include speeches and marches, organizers said in a call Wednesday. The group says a core principle behind all “No Kings” events is a commitment to nonviolent action, and participants are expected to seek to de-escalate any confrontation.

No weapons of any kind should be taken to “No Kings” events, according to the website.

How many people are expected to participate?

The No Kings Day of Defiance is expected to be the largest single-day mobilization since Trump returned to office, organizers said. Organizers said they are preparing for millions of people to take to the streets across all 50 states and commonwealths.