House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., center, is joined by House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., left, and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., right, during a news conference at the Capitol, Friday, March 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)2025-03-19T12:03:11Z WASHINGTON (AP) Democrats have been sniping at each other in public since Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer helped pass a Republican spending bill that prevented a government shutdown. But the divisions in their party hardly began there. For months, Democrats have been struggling to coalesce behind a political strategy as they confront President Donald Trump and the Republican majorities in the House and the Senate. Behind closed doors at party retreats, think tank meetings and strategy sessions, Democrats have been having tense and searching conversations about ideology, policy and messaging as they urgently try to address what went wrong in last years election. I think were in a place internally where were having these family discussions and figuring out what the path forward is, said Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat and, at age 28, the youngest member of Congress. Democrats grapple with the scale of their challengesThe Democratic Partys political woes were front and center last week as House Democrats gathered a short drive away from Washington for their annual political retreat. Frost said Democrats were alarmed by exit polls from Novembers presidential election, which found Trump won voters without a college degree and those who made less than $100,000 in annual income. The same data showed Trump also made inroads with communities of color and young voters, traditionally areas of strength for Democrats. Recent polls underscore the challenge. Democrats are facing stark dissatisfaction among Americans, including among the partys base. Only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults had a favorable view of the Democratic Party, versus 54% who held an unfavorable view in a March CNN poll. And about 6 in 10 Democrats said they preferred to see the party work to stop the Republican agenda, compared with about 4 in 10 who preferred Democrats work with Republicans. That represents a stark shift from the outset of Trumps first term in 2017, when about three-quarters of Democrats said they preferred working with Republicans over stopping the GOP agenda. The Democratic brand absolutely needs to change, said Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat. We will not win with the status quo. Moulton said that Democrats must be very public about their reckoning.I think we need a high-level message from leadership that, Hey, we got the message of the last election. We heard you voters. You voted us out across the board, and were going to change, Moulton said.Democrats agree on some points. They uniformly detest Trump, broadly believe that they have failed to connect with the working-class voters they aim to champion and generally agree on the direction that economic and social policies should trend.But party leaders are far from united about how to best confront Trump in his second term and about what policies should be emphasized to voters as they do it. The 2024 election offered little clarity in the progressive vs. moderate debatePart of the difficulty is that both the Democratic Partys progressive and moderate wings feel as though the early days of the Trump administration have vindicated at times their differing approaches. We are locked out of accessing the levers and buttons of power, of reaching government. Our next milestone, and it is a critical milestone to achieve, is winning the majority in 2026 that is of paramount importance, said Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, chair of the New Democrat Coalition, a bloc of House Democrats that advocates for pragmatic, effective policies.For Schneider, all of the partys efforts should be focused on winning back the majority, rather than winning the days news cycle.Ive said this to my colleagues, and Ill keep repeating it: We can win moments (that) go viral. We can win arguments here and there. We can even win a day. But if what were doing isnt putting us on the path to win the election next year, we havent gotten to where we need to be, and were not doing what we need to do, Schneider said.More progressive lawmakers make a different case. So I think that this is a real opportunity for the Democratic Party to transform the way we need it to to be a party of working people, said Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I think that we should stop looking at this so much as a left-right fight within our caucus so many voters dont even think about it that way and think of it more as a bottom-up fight where we can unite the vast majority of the country against the small number of people that are screwing them over in their government and their workplaces, Casar said. Democrats are already looking ahead to next years midterm electionsWith Republicans controlling the House by only a handful of seats, Democrats say they are in a strong position to retake the majority and they arent waiting until 2026 to get their campaigns off the ground. The pace, intensity and unpredictability of Trumps governance have alarmed, frightened and excited voters across the country. In Trumps blitz, Democrats see an opportunity for pushback.This week, with the House on recess, the Democratic National Committee launched a Peoples Town Hall series of national events meant to connect with voters in swing states and districts. The effort follows weeks of town halls hosted by national liberal figures, including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. The Congressional Black Caucus, meanwhile, plans next month to launch a bus tour of lawmakers to Black communities in congressional districts across the country in a bid to engage voters disenchanted with the party and highlight potentially unpopular decisions by Trump. And members of Congress have supported the efforts of aligned legal groups like Democracy Forward, which has spearheaded the legal pushback to Trumps agenda in the judicial system, while liberal organizing groups like Indivisible are coordinating nationwide protests throughout April against the Trump administration. Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, chair of the House Democrats campaign arm, said House Democrats will focus on kitchen table issues in making their pitch to voters. She singled out lowering costs and public safety as key topics. Thats why we outperformed the top of the ticket pretty much across the country, DelBene said, referring to last years election results. So well continue to do that.But even as Democrats try to hone their message, some Democrats are stressing the urgency of taking a stand against Trump now, long before votes are cast next November. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a progressive from Massachusetts, said the party must respond first to this unprecedented power grab and lawless actions from the Trump administration before debating whether to drop parts of its agenda.Who are we? The midterms are around the corner, Pressley said, and our most compelling argument will not just be what we stopped but what is that we seek to advance.What I will say is that I think now is not the time to be moderating our aspirations, she said. MATT BROWN Brown is a reporter covering national politics, race and democracy issues. twitter instagram mailto

People taking part in a protest hold balloons in the town of Kocani, North Macedonia, Tuesday, March 18, 2025 following a massive fire in a nightclub early SUnday. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)2025-03-19T04:01:38Z WASHINGTON (AP) Even as the economy undergoes what may be wrenching changes, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday is expected to signal it could cut its key interest rate twice this year the same forecast it issued in December. Yet the reasons for those cuts may change dramatically, depending on how the economy fares. What were once seen as good news rate reductions in response to a steady decline in inflation back to the Feds target of 2%, now could become bad news cuts that would be implemented to offset an economy struggling in the wake of widespread tariffs, rapid cuts in government spending, and a spike in economic uncertainty. At the end of last year, the Fed reduced its key interest rate three times to about 4.3% from 5.3%. The Fed had rapidly raised its rate to combat inflation, and as price growth headed lower, that allowed the central bank to reverse some of those rate hikes. In September, inflation dropped to a 3 1/2 year low of 2.4%. Yet inflation then marched higher for four straight months, before it finally fell back in February, to an annual rate of 2.8%. Partly because of that reversal, Chair Jerome Powell has underscored that the Fed is in wait-and-see mode as it evaluates the impact of President Donald Trumps policies on the economy. So far, consumer sentiment has fallen sharply as Americans worry that inflation will rise in the coming months. Small business owners report a much more uncertain economic outlook, which can cause them to cut back on hiring and investment. Retailers of both high-end and lower-cost goods have warned that consumers are turning more cautious as they expect prices to rise because of tariffs. Retail sales rose modestly last month after a sharp fall in January. Homebuilders and contractors expect that home construction and renovations will get more expensive. On Tuesday, the Fed reported that manufacturing output jumped last month, driven higher by a spike in car production. Some of that could have reflected higher auto purchases by consumers looking to get ahead of tariffs. New home construction also grew faster than expected. Many economists have sharply reduced their forecasts for growth this year, with Barclays, a bank, now forecasting growth of just 0.7%, down from 2.5% in 2024. And economists at Goldman Sachs now expect inflation excluding the volatile food and energy categories will tick higher to 3% by the end of this year, up from its current level of 2.6%. Slower growth, if it also pushes up unemployment, and higher inflation would put the Fed in a very difficult spot. Typically, when companies start cutting workers, the Fed would reduce rates to spur more borrowing and spending and boost the economy. Yet if inflation crept higher, it would want to keep rates elevated to slow growth and restrain inflation. When the Fed lifts its key interest rate, it tends to push other borrowing costs higher, including for mortgages, auto loans, business loans, and credit cards. Economists will closely watch Powells press conference Wednesday to see if he will signal how the Fed would handle such a situation. But Powell will probably double-down on his recent efforts to underscore that the Fed can, for now, watch from the sidelines. The costs of being cautious are very, very low, Powell said earlier this month. The economys fine, it doesnt need us to do anything, really. Separately, Christopher Waller, a member of the Feds governing board, has previously said the Fed could still cut rates this year, even if tariffs were imposed, as long as inflation was still falling once the impact of was excluded. Yet earlier this month, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he acknowledged teasing out tariffs impact on prices would be difficult. Youre trying to find the signal of whats fundamental, and what is maybe tariff noise, he said. And thats tough. CHRISTOPHER RUGABER Rugaber has covered the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy for the AP for 16 years. He is a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb award for business reporting. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

We start this week with Joseph's story about the 200+ sites an ICE contractor called ShadowDragon is monitoring. A lot of surprising ones on there. After the break, Emanuel explains why NASA, Yale, and Stanford scientists are considering leaving the U.S. for France. In the subscribers-only section, Emanuel breaks down the fascinating reason why Super Nintendos are getting faster as they age.Listen to the weekly podcast onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orYouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism.If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player. The 200+ Sites an ICE Surveillance Contractor is MonitoringNASA, Yale, and Stanford Scientists Consider 'Scientific Exile,' French University SaysSuper Nintendo Hardware Is Running Faster as It Ages

Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)2025-03-19T13:28:18Z DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) An international United Nations staffer was killed and five others were wounded in a strike on a U.N. guesthouse in the Gaza Strip, a U.N. official said Wednesday. Jorge Moreira da Silva, head of the U.N. Office for Project Services, declined to say who carried out the strike but said the explosive ordnance was dropped or fired and the blast was not accidental or related to demining activity.He did not provide the nationalities of those killed and wounded.The Israeli military, which has carried out a heavy wave of airstrikes since early Tuesday, denied earlier reports that it had targeted the U.N. compound.___Follow APs war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

A network of Instagram accounts is using AI to steal content from human creators and deepfake their faces to make them look like they have Down syndrome. 404 Media was able to determine the accounts are linked because they reuse Instagram bios, videos, and in some cases link to the same OnlyFans competitors pages where they monetize these videos.404 Media has written multiple stories on the rapidly growing practice of people stealing content from real human creators and using AI to replace their faces with AI-generated faces, posting that AI-modified content to Instagram, and funnelling viewers to adult content platforms where they can be monetized. What started as just a few accounts quickly evolved into an entire industry with specialized tools, advertising strategies, and influencers who sell courses on how to create these fake influencers to get rich quick through what they call AI pimping.Newer accounts in recent months have started catering to increasingly specific niches and fetishes, including accounts of AI-generated women with amputated limbs. The AI-generated Down syndrome accounts are the latest and newest low for Instagram, which allows the rampant content theft that enables this practice and is now fueling a non-consensual fetishization and monetization of (fake) people with disabilities.The biggest one of these accounts that Ive seen is called Maria Dopari and has over 148,000 followers on Instagram. That account follows several other accounts with similar name conventions and identical videos, including one simply called Maria, which has over 39,000 followers. The face swaps are pretty convincing and hard to notice, especially when scrolling quickly through Reels, but if you look closely you can see the face sometimes has that too-smooth quality thats common with AI image generation, as well as slight visual errors, especially around the mouth, tongue, and teeth.There are plenty of real influencers with Down syndrome on Instagram who share motivational or modeling content. These AI-generated accounts are not trying to imitate that content, but rather are strictly focused on sexualizing the AI-generated personas so they can promote adult content they can then monetize.They all criticize my down syndrome untilI decide to wear tight clothes, text in one of Marias videos says while she wraps a t-shirt tightly around her waist to show off her body. Onlyfan??, text in another Maria video says as she dances. NoOnlydown?? Yesss At some point, the Maria account also posted the exact same videos as the Maria Dopari account but with a different face. It appears that for three videos posted between March 6 and 8, the Maria account accidentally used a face from one of its other fake personas, called Lana, which posts under several usernames under some variation of lana.down, the biggest of which has of 43,800 followers. The Maria account then continued posting with the face it used regularly. In some cases 404 Media was able to identify the original videos that were being stolen by these accounts.Left: the faceswapped face usually used by the Maria Dopari account. Right: A different face used in the same video posted by a similar account called Maria.Another account, called Zeliavideos, which has 112,000 followers, says in its bio Im special not because I have Down Syndrome but because I dont let it define my life. It links out to a Fanvue page that does not disclose its AI-generated, but many of the still images on the Instagram account clearly are. Additionally, several Reels, which have been edited to make the woman in the videos look like she has down syndrome, were posted weeks earlier by a different account with an entirely different face.Left: An Instagram account using faceswaps to create a persona with Down syndrome. Right: The exact same video posted weeks earlier by a different account with a different face. Almost none of the Instagram accounts Ive seen self-identify as being AI-generated, and judging by the comments on the videos, it appears that a lot of people believe they are real. However, unlike Instagram, OnlyFans has a strict policy against AI-generated content unless it features the verified creator and explicitly says its made using AI, so these accounts cant post that content on that platform. They can and do monetize on Fanvue, which does allow people to monetize AI-generated content as long as it's labeled as such. Both Maria Dopari and Maria link out to the same Fanvue account which states Maria has an AI face.Just a girl with a little something extra, haha , the Fanvue bio, which is written in French, says.Instagram bios for other accounts that promote the Maria persona are also written in French, and follow a similar formula, saying she is French, 23 years old, that she has down syndrome and is neuro-atypique.Another account which produces the same type of content on Instagram does disclose that its AI generated and that the person behind it does not really have down syndrome. It also links out to a Fanvue page, which includes the following Disclaimer:By purchasing, you understand that I am an AI modified avatar. I do not actually have dont syndrome.A Reddit community called r/pussydownsyndrom was also started on February 8, and so far includes only two posts, both of which are by the moderator and are promoting content from the Maria persona.Reddit and the moderator of that community did not respond to a request for comment. Instagram, Fanvue, and none of the accounts I reached out to responded to a request for comment.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00628-9An antisocial network.

This photo provided by the European Space Agency shows various galaxies imaged by the Euclid mission. (European Space Agency via AP)2025-03-19T14:47:27Z NEW YORK (AP) A European space telescope launched to explore the dark universe has released a trove of new data on distant galaxies.The images and other information released Wednesday by the European Space Agencys Euclid observatory includes a preview of three cosmic areas that the mission will spy in finer detail, mapping the shapes and locations of galaxies billions of light years away. A light year is nearly 6 trillion miles.The observatory, which blasted off in 2023 from Florida, is creating a cosmic atlas to gain clues about how our ever-expanding universe works and how mysterious forces called dark energy and dark matter may play a role. The elusive duo make up most of our universe, but researchers dont know exactly what they are.Over six years of observing, the mission hopes to capture glamour shots of over 1.5 billion galaxies.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN Ramakrishnan is a science reporter for The Associated Press, based in New York. She covers research and new developments related to space, early human history and more. twitter mailto

A barber cuts a client's hair at a barber shop in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Tuesday, March 17, 2020. (C.B. Schmelter/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP, File)2025-03-19T14:21:26Z WASHINGTON (AP) The latest trend in treating hair loss may sound familiar essentially, its a repurposed drug first popularized in the 1990s.Back then, TV viewers were inundated with ads for Rogaine, a sticky topical solution that could help treat thinning hair when applied to the scalp.Now dermatologists are increasingly prescribing the drug, known generically as minoxidil, in low-dose pills to help men and women maintain or regrow hair.The practice follows a handful of recent studies suggesting the ingredient works as well and possibly better when swallowed, rather than applied to hair follicles on the head. Telehealth companies are also driving new demand by offering a quick, easy way to get a prescription and have the pills shipped directly to customers doors.Heres a look at the drug: A retro approach to hair lossMinoxidil was originally developed as a pill to treat high blood pressure in the 1970s. Researchers noticed that some patients taking it experienced increased hair growth as a side effect. Rogaine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1988, the first drug to win the agencys endorsement for male pattern baldness. Studies showed that men on the medication, which was applied directly to the scalp, had a slower rate of hair loss and, in some cases, regrew hair.Starting in 1991, a lower dose was approved for women and the brand was aggressively marketed as an over-the-counter medication on TV and in print. This article is part of APs Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health. Read more Be Well. The drugs ability to slow hair loss is likely related to its effect on blood circulation, according to experts. By increasing blood flow to the scalp it signals hairs to stay in their grow phase for longer, said Dr. Adam Friedman, chair of dermatology at George Washington University. Were trying to keep those hairs in that growth phase as long as possible.A recent consensus paper by more than 40 U.S. and international dermatologists concluded that minoxidil pills are effective and often more convenient and affordable than the liquid formulation. Patients prefer the pillTheres little research comparing the two forms of minoxidil, but many dermatologists believe the drug works better as a pill.At a chemical level, minoxidil is absorbed more directly when digested in the gut than when applied to the hairline. Its also more convenient, with patients taking the drug by mouth once a day, instead of applying the liquid once or twice daily using a dropper.As you can imagine, that can be rather onerous, said Dr. Susan Taylor of the University of Pennsylvania. Although people often enthusiastically begin therapy and even see results after a while there are many who drop off.The doses prescribed for oral use are also very low. Dermatologists often direct men to take one half of the lowest-dose pill; women may only need a quarter of a pill.Those low doses can also reduce the chances for side effects, which can include dizziness, rapid heartbeat and swollen legs. The drug isnt recommended for people with a history of heart issues or who are pregnant or breastfeeding. The only other FDA-approved medication for hair loss is finasteride, sold under the brand name Propecia, a drug that blocks a byproduct of testosterone that triggers hair loss in men. That drug is generally considered more effective than minoxidil, but it can occasionally cause troubling sexual side effects, including erectile dysfunction. For optimal results, some dermatologists prescribe the two drugs in combination.Why arent minoxidil pills FDA-approved for hair loss?In short, because theres very little money to be made. Minoxidils patent has expired and it is now available as a low-cost generic medication. That means drugmakers have little financial incentive to spend millions on the new studies that would be needed to win FDA approval for hair loss.For a drug like oral minoxidil which is as old as dirt at this point there are no reasons to do that, said Friedman. Like other dermatologists, Friedman gives hair-loss patients a prescription for the pills intended to treat blood pressure, a practice known as off-label prescribing. The upside for patients is that minoxidil is extremely affordable, with some pharmacies offering a months supply for less than $5.Not a single patient has complained to me about the cost of this medication, which is extremely rare, said Dr. Luiz Garza of Johns Hopkins University.Telehealth firms open up accessThe vast majority of doctors prescribing minoxidil for hair loss are dermatologists, who often turn to older drugs off-label for various hair and skin conditions.A survey of U.S. dermatologists published last year found 80% reported prescribing oral minoxidil. But with only about 12,000 dermatologists in the U.S., some patients may have trouble finding a provider.Telehealth providers like Hims and Ro say they are helping fill the gap. The companies business model offers patients quick access to the medications they are seeking, often after simply filling out a questionnaire about their medical history, medications and treatment goals. The information is reviewed by a health provider who can quickly approve a prescription, assuming there are no red flags. Hims and Ro each say that their providers wont prescribe minoxidil for patients who have complicating health conditions or prescriptions that could negatively interact with the drug. In some cases, patients may be referred for an office visit.Many dermatologists say patients are better served by an in-person appointment, where a doctor will usually take a blood pressure reading, evaluate medical history, prescriptions and discuss the drugs side effects.Im not a proponent of going to an online service, said Taylor. I recommend seeing your board-certified dermatologist whos trained, who knows the data and can evaluate all of you.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The 2025 Australian federal election will take place in May, and Meta has vowed to combat all forms of misinformation, including deepfakes, on its platforms ahead of voting in an attempt to prevent election interference. Ironically, Meta announced that it plans to do this with the help of the exact methods CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced just a few months ago were not worth the companys time in the U.S., namely the use of third-party fact checkers.We have developed a comprehensive approach to help ensure the integrity of elections on our platforms: one that gives people a voice, supports participation in the civic process, and combats voter interference and foreign influence, Metas head of policy in Australia, Cheryl Seeto, said in a blog explaining how the company is preparing for the countrys upcoming election. We continue to work with Agence France-Presse (AFP) and the Australian Associated Press (AAP) to independently review content. We are also partnering with AAP on a new media literacy campaign to help Australians critically assess the content they view online, which will run in the lead-up to the election.Infamously, Zuckerberg announced in January in a video and blog titled More Speech and Fewer Mistakes that the company is ending its third party fact-checking program, starting in the US, and moving the a Community Notes model like the one used on Elon Musks X. The Community Notes model was rolled out in the United States last week.Theres been widespread debate about potential harm from online content, Zuckerberg said in the video. Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more. A lot of this is clearly political.Zuckerbergs position that this alleged political push for censorship from legacy media and governments doesnt appear to be a problem in Australia at the moment, which is relying on the Associated Press and AFP to debunk and fact check content on Meta that the company will then reduce in reach and attach warning labels to. Again, the strategy it is using in Australia is the same model that it just got rid of in the United States.We are also partnering with AAP on a new media literacy campaign to help Australians critically assess the content they view online, which will run in the lead-up to the election, Seeto said in her blog.When reached for comment, Meta told 404 Media that changes to its third party fact checking are initially only happening in the US and that at the moment there are no changes to the program in other countries. It also said that its rolling out Community Notes in the US and will continue to improve over the course of the year before expanding to other countries. The company also pointed us at a recent update to how Community Notes is being rolled out in the US.The implication here is that Meta still plans to make similar changes in other countries, but that hasnt happened yet. Its also impossible to ignore the fact that Meta continues to use fact checking from media outlets that are clearly political in other countries, just not the one where Meta is based, where the president has declared the press to be an enemy of the people, and where its CEO is making clear overtures to win the presidents favor.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00743-7Major investments to fuel AIs power demands are not the only way big tech is having an influence.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00745-5Big data is key for the quality control needed to advance the field.

A mega-prison known as Detention Center Against Terrorism (CECOT) stands in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, File)2025-03-19T15:05:07Z WASHINGTON (AP) The Justice Department is resisting a federal judges demand for more information about flights that took deportees to to El Salvador, arguing on Wednesday that the court should end its continued intrusions into the authority of the executive branch. Its the latest development in a showdown between the Trump administration and the judge who temporarily blocked deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration. President Donald Trump has called for the judges impeachment as the Republican escalates his conflict with a judiciary after a series of court setbacks over his executive actions. U.S. District Judge Jeb Boasberg, who was nominated to the federal bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, had ordered the Trump administration to answer several questions under seal, where the information would not be publicly exposed. There were questions about the planes takeoff and landing times, and the number of people deported under Trumps proclamation. The judge has questioned whether the Trump administration ignored his court order on Saturday to turn around planes with deportees headed for the Central American country, which had has agreed to house them in a notorious prison. In court papers filed hours before the deadline to respond Wednesday, the Justice Department said the judges questions are grave encroachments on core aspects of absolute and unreviewable Executive Branch authority relating to national security, foreign relations and foreign policy. The department said it was considering invoking the state secrets privilege to allow the government to withhold some of the information sought by the court. The underlying premise of these orders ... is that the Judicial Branch is superior to the Executive Branch, particularly on non-legal matters involving foreign affairs and national security. The Government disagrees, Justice Department lawyers wrote. The two branches are co-equal, and the Courts continued intrusions into the prerogatives of the Executive Branch, especially on a non-legal and factually irrelevant matter, should end. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which has only been used three times before in U.S. history, all during congressionally declared wars. and claimed there was an invasion by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.Boasberg ordered the administration not to deport, through that 1798 law, anyone in its custody.Told there were planes in the air headed to El Salvador, Boasberg said Saturday evening that he and the government needed to move fast. You shall inform your clients of this immediately, and that any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States, Boasberg told the governments lawyer.Hours later, El Salvadors president, Nayib Bukele, said the deportees had arrived in his country. Oopsie...too late he said in a social media post, above an article referencing Boasbergs order.The administration contends that a judge lacks the authority to tell the president whether he can determine the country is being invaded under the act, or how to defend it. Boasbergs new order for answers came after the administration provided limited information in response to a sharp questioning from the judge at a Monday hearing.The administration said in a filing Tuesday that two planes took off before Boasbergs order went into effect, and a third plane that took off after the ruling came down did not include anyone deported under the law. The administration declined, however, to provide estimates about the number of people subject to the proclamation.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during a Monday briefing that about 261 people were deported, including 137 under the law. ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Richer is an Associated Press reporter covering the Justice Department and legal issues from Washington. twitter mailto LINDSAY WHITEHURST Whitehurst covers the Supreme Court, legal affairs and criminal justice for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. Past stops include Salt Lake City, New Mexico and Indiana. twitter mailto

Controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI attempted to purchase hundreds of millions of arrest records including social security numbers, mugshots, and even email addresses to incorporate into its product, 404 Media has learned.For years, Clearview AI has collected billions of photos from social media websites including Facebook, LinkedIn and others and sold access to its facial recognition tool to law enforcement. The collection and sale of user-generated photos by a private surveillance company to police without that persons knowledge or consent sparked international outcry when it was first revealed by the New York Times in 2020.New documents obtained by 404 Media reveal that Clearview AI spent nearly a million dollars in a bid to purchase 690 million arrest records and 390 million arrest photos from all 50 states from an intelligence firm. The contract further describes the records as including current and former home addresses, dates of birth, arrest photos, social security and cell phone numbers, and email addresses. Clearview attempted to purchase this data from Investigative Consultant, Inc. (ICI) which billed itself as an intelligence company with access to tens of thousands of databases and the ability to create unique data streams for its clients. The contract was signed in mid-2019, at a time when Clearview AI was quietly collecting billions of photos off the internet and was relatively unknown at the time.Ultimately, the entire deal fell apart after Clearview and ICI clashed about the utility of the data with each company filing breach of contract claims. The dispute ultimately went into arbitration where it is common for disputes to be settled privately. The arbiter ultimately sided with Clearview AI in 2024 and ordered ICI to return the contract money. To date, ICI has not paid Clearview, with the company now seeking a court order to enforce the arbiters ruling. The president of ICI, Donald Berlin, has been previously accused in a lawsuit of fabricating intelligence reports and libel. Clearview currently advertises to customers that its technology includes the largest known database of 50+ billion facial images sourced from public-only web sources, including news media, mugshot websites, public social media, and many other open sources, and Clearview has previously told customers that it was working to acquire all U.S. mugshots nationally from the last 15 years.ICI and Clearview did not return to multiple requests for comment.These court records show that while Clearview AI was building a database of images it was simultaneously attempting to purchase sensitive information such as social security numbers, email addresses or other data. Both in the US and internationally, Clearview AI has faced scrutiny for collecting images from social media websites with the company claiming it hoped to collect enough images to ensure 'almost everyone in the world will be identifiable according to an investor deck reviewed by the Washington Post. The same investor report describes Clearview AI spending millions of dollars on data purchases but the court records reviewed by 404 Media do not make it clear if the purchase of social security numbers were part of the same plans. Clearview has contracts with local, state, and federal law enforcement and government agencies.Purchasing booking photos for a facial recognition system raises serious privacy risks according to Jeramie Scott, Senior Counsel & Director of EPICs Project on Surveillance Oversight. He points to both the algorithmic biases built into facial recognition systems and the potential for human bias by the police who would review the images. Numerous innocent people have been arrested based on facial recognition technology that misidentified them. This has happened almost exclusively to Black people, in part because the technology is less accurate on Black and brown faces. If Clearview AIs search results not only return the data from its web scraping but also connect individuals to their supposed mugshots and related data then that will bias the human reviewers, Scott told 404 Media. When looking at Clearview AI search results and seeing multiple hits, the reviewer will likely be biased toward the person with the mugshot, which will disproportionately impact Black and brown people who are over represented in our criminal justice system.The purchase of highly personal data such as SSNs and location data has drawn the attention of regulators and Congress. As weve previously reported, access to highly personal data can be easily found online with authorities charging some sellers of the data with crimes. The Department of Justice has previously seized websites linked to the purchase of social security numbers and other personal data online and convicted a Ukrainian national of operating the sites.Ultimately, Clearview AI is facing an uncertain future after a barrage of lawsuits against the company and fines from regulators across the globe. It has stated that it expects its business to grow under the second Trump administration, especially with a new CEO at its helm. At the same time, Clearview may be forced to turn over nearly a quarter of its ownership to settle at least one complex class-action biometrics lawsuit. Internationally, regulators have fined it multi-millions of dollars for privacy violations, and Clearview AI has also won cases on appeal. Clearview AI may also never recover the over one million dollars from ICI or its president: instead of wiring the money to an escrow service, Clearview instead deposited it directly into Berlins personal checking account.Freddy Martinez is the co-executive director of Lucy Parsons Labs where he writes about policing, its harms, public records and abolition.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00786-wResearchers flag groups that should get an extra dose of measles vaccine as case numbers continue to rise in Texas and neighbouring states.

Pete Marocco, a political appointee focused on gutting USAID, departs after briefing the House Foreign Affairs Committee behind closed doors, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)2025-03-19T16:37:28Z WASHINGTON (AP) A senior official at Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency is taking a leadership role at the U.S. Agency for International Development, giving DOGE direct authority over an agency that it has worked to dismantle, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press.Pete Marocco, a Trump administration political appointee who was serving as deputy head of USAID, disclosed the change in the email to State Department staff. It comes after Marocco and DOGE oversaw the gutting of 83% of USAID contracts, shifting the remaining programs under the State Department.Marocco said in his email that he will serve as the State Departments head of foreign assistance.Marocco wrote that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will effective immediately designate Jeremy Lewin as deputy administrator for policy and programs at USAID and as chief operating officer. Lewin is a DOGE official who has worked with Musks government-cutting efforts at USAID and other federal agencies.Rubio also designated Kenneth Jackson as administrator for management and resources who will also serve as the agencys chief financial officer. President Donald Trump also appointed Jackson as acting president of the U.S. Institute for Peace, a government think tank meant to promote conflict resolution. The email outlining the DOGE team members appointment came the same day a federal judge ruled that Musk and DOGE appeared to have no constitutional authority for their two-month effort helping the Trump administration shut down State and USAID foreign assistance funding, fire staffers and terminate humanitarian and development contracts. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland, in a ruling Tuesday, indefinitely blocked DOGE from making further cuts to the agency.The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by USAID employees and contractors, who argued that Musk and DOGE are wielding power that the Constitution reserves only for those who win elections or are confirmed by the Senate. Their lawyers said the ruling effectively halts or reverses many of the steps taken to dismantle the agency. MATT BROWN Brown is a reporter covering national politics, race and democracy issues. twitter instagram mailto ELLEN KNICKMEYER Knickmeyer covers foreign policy and national security for The Associated Press. She is based in Washington, D.C. twitter

People stand outside the headquarters of the United States Institute of Peace, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein).2025-03-19T14:22:34Z The U.S. Institute of Peace and many of its board members have sued the Trump administration, seeking to prevent their removal and stop Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency from taking over and accessing the independent nonprofits building and systems. The lawsuit filed late Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington describes the lengths that institute staff resorted to, including calling the police, in an effort to prevent DOGE representatives and others working with the Republican administration from accessing the headquarters near the State Department.An executive order last month from President Donald Trump targeted the institute and three other agencies for large-scale reductions. The think tank, which seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, was created and funded by Congress in 1984. Board members are nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate. Among the board members who filed suit is former U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, who was nominated to the ambassadorial role in Trumps first term and continued to serve as ambassador under President Joe Biden and then was picked by Biden for the board. The lawsuit accuses the White House of illegal firings by email and said the remaining board members Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Defense University President Peter Garvin also ousted the institutes president, George Moose. In his place, the three appointed Kenneth Jackson, an administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the lawsuit.DOGE staff tried multiple times to access the building Monday before successfully getting in, partly with police assistance.The institutes staff had first called the police around 3 p.m. Monday to report trespassing, according to the lawsuit. But the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement that the institutes acting president seemingly a reference to Jackson told them around 4 p.m. that he was being refused access to the building and there were unauthorized individuals inside. Eventually, all the unauthorized individuals inside of the building complied with the acting USIP Presidents request and left the building without further incident, police said.The lawsuit says the institutes lawyer told DOGE representatives multiple times that the executive branch has no authority over the nonprofit. A White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, said, Rogue bureaucrats will not be allowed to hold agencies hostage. The Trump administration will enforce the Presidents executive authority and ensure his agencies remain accountable to the American people.The legal action is the latest challenging the Trump administrations efforts to dismantle U.S. foreign assistance agencies, reduce the size of the federal government and exert control over entities created by Congress. A federal judge ruled Tuesday that cuts to USAID likely violated the Constitution, and he blocked DOGE staff from making further ones. To the top Democrats on the foreign affairs committees in Congress, New York Rep. Gregory Meeks and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the hostile takeover of the institute was one more sign that Trump and Musk want to recklessly dismantle historic U.S. institutions piece by piece.The leaders of two of the other agencies listed in Trumps February executive order the Inter-American Foundation, which invests in businesses in Latin American and the Caribbean, and the U.S. African Development Foundation also have sued the administration to undo or pause the removal of most of their staff and cancellation of most of their contracts. A federal judge ruled last week that it would be legal to remove most contracts and staff from the U.S.-Africa agency, which invested millions of dollars in African small businesses. But the judge also ordered the government to prepare DOGE staff to explain what steps they were taking to maintain the agency at the minimum presence and function required by law. ___Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of the APs philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy. THALIA BEATY Beaty reports on philanthropy for The Associated Press and is based in New York. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08741-5A population of neutrophils in the skin produces extracellular matrix, providing a defence strategy by reinforcing the barrier properties of the skin and helping to block the entry of pathogens.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00746-4Investment in renewables is hitting new heights, but uneven funding and geopolitical uncertainty are clouding the boom.

Undated photo of a school of fish, with a perch in the left corner, at a river lock in the central Dutch city of Utrecht, Netherlands, where a "fish doorbell" was installed that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. (Visdeurbel via AP)2025-03-19T06:09:12Z UTRECHT, Netherlands (AP) The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a fish doorbell on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds.The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrechts Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a website. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through.Now in its fifth year, the site has attracted millions of viewers from around the world with its quirky mix of slow TV and ecological activism.Much of the time, the screen is just a murky green with occasional bubbles, but sometimes a fish swims past. As the water warms up, more fish show up. Without the help, native freshwater fish like bream, pike and bass can become backed up behind the lock and form easy prey for predators in the spring, when the lock is rarely opened for passing boats.The bell is the brainchild of ecologist and concept developer Mark van Heukelum. Hes been happily surprised at the response, with millions of people from around the world tuning in over the years. I guess the combination of a good cause, a beautiful story and just a simple idea generates all this attention, he said. Anna Nijs, an ecologist with Utrecht municipality, was also amazed at the popularity of the concept around the world.We get a lot of fan mail from people who think its slow TV and they find it relaxing, said Nijs. Besides, they appreciate that they can actually do something to help.___Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague contributed. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Two basketballs sit on the floor before a second round game between UCLA and Oklahoma in the NCAA college basketball tournament, Monday, March 20, 2023, in Los Angeles, Calif. (AP Photo/Kyusung Gong, File)2025-03-19T17:30:10Z Follow APs full coverage of March Madness.Get the AP Top 25 mens college basketball poll delivered straight to your inbox with AP Top 25 Poll Alerts. Sign up here. DENVER (AP) Perhaps the surest sign that artificial intelligence really is taking over the world will come the day it wins your favorite March Madness bracket pool.The day could be coming soon.In an experiment that a) was bound to happen, b) might actually make us all look smarter and c) should probably also scare the daylights out of everyone, a successful CEO-turned-disruptor is running a $1 million March Madness bracket challenge that pits his AI programmers picks against those belonging to one of the worlds best-known sports gamblers.Were not a crystal ball, says Alan Levy, whose platform, 4C Predictions, is running this challenge. But its going to start to get very, very creepy. In 2025, were making a million-dollar bet with a professional sports bettor, and the reason we feel confident to do that is because data, we feel, will beat humans. Levy isnt the only one leveraging AI to help people succeed in Americas favorite pick em pool one thats become even more lucrative over the past seven years, after a Supreme Court ruling led to the spread of legalized sports betting to 38 states. ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI, is hawking its services to help bracket fillers more easily find stats and identify trends. Not surprisingly, it makes no promises.With upsets, momentum shifts, and basketballs inherent unpredictability, consistently creating a perfect bracket may still come down to luck, said Leah Anise, a spokesperson for OpenAI. Also making no promises, but trying his hardest, is Sheldon Jacobson, the computer science professor at Illinois who has been trying to build a better bracket through science for years; he might have been AI before AI.Nobody predicts the weather, he explained in an interview back in 2018. They forecast it using chances and odds. $1 million on the line in AI vs. Sean Perry showdownLevys angle is hes willing to wager $1 million that the AI bracket his company produces can beat that of professional gambler Sean Perry.Among Perrys claims to fame was his refusal to accept a four-way split in a pot worth $9.3 million in an NFL survivor pool two years ago. The next week, his pick, the Broncos, lost to New England and he ended up with nothing.But Perry has wagered and won millions over his career, using heaps of analytics, data and insider information to try to find an edge that, for decades, has been proprietary to casinos and legal sports books, giving them an advantage that allows them to build all those massive hotels.Levy says his ultimate goal is bring that advantage to the average Joe either the weekly football bettor who doesnt have access to reams of data, or the March Madness bracket filler who goes by feel or what teams mascot he likes best.The massive thesis is that the average person are playing games that they can never win, theyre trading stocks where they can never win, theyre trading crypto where they can never win, Levy said. 4C gives people the chance to empower themselves. Its a great equalizer. Its going to level the playing field for everyone. But can AI predict the completely unexpected?Its one thing to find an edge, quite another to take out every element of chance every halfcourt game-winner, every 4-point-a-game scorer who goes off for 25, every questionable call by a ref, every St. Peters, Yale, FAU or UMBC that rises up and wins for reasons nobody quite understands.For those who fear AI is leading the world to bad places, Levy reassures us that when it comes to sports, at least, the human element is always the final decider and humans can do funny and unexpected things.Thats one of many reasons that, according to the NCAA, theres a 1 in 120.2 billion chance of a fan with good knowledge of college basketball going 63 for 63 in picking the games. Its one of many reasons that almost everyone has a story about their 8-year-old niece walking away with the pot because she was the only one who picked George Mason, or North Carolina State, or VCU, to make the Final Four.You cant take the element of fun and luck out of it, Levy said. Having said that, as AI develops, its going to get creepier and creepier and the predictions are going to get more and more accurate, and its all around data sets. Levy suggests AI is no three-headed monster, but rather, an advanced version of Moneyball the classic book-turned-movie that followed Oakland As GM Billy Beanes groundbreaking quest to leverage data to build a winning team.Now, its all about putting all that data on steroids, trying to minimize the impact of luck and glass slippers, and building a winning bracket.Weve got to understand that this technology is meant to augment us, Levy said. Its meant to make our lives better. So, lets encourage people to use it, and even if its creepy, at least its creepy on our side.The AIs side in this one: Houston to win it all. Perry, the gambler, is going with Duke. ___AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08734-4Sleep-inducing neurons in Drosophila rely on Hyperkinetic, the -subunit of the KV1 channel Shaker, to monitor sleep need by translating lipid peroxidation events into changes in the oxidation state of a stably bound NADPH cofactor.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08739-zA quantum microsatellite, with a payload weighing only 23kilograms, in combination with portable ground stations that weigh merely 100kilograms, is capable of performing space-to-ground real-time quantum key distribution.

People pray for Pope Francis in front of the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic, in Rome, Wednesday, March 19, 2025, where the Pontiff is hospitalized since Friday, Feb. 14. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)2025-03-19T18:04:13Z ROME (AP) Pope Francis condition continued to improve Wednesday and he hasnt needed to use the mechanical ventilation mask to help him breathe, the Vatican said in signalling further progress in his recovery from double pneumonia.The 88-year-old pontiff is also reducing his reliance on high-flow supplemental oxygen during the day, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin. His pneumonia infection, while not completely eliminated, is under control, the Holy See press office said.Francis concelebrated Mass on Wednesday, which is an important feast day for the Catholic Church and is the anniversary of his installation as pope 12 years ago.Francis has been at Romes Gemelli hospital since Feb. 14 for a complex lung infection that turned into pneumonia in both lungs. He has been receiving respiratory and physical therapy to help strengthen his lungs. For two nights in a row, he hasnt needed to use the noninvasive mechanical ventilation mask, which pumps oxygen into his lungs, and doctors said its use had been suspended. Francis was put on the ventilation mask after he suffered a spate of respiratory crises in late February and early March during which he was unable to expel the mucus and fluid that had accumulated in his lungs. Suspending use of the mask means Francis lungs are working harder and better on their own.The Vatican is also again reducing its medical updates as Francis slowly continues his recovery, with the next one not expected before Monday.Italian President Sergio Mattarella commemorated the 12th anniversary of Francis installation as pope by sending him a letter praising his initiatives as pope. Mattarella offered best wishes for the continuation of his pontificate and all the more heartfelt wishes for a speedy recovery. ___Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

This undated file photo provided by the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry shows Aaron Brian Gunches, who was convicted of murder in the 2002 killing of Ted Price in Maricopa County, Ariz. (Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry via AP, File)2025-03-19T04:06:09Z FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) An Arizona man who kidnapped and murdered his girlfriends ex-husband was executed Wednesday, the second of four prisoners scheduled to be put to death this week in the U.S.Aaron Brian Gunches, 53, was lethally injected with pentobarbital at the Arizona State Prison Complex in the town of Florence, John Barcello, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry, told news outlets. He was pronounced dead at 10:33 a.m. Gunches fatally shot Ted Price in the desert outside the Phoenix suburb of Mesa in 2002. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2007. The prisoner did not have any final words, Barcello said. He took a few heavy breaths and let out a snoring-type sound.By all accounts, the process went according to plan without any incident at all, Barcello said. Gunches execution had originally been scheduled for April 2023, but was called off after Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs ordered a review of the states death penalty procedures. Late last year, Hobbs fired the retired judge she had appointed to conduct the review, and the states corrections department announced changes in the team that lethally injects death row prisoners. Gunches execution was carried out by inserting IVs into his arms, according to news media representatives who witnessed the execution. In the states two previous executions, the IV had been inserted into the prisoners femoral artery. This is probably the smoothest execution Ive seen, and I think some of that came from the resoluteness of the person being executed, said journalist Michael Kiefer of the Arizona Mirror, who has witnessed two executions and covered another nine. He said Gunches was pronounced dead 17 minutes after the injection was administered. Troy Hayden of 12News KPNX said he saw no signs of pain on Gunches face. There wasnt wincing or anything like that, Hayden said. Gunches is the second person executed this week in the U.S. Louisiana executed a man on Tuesday, and two more executions were scheduled in Florida and Oklahoma on Thursday. Arizona is the first state with a Democratic governor to execute someone since 2017, when Virginia did so under then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe.The family of Ted Price has been waiting for justice for more than two decades, Arizona Attorney General Kris Maye said at a news conference following Wednesdays execution. They deserve closure.The killingAuthorities say Prices ex-wife struck Price in the face with a phone during an argument in late 2002 at her apartment, leaving him conscious but dazed. Prices sister, Karen Price, said her brother had threatened to report his ex to child welfare authorities for doing drugs in front of their children. Gunches arrived at the apartment later. He asked two other women who were there with his girlfriend to put Price in a car and drive him to a bus station. But when they realized they didnt have enough money for a bus ticket, they instead drove into the desert, where Gunches shot Price, authorities said. Gunches was arrested in January 2003 after being pulled over by an Arizona Department of Public Safety trooper near the California state line. Gunches shot the trooper, who was saved by a bulletproof vest. Bullet casings from that shooting matched ammunition that had been found near Prices body, and Gunches was charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in October 2003.Karen Price described her brother as a kind and loving person who enjoyed watching the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks and riding his motorcycle. She said her family was devastated by Teds death. The end of a long, painful processTeds murder was not random, Colleen Clase, a lawyer representing Karen Price, said in a statement distributed to the news media. It was a senseless act committed because he dared to do the right thing. Nearly 23 years later, today marks the end of a long and painful legal process. While no execution can truly bring closure, it is a relief to no longer relive this nightmare in courtrooms and legal battles.Ted Prices daughter, Brittney Price said in a statement that the pain of reliving the circumstances surrounding my fathers death for over two decades has taken a significant toll on my family and me.Today marks the end of that painful chapter and I couldnt be more grateful, she said.Gunches tried to move up the executionGunches, who represented himself even though he isnt a lawyer, asked the Arizona Supreme Court in 2022 to issue an execution warrant against him to give closure to Prices family. He later withdrew the request. The execution was scheduled anyway but later postponed amid the review ordered by Hobbs.In late December, Gunches asked the states highest court to skip legal formalities and schedule his execution as soon as possible, saying his death sentence was long overdue. The court refused the request and later set his execution date for Wednesday. No reprieve grantedThere were no last-minute reprieves for Gunches, despite objections by lawyers who didnt represent him yet still asked the Arizona Supreme Court not to issue his execution warrant. The lawyers said injecting someone with pentobarbital in large amounts has been shown to cause fluid to seep into the lungs and drown people in their own fluids. The court rejected their request, saying it was not appropriate to use Gunches case to argue the merits of lethal injection. It also ruled that the necessary requirements to carry out Gunches execution had been met.___Billeaud reported from Phoenix. JACQUES BILLEAUD Billeaud is an Associated Press reporter who covers courts and law enforcement in Arizona. He previously covered immigration and the Arizona Legislature. SEJAL GOVINDARAO Govindarao covers Arizona government and politics for The Associated Press, with a focus on women in state government. She is based in Phoenix. twitter mailto

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00747-3A datacentric approach will allow consumers and producers to make informed decisions that aid the transition to clean power.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08678-9Mandimycin, a polyene macrolide, exhibits strong antifungal activity and possesses a mode of action that is distinct from other compounds of this class.

Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil is on the Columbia University campus in New York at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, file)2025-03-19T14:03:50Z NEW YORK (AP) A Columbia University student activist detained by the U.S. government over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations can challenge the legality of his detention, but the case should be heard in New Jersey, rather than in New York or Louisiana, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.Mahmoud Khalil, 30, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record, was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8. He was held overnight at an immigration detention center in New Jersey before being moved to an immigration facility in Jena, Louisiana.Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan called the legal challenge an exceptional case in need of careful legal review to determine whether the government violated the law or exercised its otherwise lawful authority in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner.Furman said New Jersey was the appropriate venue because Khalil was detained there when his lawyers sued the government. AP AUDIO: Federal judge says Columbia student activists case should be heard in New Jersey AP correspondent Julie Walker reports a federal judge says a Columbia University activists case should be heard in New Jersey. Federal authorities argued to move the case to Louisiana, saying Khalil was there because of a lack of available detention center beds in the metropolitan New York region and because of a bedbug infestation at a lockup in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Khalils lawyers said the transfer was a retaliatory action separating Khalil from his lawyers and an effort to find a jurisdiction where judges may be more favorable to the Republican administrations unusual legal claims. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Government lawyers had said that if the case wasnt sent to Louisiana, New Jersey was also a proper venue.In a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union, Khalils wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, called Furmans order a first step.His unlawful and unjust detention cannot stand. We will not stop fighting until he is home with me, said Abdalla, a dentist and U.S. citizen who is pregnant with their first child. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cited as grounds for Khalils deportation a rarely-used statute giving him sweeping power to deport those who pose potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.The White House has accused Khalil of siding with terrorists, but has yet to provide support for the claim. President Donald Trump has described Khalils case as the first of many to come.Khalil, an international affairs graduate student, had represented student activists in negotiations with Columbia University over protests of the war in Gaza. The Trump administration is acting quickly to make an example of Columbia as it demands stronger action against allegations of anti-Jewish bias on college campuses.___Haigh reported from Connecticut. SUSAN HAIGH Haigh covers the Connecticut General Assembly, state government, politics, public policy matters and more for The Associated Press. She has worked for The AP since 2002. twitter mailto

NASA astronauts Suni Williams, left, and Butch Wilmore stand together for a photo enroute to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 Wednesday, June 5, 2024, in Cape Canaveral, Fla., for their liftoff on a Boeing Starliner capsule to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)2025-03-19T19:11:17Z CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arent the first to run late in space, and their 9 -month mission falls short of any endurance record.But never before has a quick trip morphed into such a long haul.The pair launched last June on a test flight of Boeings new Starliner crew capsule, figuring to be gone eight days. By the time they splashed down with SpaceX on Tuesday, they had spent 286 days off the planet 36 times longer than anticipated.If you look at it mathematically, by percentage of the original planned mission, this is the largest percentage extension, NASAs space operations chief Ken Bowersox. A former astronaut, Bowersox saw his own space station mission abruptly prolonged. He was up there with Don Pettit, whos currently aboard the orbiting lab, when shuttle Columbia broke apart during reentry in 2003, killing all seven on board and grounding the shuttle fleet for more than two years. The reasons were terrible that we stayed longer on our mission, said Bowersox, whose planned four-month stay clocked in at more than five months.Heres a look at some others who found themselves stuck in space by choice or not along with some cool spaceflight statistics. Longest U.S. spaceflightNASA astronaut Frank Rubio saw his mission doubled in length from 6 months to 12 months after his assigned Russian Soyuz capsule took a micrometeorite hit while docked to the space station and leaked all its coolant. A replacement capsule was launched to bring Rubio and his two Russian crewmates home in 2023. His 371-day spaceflight is the longest by an American. NASAs first year-in-space astronaut was Scott Kelly; he logged 340 days at the space station in 2015 and 2016. His identical twin brother, U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, also served as a NASA astronaut on short shuttle flights. Worlds longest spaceflightRussian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov spent 14 months aboard the Mir space station in the mid-1990s. He volunteered for it. As a physician, he wanted to observe the changes in the human body and mind after a prolonged period of weightlessness. His 437-day spaceflight remains a world record. Polyakov died in 2022 at age 80. Longest spaceflight by a womanNASAs Christina Koch holds the title with her 328-day space station mission in 2019 and 2020. During that same flight, she performed the first all-female spacewalk alongside Jessica Meir. Koch is currently assigned to NASAs first Artemis crew, which will fly around the moon and back as early as next year.Most experience in spaceRussian Oleg Kononenko last year became the first person to crack 1,000 days in space over the course of a career. By the time he returned from the space station last fall, hed logged an incredible 1,111 days aloft over five spaceflights a combined total of more than three years. Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is Americas most experienced space flier with 675 days over three long station stints and one short private trip for Axiom Space. Shes due to lead another Axiom crew to the space station later this spring. Because of her delayed homecoming, Williams moved into the No. 2 spot with 608 days in space over three missions. Female spacewalking records Williams became the most experienced female spacewalker in the world, thanks to her prolonged mission. She ventured out twice earlier this year for station repairs and maintenance, bringing her spacewalking career total to 62 hours. Over three space station missions, she performed nine spacewalks, one less than Whitson. But Whitsons spacewalks were shorter, totaling 60 hours.Overall spacewalking recordsRetired Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev holds the overall record with 16 spacewalks totaling around 80 hours. NASAs spacewalking champ is retired astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria with 10 spacewalks for a total of 67 hours.Number of space travelersA NASA tally shows 721 people have flown in space, including tourists on short hops and military X-15 pilots. Of that total, 102 are women. The first person in space was the Soviet Unions Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961. The first American, Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, followed on May 5, 1961. The first woman in space was the Soviet Unions Valentina Tereshkova in 1963. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983. Of those four, only Tereshkova is still alive. Number of current NASA astronautsNASA counts 47 on its active astronaut list. Twenty are women. That doesnt include several astronauts who have moved over to management roles at the space agency.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08687-8B cell germinal centres achieve a balance between clonal expansion and sequence diversification by suppressing somatic hypermutation during proliferative clonal bursts.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00847-0Experiments suggest that an unusual magnetic material can help harness energy from the planets rotation. But not everyone is convinced.

The streets are covered with snow after a storm on Wednesday, March 19, 2025 in Omaha, Neb. (AP Photo/Margery Beck)2025-03-19T16:55:25Z OMAHA, Neb. (AP) Another storm system is affecting millions of people in the middle of the U.S., leaving parts of the Midwest and Great Plains under blizzard conditions and a broad swath of neighboring states at risk of high winds and wildfires.Roughly 72 million people were under a wind advisory or warning Wednesday, with winds gusting over 45 mph (72 kph), according to Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Services Weather Prediction Center.At this time of year, cold air lingering in the north collides with warm air coming in from the south to produce strong, low pressure systems, Jackson said. But Wednesdays weather is the third storm system to rapidly develop in recent weeks and bring high winds to a large swath of the U.S., a very active pattern since February, Jackson said. At least 42 people died over the weekend when dynamic storms unleashed tornadoes, blinding dust and wildfires leaving behind uprooted trees and flattening hundreds of homes and businesses across eight U.S. states in the South and Midwest. Snow for someA band from southwestern Kansas up to central Wisconsin was expected to see as little as 2 inches (5 centimeters) of snow or as much as 1 foot (30 cm) Wednesday. Combined with high winds, forecasters warned of whiteout conditions.The Kansas Department of Transportation closed more than 250 miles (402 kilometers) of Interstate 70 from the Colorado border east to Salina, Kansas because of winter weather. The first stretch to close 39 miles (62 km) between Goodland and Colby in western Kansas was also impacted by last weeks high winds. Eight people died after a dust storm resulted in a pileup of 71 cars and trucks.Blizzard conditions early Wednesday led to near-zero visibility in south central Nebraska, the state patrol said in a Facebook post urging people to stay off the roads. More than 160 miles (257 km) of Interstate 80 cutting east from Lincoln west to Lexington was closed. Further east, a jackknifed semi-trailer blocked two eastbound lanes on I-80, the Nebraska Department of Transportation reported Wednesday. Power outages affected households and businesses as heavy snow and high winds knocked down tree branches and led schools to cancel classes. Roughly 50,000 customers in Nebraska were without power Wednesday morning, as were several thousand in western Iowa.Crashes also caused road closures in northwestern Iowa as the fast-moving, large storm continued on. By midday Wednesday, nearly 70 miles (113 km) of Interstate 29 running along the border between eastern Nebraska and western Iowa had closed.The sudden storm left many in the region with weather whiplash, following a springlike Tuesday with temperatures in some parts reaching beyond 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius). High winds and risk of firesWhere its not snowing, there are still very strong winds. Gusts combined with dry conditions from Texas and Oklahoma up through Arkansas and central Missouri bring the potential for wildfires.Before plants are growing, Jackson said, theres a lot of dry fuel out there.The fire threat ramped up Tuesday and persisted Wednesday in the region, with renewed risk in parts of Oklahoma still reeling from an outbreak of wildfires that started Friday. More than 400 homes were severely damaged or destroyed, and at least four people died due to the fires or high winds, including a person killed in a vehicle accident as a result of poor visibility due to dust or smoke, officials said.Tornadoes possibleThe potential for severe thunderstorms plagued central Illinois Wednesday afternoon with risks of hail, strong wind and tornadoes. Much of Illinois and Indiana were forecasted to be under slight risk, with lower risk further south through the Tennessee Valley.Looking ahead and eastwardJackson said the storm affecting much of the U.S. Wednesday will send a cold front across the eastern seaboard later Thursday, bringing a renewed low pressure system with the potential to dump heavier snowfall in higher elevation parts of New England.___Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa. John Hanna contributed from Topeka, Kansas.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00796-8Cells called neutrophils form gooey rings around sites where skin is punctured, study in mice shows.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00801-0A bacterium makes a molecule that kills drug-resistant fungi in an unusual way by targeting various phospholipid molecules in membranes.

Dakota Access pipeline protesters defy law enforcement officers who are trying to force them from a camp on private land in the path of pipeline construction, Oct. 27, 2016, near Cannon Ball, N.D. (AP Photo/James MacPherson, File)2025-03-19T18:57:11Z MANDAN, N.D. (AP) A North Dakota jury on Wednesday found Greenpeace liable for defamation and other claims brought by a pipeline company in connection with protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.The nine-person jury awarded Dallas-based Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Dakota Access more than $650 million in damages.The lawsuit had accused Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. of defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and other acts.When asked if Greenpeace plans to appeal, Senior Legal Adviser Deepa Padmanabha said, We know that this fight is not over.Following the verdict, Greenpeaces senior legal adviser said the organizations work is never going stop, when asked if the amount of damages would end Greenpeace in the United States.Thats the really important message today, and were just walking out and were going to get together and figure out what our next steps are, Padmanabha said. The organization said it plans to appeal the decision.Energy Transfer called the verdict a win for residents of Mandan, North Dakota, and across the state. While we are pleased that Greenpeace has been held accountable for their actions against us, this win is really for the people of Mandan and throughout North Dakota who had to live through the daily harassment and disruptions caused by the protesters who were funded and trained by Greenpeace, the company said in a statement to The Associated Press. The company, who previously said the lawsuit was about Greenpeace not following the law and not free speech, also called the verdict a win for Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law.The case reaches back to protests in 2016 and 2017 against the Dakota Access oil pipeline and its Missouri River crossing upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribes reservation. For years the tribe has opposed the line as a risk to its water supply. The multistate pipeline has been transporting oil since mid-2017. Plaintiffs attorney Trey Cox has said Greenpeace carried out a scheme to stop the pipelines construction. During opening statements, he alleged Greenpeace paid outsiders to come into the area and protest, sent blockade supplies, organized or led protester trainings, and made untrue statements about the project to stop it.Attorneys for the Greenpeace entities said there is no evidence to the claims, that Greenpeace employees had little or no involvement in the protests and the organizations had nothing to do with Energy Transfers delays in construction or refinancing.Greenpeace representatives have said the lawsuit is a critical test of First Amendment free speech and protest rights and could threaten the organizations future. JACK DURA Dura covers the North Dakota state government for The Associated Press. He is based in Bismarck, North Dakota. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

This Nov. 22, 1963 file photo shows President John F. Kennedy riding in motorcade with first lady Jacqueline Kenndy in Dallas, Texas. (AP Photo, file)2025-03-19T20:59:40Z DALLAS (AP) Newly released documents related to President John F. Kennedys assassination in 1963 gave curious readers more details Wednesday into Cold War-era covert U.S. operations in other nations but didnt initially lend credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK. Assessments of the roughly 2,200 files posted by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration on its website came with a huge caveat: No one had enough time as of Wednesday to review more than a small fraction of them. The vast majority of the National Archives more than 6 million pages of records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts related to the assassination have previously been released.An initial Associated Press review of more than 63,000 pages of records released this week shows that some were not directly related to the assassination but rather dealt with covert CIA operations, particularly in Cuba. And nothing in the first documents examined undercut the conclusion that Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Nothing points to a second gunman, said Philip Shenon, who wrote a 2013 book about the assassination. I havent seen any big blockbusters that rewrite the essential history of the assassination, but it is very early. Kennedy was killed on a visit to Dallas, when his motorcade was finishing its parade route downtown and shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository building. Police arrested the 24-year-old Oswald, a former Marine who had positioned himself from a snipers perch on the sixth floor. Two days later Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner, fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer broadcast live on television. Historians hope for new details about the man who killed JFKA year after the assassination, the Warren Commission, established by Johnson to investigate, concluded that Oswald acted alone and there was no evidence of a conspiracy. But critics of the commission still spun a web of alternative theories.Historians are hoping for details fleshing out Oswalds activities before the assassination and what the CIA and FBI knew about him beforehand. Shenon pointed Wednesday to previously released documents about a trip Oswald made to Mexico City at the end of September 1963. Records show Oswald intended to contact the Soviet Unions embassy there after living as a U.S. defector in the U.S.S.R. from October 1959 until June 1962. Shenon said the U.S. government may have kept information about what it knew about Oswald before the assassination secret to hide what he described as officials possible incompetence and laziness. The CIA had Oswald under pretty aggressive surveillance while he was there and this was just several weeks before the assassination, Shenon said. Theres reason to believe he talked openly about killing Kennedy in Mexico City and that people overheard him say that.Speculation about such details surrounding Kennedys assassination has been intense over the decades, generating countless conspiracy theories about multiple shooters and involvement by the Soviet Union, the mafia and the CIA. The new release fueled rampant online speculation and sent people scurrying to read the documents and share online what they might mean. Many documents already were public but information had been redactedThe latest release of documents followed an order by President Donald Trump, though most of the records were made public previously with redactions. Before Tuesday, researchers had estimated that 3,000 to 3,500 files were still unreleased, either wholly or partially. Last month, the FBI said it had discovered about 2,400 new records related to the assassination. Jefferson Morley, vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a repository for files related to the assassination, said in a statement posted on the social platform X that much of the rampant overclassification of trivial information has been eliminated from the documents. A boon to historians of the Cold WarThe latest release also is a boon to historians of the Cold War. Timothy Natafali, an adjunct professor at Columbia University who is writing a book about JFKs presidency, said scholars now appear to have more details about U.S. intelligence activities under Kennedy than under any other president. For example, in October 1975, U.S. senators were investigating what the CIA knew about Oswald, and an October 1975 memo said they considered the agency not forthcoming. A version of that memo released in 2023 redacted the name of the CIAs security contact on Oswald in Mexico, as well as the identity of someone behind the penetration of the Cuban embassy there. The latest version shows that the security contact was the president of Mexico in 1975, Luis Echeverria Alvarez, who died in 2022, and that the Mexican government itself penetrated the Cuban embassy.Also, Nafatali said, before the latest release, the government had made public copies of President Lyndon B. Johnsons daily checklist of highly sensitive foreign intelligence in the days after Kennedys assassination, but with much of the material redacted. Now, he said, people can read what Johnson read.Its quite remarkable to be able to walk through that secret world, he said. Some records provide small details about covert operationsDocuments show that in December 1963, the CIA directors office was receiving messages from and replying to operatives in Cuba seeking to undermine the government under Fidel Castro. One, on Dec. 9, 1963, relayed a message to the director from Cuba: TODAY RECD THE MAGNUM PISTOLS BUT NO BULLETS. Youre getting both a birds-eye view of U.S. foreign policy, and youre also getting a snails eye view of covert action, right there on the ground, Nafatali said.In a previously released April 1975 memo, the CIA downplayed what it knew about Oswalds visit to Mexico City before the assassination. The memo said the CIA recorded three phone calls between Oswald and a guard at the Soviet embassy, but only in the last one did Oswald identify himself.Were now discovering how much more the CIA and the FBI knew before the assassination about Oswald, Shenon said. And the question is, why didnt they act on the information in their own files?____Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. JOHN HANNA Hanna covers politics and state government in Kansas for The Associated Press. Hes worked for the AP in Topeka since 1986. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08732-6VDAC2 deficiency elicits uncontrolled IFN-induced BAK activation and mitochondrial damage for improved cancer therapy.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08777-7Genomic evolutionary rates are decomposed to identify the dominant lineages and genes driving rate variation across the phylogeny of birds.

This image provided by NSFs NOIRLab shows the trails of stars above Kitt Peak National Observatory, where a telescope is mapping the universe to study a mysterious force called dark energy. (NSFs NoirLab via AP)2025-03-19T22:01:46Z NEW YORK (AP) Scientists are homing in on the nature of a mysterious force called dark energy, and nothing short of the fate of the universe hangs in the balance. The force is enormous it makes up nearly 70% of the universe. And it is powerful it is pushing all the stars and galaxies away from each other at an ever faster rate. And now scientists are getting a little closer to understanding how it behaves. The big question is whether this dark energy is a constant force, which scientists have long thought, or whether the force is weakening, a surprising wrinkle tentatively proposed last year. Results presented at a meeting of the American Physical Society Wednesday bolster the case that the force is weakening, though scientists are not yet certain and they still havent worked out what this means for the rest of their understanding of the universe. The updated findings come from an international research collaboration that is creating a three-dimensional map to see how galaxies have spread and clustered over 11 billion years of the universes history. Carefully tracking how galaxies move helps scientists learn about the forces that are moving them around. Called the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, the collaboration released its first analysis of 6 million galaxies and quasars last year and has now added more data, bringing the count to nearly 15 million. Their updated results, taken with other measurements exploding stars, leftover light from the young universe and distortions in galaxy shape support the idea presented last year that dark energy may be waning. Its moving from a really surprising finding to almost a moment where we have to throw out how weve thought about cosmology and start over, said Bhuvnesh Jain, a cosmologist with the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved with the research.Its not time to completely rule out the idea that dark energy is constant because the new results are still shy of the gold standard level of statistical proof physics requires. The collaboration aims to map around 50 million galaxies and quasars by the end of its survey in 2026. And other efforts around the globe have an eye on dark energy and aim to release their own data in the coming years, including the European Space Agencys Euclid mission and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. We want to see several different collaborations having similar measurements at that gold standard to be sure that dark energy is weakening, said cosmologist Kris Pardo with the University of Southern California who was not involved with the new research.If dark energy is constant, scientists say our universe may continue to expand forever, growing ever colder, lonelier and still.If dark energy ebbs with time, which now seems plausible, the universe could one day stop expanding and then eventually collapse on itself in whats called the Big Crunch. It might not seem like the cheeriest fate, but it offers some closure, said cosmologist and study collaborator Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki of the University of Texas at Dallas. Now, there is the possibility that everything comes to an end, he said. Would we consider that a good or bad thing? I dont know.-The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN Ramakrishnan is a science reporter for The Associated Press, based in New York. She covers research and new developments related to space, early human history and more. twitter mailto

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00816-7A network of quantum satellites that communicate with ground stations could offer a solution to enable a global quantum network. A quantum microsatellite that has been developed and launched can perform space-to-ground quantum communication using portable ground stations.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00802-zIn forest experiments, tree species capable of high rates of photosynthesis grow more slowly than species with lower maximum rates of photosynthesis with implications for tree-planting projects.

Jake Heinrichs hugs his wife, Rachel Chavkin, after speaking about early-stage Alzheimer's disease while inside their home in New York, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)2025-03-19T23:31:44Z An experimental treatment appears to delay Alzheimers symptoms in some people genetically destined to get the disease in their 40s or 50s, according to new findings from ongoing research now caught up in Trump administration funding delays.The early results a scientific first were published Wednesday even as study participants worried that politics could cut their access to a possible lifeline.Its still a study but it has given me an extension to my life that I never banked on having, said Jake Heinrichs of New York City.Now 50, Heinrichs has been treated in that study for more than a decade and remains symptom-free despite inheriting an Alzheimers-causing gene that killed his father and brother around the same age.If blocked funding stops Heinrichs doses, how much time do we have? asked his wife, Rachel Chavkin. This trial is life. Two drugs sold in the U.S. can modestly slow worsening of early-stage Alzheimers by clearing the brain of one of its hallmarks, a sticky gunk called amyloid. But until now, there havent been hints that removing amyloid far earlier many years before the first symptoms appear just might postpone the disease. The research led by Washington University in St. Louis involves families that pass down rare gene mutations almost guaranteeing theyll develop symptoms at the same age their affected relatives did information that helps scientists tell if treatments are having any effect. The new findings center on a subset of 22 participants who received amyloid-removing drugs the longest, on average eight years. Long-term amyloid removal cut in half their risk of symptom onset, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Lancet Neurology.Despite the studys small size, its incredibly important, said Northwestern University neuroscientist David Gate, who wasnt involved with the research. Now participants have been switched from an earlier experimental drug to Leqembi, an IV treatment approved in the U.S., to try to answer the obvious next question.What we want to determine over the next five years is how strong is the protection, said Washington Universitys Dr. Randall Bateman, who directs the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimers Network of studies involving families with these rare genes. Will they ever get the symptoms of Alzheimers disease if we keep treating them?Heres the worry: Bateman raised money to start that confirmatory study while seeking National Institutes of Health funding for the full project but his grant has been delayed as required reviews were canceled. Its one example of how millions of dollars in research have been stalled as NIH grapples with funding restrictions and mass firings.At the same time researchers wonder if NIH will shift focus away from amyloid research after comments by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, nominated as the agencys new director.One of the reasons I think that we have not made progress in Alzheimers, as much as we ought to have, is because the NIH has not supported a sufficiently wide range of hypotheses, Bhattacharya told senators, responding to one who brought up an example of earlier science misconduct unrelated to current research. Scientists dont know exactly what causes Alzheimers, a mind-destroying disease that affects nearly 7 million Americans, mostly late in life. Whats clear is that silent changes occur in the brain at least two decades before the first symptoms -- and that sticky amyloid is a major contributor. At some point amyloid buildup appears to trigger a protein named tau to begin killing neurons, which drives cognitive decline.Tau-fighting drugs now are being tested. Researchers also are studying other factors including inflammation, the brains immune cells and certain viruses.NIHs focus expanded as researchers found more potential culprits. In 2013, NIHs National Institute on Aging funded 14 trials of possible Alzheimers drugs, over a third targeting amyloid. By last fall, there were 68 drug trials and about 18% targeted amyloid. Northwesterns Gate counts himself among scientists who think amyloid isnt everything, but said nothing has invalidated the amyloid hypothesis. He recently used brain tissue preserved from an old amyloid study to learn how immune cells called microglia can clear those plaques and then switch to helping the brain heal, possible clues for improving todays modest therapies.For now, amyloid clearly is implicated somehow and families with Alzheimers-causing genes are helping answer a critical question for anyone at risk: Can blocking amyloid buildup really stave off symptoms? Without NIH funding, Bateman said, that opportunity will be lost.Its absolutely insane, said longtime study participant June Ward, who lives near Asheville, North Carolina, and plans to ask friends to complain to lawmakers. Ward turns 64 in June and is healthy, two years older than when her mothers symptoms appeared. It is exciting to think about the possibility that Alzheimers disease might not be what gets me, she said.In New York, Heinrichs said he has hope that his 3-year-old son wont experience the stress and sorrow that I lived through as a young man to watch my father fade away.We need the NIH to be not politicized, added Chavkin, his wife. Its just about keeping people alive or helping them live better. And in this case, its helping my husband survive.-The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. SHELBY LUM Lum is an Associated Press video journalist based in New York. She is on the APs Health and Science team. instagram mailto

Education Secretary Linda McMahon arrives before President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)2025-03-19T22:50:05Z WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday calling for the shutdown of the U.S. Education Department, according to a White House official, advancing a campaign promise to eliminate an agency thats been a longtime target of conservatives. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity before an announcement. Trump has derided the Department of Education as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, finalizing its dismantling is likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.A White House fact sheet said the order would direct Secretary Linda McMahon to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely. The Trump administration has already been gutting the agency through layoffs and program cuts. Its workforce is being slashed in half and there have been deep cuts to the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nations academic progress. The department sends billions of dollars a year to schools and oversees $1.6 trillion in federal student loans.Currently, much of the agencys work revolves around managing money both its extensive student loan portfolio and a range of aid programs for colleges and school districts, from school meals to support for homeless students. The agency also plays a significant role in overseeing civil rights enforcement. Federal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets roughly 14%. The money often supports supplemental programs for vulnerable students, such as the McKinney-Vento program for homeless students or Title I for low-income schools. Colleges and universities are more reliant on money from Washington, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.Republicans have talked about closing the Education Department for decades, saying it wastes taxpayer money and inserts the federal government into decisions that should fall to states and schools. The idea has gained popularity recently as conservative parents groups demand more authority over their childrens schooling.In his platform, Trump promised to close the department and send it back to the states, where it belongs. Trump has cast the department as a hotbed of radicals, zealots and Marxists who overextend their reach through guidance and regulation.Yet even some of Trumps allies have questioned his power to close the agency without action from Congress, and there are doubts about its political popularity. The House considered an amendment to close the agency in 2023, but 60 Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it.During Trumps first term, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos sought to dramatically reduce the agencys budget and asked Congress to bundle all K-12 funding into block grants that give states more flexibility in how they spend federal money. It was rejected, with pushback from some Republicans.___The Associated Press education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. COLLIN BINKLEY Binkley covers the U.S. Education Department and federal education policy for The Associated Press, along with a wide range of issues from K-12 through higher education. twitter mailto CHRIS MEGERIAN Megerian covers the White House for The Associated Press. He previously wrote about the Russia investigation, climate change, law enforcement and politics in California and New Jersey. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00806-9The AMPA group of brain receptors have mostly been assumed to be calcium impermeable and so were not thought to contribute to the calcium-dependent mechanisms underlying learning and memory. Observations of calcium permeability in some AMPA-receptor subtypes now overturn those assumptions about these receptors properties and their roles in neuronal communication.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00581-7A Chinese team has transmitted quantum-encrypted images a record 12,900 kilometres.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08692-xUnder field conditions, acquisitive tree species generally grow slowly, whereas conservative species show generally higher realized growth, owing to their ability to tolerate unfavourable environmental conditions.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08725-5Itinerant magnetism in rhombohedral multilayer graphene shows a large excess entropy from magnetic fluctuations above its critical temperaturetypically only associated with local momentswhich implies the decoupling of charge and isospin degrees of freedom, and results in the isospin Pomeranchuk effect.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08685-wA process based on perovskite semiconductors is described to downscale micro-LEDs and nano-LEDs to below the conventional size limits, demonstrating average external quantum efficiencies maintained at around 20% across a wide range of pixel lengths.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00813-wSee images of another tiny display with pixels the size of a human hair.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08661-4Generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems can be optimized using TextGrad, a framework that performs optimization by backpropagating large-language-model-generated feedback; TextGrad enables optimization across diverse tasks, including radiotherapy treatment plans and molecule generation.

Nature, Published online: 19 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00800-1An analysis of peat from ancient wetlands provides a reconstruction of how sea level increased millennia ago and how it might rise again with global warming.