WASHINGTON (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">President Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;said Monday he’s taking over Washington's police department and activating 800 members of the National Guard in the hopes of reducing crime, even as city officials stressed crime is already falling in the nation’s capital.

The president, flanked by his attorney general, his defense secretary and the FBI director, said he was declaring a public safety emergency and his administration would be removing homeless encampments.

“We’re going to take our capital back,” Trump declared, adding he'd also be “getting rid of the slums.”

For Trump, the effort to take over public safety in Washington reflects an escalation of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/video/trump-says-there-will-be-strong-law-and-order-as-national-guard-faces-off-with-protesters-in-la-b8129d06adb34d52939dff416f8a7cea">his aggressive approach to law enforcement</a>. The District of Columbia’s status as a congressionally established federal district gives him a unique opportunity to push his tough-on-crime agenda, though he has not proposed solutions to the root causes of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/homelessness">homelessness</a>&nbsp;or crime.

Attorney General Pam Bondi will assume responsibility for Washington’s metro police department, Trump said, as he also railed against potholes and graffiti in the city and called them “embarrassing.” The president did not provide a timeline for the control of the police department, but he's limited to 30 days under statute.

As Trump spoke, demonstrators gathered outside the White House to protest his moves. And local officials rejected the Republican president's depiction of the district as crime-ridden and called his actions illegal.

“The administration’s actions are unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful,” District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said. “There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia."

Schwalb, a Democrat, said violent crime in the district reached historic 30-year lows last year and is down another 26% this year.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said she would follow the law regarding the “so-called emergency” even as she indicated that Trump's actions were a reason why the District of Columbia should be a state with legal protections from such actions.

“While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we’re totally surprised,” Bowser said.

The president dismissed the idea Washington needed to enlarge its 3,500-officer police force, even as he seeks to have more armed personnel going through the city with the goal of reducing crime.

“What you need is rules and regulations, and you need the right people to implement them,” he said.

Trump invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/district-of-columbia-trump-takeover-3b58c1efabf17db271dce582d9a09c6d">Home Rule Act</a>&nbsp;in an executive order to declare a “crime emergency” so his administration could take over the city's police force. He signed a directive for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to activate the National Guard.

While Trump has portrayed himself as a friend to law enforcement and enjoyed the political backing from many of their groups, he pardoned or commuted the sentences of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/projects/january-6-cases/">in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot</a>, including people convicted of assaulting police officers.

About 500 federal law enforcement officers are being tasked with deploying throughout the nation’s capital as part of Trump’s effort to combat crime, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

More than 100 FBI agents and about 40 agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are among federal law enforcement personnel being assigned to patrols in Washington, the person briefed on the plans said. The Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service are contributing officers.

The person was not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The Justice Department didn’t immediately have a comment Monday morning.

Bowser, a Democrat, has previously questioned the effectiveness of using the National Guard to enforce city laws and said the federal government could be far more helpful by funding more prosecutors or filling the 15 vacancies on the D.C. Superior Court, some of which have been open for years.

Bowser cannot activate the National Guard herself, but she can submit a request to the Pentagon.

“I just think that’s not the most efficient use of our Guard,” she said Sunday on MSNBC's “The Weekend,” acknowledging it is "the president’s call about how to deploy the Guard.”

Bowser noted that violent crime in Washington has decreased since&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/dc-homicides-unsolved-metropolitan-police-crime-victims-64b861dd5702a58cc4182ea094460340">a rise in 2023</a>. She stressed during a Monday news conference that she believed Trump's views of the city were shaped by the “challenging times” of the coronavirus pandemic, when he faced protests and crime spiked as the country began to recover from the outbreak.

Trump has emphasized the removal of Washington’s homeless population, though it was unclear where the thousands of people would go, and he did not give details at his news conference Monday.

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote Sunday in a social media post. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.”

Trump said last week that he was considering ways for the federal government to seize control of Washington, asserting that crime was “ridiculous” and the city was “unsafe,” after&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/washington-dc-crime-assault-doge-05aaaeb09d106ca1af673b46e89d60e1">the recent assault</a>&nbsp;of a high-profile member of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-doge-donald-trump-962778979dd35ea79d6092df9cb2cb56">the Department of Government Efficiency</a>.

<a href="https://mpdc.dc.gov/dailycrime">Police statistics</a>&nbsp;show homicides, robberies and burglaries are down this year when compared with this time in 2024. Overall, violent crime is down 26% compared with this time a year ago.

The president has criticized the district as full of “tents, squalor, filth, and Crime,” and he seems to have been set off by the attack on Edward Coristine, among the most visible figures of the bureaucracy-cutting effort known as DOGE. Police arrested two 15-year-olds in the attempted carjacking and said they were looking for others.

“This has to be the best run place in the country, not the worst run place in the country,” Trump said Wednesday.

He called Bowser “a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances.”

Trump has repeatedly suggested the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities. Doing so would require&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/district-of-columbia-trump-takeover-3b58c1efabf17db271dce582d9a09c6d">a repeal of the Home Rule Act</a>&nbsp;of 1973 in Congress, a step Trump said lawyers are examining.

Bowser acknowledged the law allows the president to take more control over the city's police, but only if certain conditions are met.

“None of those conditions exist in our city right now," she said. “We are not experiencing a spike in crime. In fact, we’re watching our crime numbers go down.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2025/8/1754924754534.png" alt="Crime in the District of Columbia became a hot-button issue after Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, an intern for Republican Rep. Ron Estes of Kansas, was&nbsp;fatally shot&nbsp;on June 30.-Image from White House video" />
 <figcaption>Crime in the District of Columbia became a hot-button issue after Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, an intern for Republican Rep. Ron Estes of Kansas, was&nbsp;fatally shot&nbsp;on June 30.-Image from White House video</figcaption>
 </figure><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">🚨 President Trump announces he is invoking the D.C. Home Rule Act to place the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and deploy the National Guard. &quot;This is Liberation Day in D.C. — and we&#39;re going to take our capital BACK.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/aqov60mrCW">pic.twitter.com/aqov60mrCW</a>&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1954916584176443592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2025/8/1754924379692.png" alt=" " />
 <figcaption> </figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">President Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;said Monday he’s taking over Washington's police department and activating 800 members of the National Guard in the hopes of reducing crime, even as city officials stressed crime is already falling in the nation’s capital.The president, flanked by his attorney general, his defense secretary and the FBI director, said he was declaring a public safety emergency and his administration would be removing homeless encampments.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">.<a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a>: &quot;We&#39;re declaring a public safety emergency in the District of Columbia — and <a href="https://twitter.com/AGPamBondi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AGPamBondi</a> is taking command of the Metropolitan Police Department as of this moment.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/aXP0n5l0dX">pic.twitter.com/aXP0n5l0dX</a>&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1954920633160331525?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">President Trump: &quot;I&#39;m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation&#39;s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor and worse. This is Liberation Day in DC and we&#39;re going to take our capital back. We&#39;re taking it back..&quot; <a href="https://t.co/JpoblecuoB">pic.twitter.com/JpoblecuoB</a>&mdash; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1954920835887620252?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">.<a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a> on Making D.C. Safe Again: &quot;We are going to be removing homeless encampments from all over our parks... We&#39;re getting rid of the people from underpasses and public spaces... We&#39;ll help them as much as you can help.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/Gu7O1ySWFz">pic.twitter.com/Gu7O1ySWFz</a>&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1954923844030074956?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">This is a major moment for our country! <a href="https://t.co/pMBhoSadNF">pic.twitter.com/pMBhoSadNF</a>&mdash; JD Vance (@JDVance) <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1954964022630961160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>“We’re going to take our capital back,” Trump declared, adding he'd also be “getting rid of the slums.”For Trump, the effort to take over public safety in Washington reflects an escalation of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/video/trump-says-there-will-be-strong-law-and-order-as-national-guard-faces-off-with-protesters-in-la-b8129d06adb34d52939dff416f8a7cea">his aggressive approach to law enforcement</a>. The District of Columbia’s status as a congressionally established federal district gives him a unique opportunity to push his tough-on-crime agenda, though he has not proposed solutions to the root causes of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/homelessness">homelessness</a>&nbsp;or crime.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">The murder rate in Washington, D.C. today is greater than Bogota, Mexico City, and more ⬇️ MAKE D.C. SAFE AGAIN! <a href="https://t.co/0L9SVfY1KG">pic.twitter.com/0L9SVfY1KG</a>&mdash; The White House (@WhiteHouse) <a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1954916458573832272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Attorney General Pam Bondi will assume responsibility for Washington’s metro police department, Trump said, as he also railed against potholes and graffiti in the city and called them “embarrassing.” The president did not provide a timeline for the control of the police department, but he's limited to 30 days under statute.As Trump spoke, demonstrators gathered outside the White House to protest his moves. And local officials rejected the Republican president's depiction of the district as crime-ridden and called his actions illegal.“The administration’s actions are unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful,” District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said. “There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia."Schwalb, a Democrat, said violent crime in the district reached historic 30-year lows last year and is down another 26% this year.Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said she would follow the law regarding the “so-called emergency” even as she indicated that Trump's actions were a reason why the District of Columbia should be a state with legal protections from such actions.“While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we’re totally surprised,” Bowser said.<h2>Combating crime</h2>The president dismissed the idea Washington needed to enlarge its 3,500-officer police force, even as he seeks to have more armed personnel going through the city with the goal of reducing crime.“What you need is rules and regulations, and you need the right people to implement them,” he said.Trump invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/district-of-columbia-trump-takeover-3b58c1efabf17db271dce582d9a09c6d">Home Rule Act</a>&nbsp;in an executive order to declare a “crime emergency” so his administration could take over the city's police force. He signed a directive for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to activate the National Guard.While Trump has portrayed himself as a friend to law enforcement and enjoyed the political backing from many of their groups, he pardoned or commuted the sentences of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/projects/january-6-cases/">in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot</a>, including people convicted of assaulting police officers.About 500 federal law enforcement officers are being tasked with deploying throughout the nation’s capital as part of Trump’s effort to combat crime, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.More than 100 FBI agents and about 40 agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are among federal law enforcement personnel being assigned to patrols in Washington, the person briefed on the plans said. The Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service are contributing officers.The person was not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The Justice Department didn’t immediately have a comment Monday morning.<h2>The National Guard</h2>Bowser, a Democrat, has previously questioned the effectiveness of using the National Guard to enforce city laws and said the federal government could be far more helpful by funding more prosecutors or filling the 15 vacancies on the D.C. Superior Court, some of which have been open for years.Bowser cannot activate the National Guard herself, but she can submit a request to the Pentagon.“I just think that’s not the most efficient use of our Guard,” she said Sunday on MSNBC's “The Weekend,” acknowledging it is "the president’s call about how to deploy the Guard.”Bowser noted that violent crime in Washington has decreased since&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/dc-homicides-unsolved-metropolitan-police-crime-victims-64b861dd5702a58cc4182ea094460340">a rise in 2023</a>. She stressed during a Monday news conference that she believed Trump's views of the city were shaped by the “challenging times” of the coronavirus pandemic, when he faced protests and crime spiked as the country began to recover from the outbreak.<h2>Focusing on homelessness</h2>Trump has emphasized the removal of Washington’s homeless population, though it was unclear where the thousands of people would go, and he did not give details at his news conference Monday.“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote Sunday in a social media post. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.”Trump said last week that he was considering ways for the federal government to seize control of Washington, asserting that crime was “ridiculous” and the city was “unsafe,” after&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/washington-dc-crime-assault-doge-05aaaeb09d106ca1af673b46e89d60e1">the recent assault</a>&nbsp;of a high-profile member of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-doge-donald-trump-962778979dd35ea79d6092df9cb2cb56">the Department of Government Efficiency</a>.<h2>Crime statistics</h2><a href="https://mpdc.dc.gov/dailycrime">Police statistics</a>&nbsp;show homicides, robberies and burglaries are down this year when compared with this time in 2024. Overall, violent crime is down 26% compared with this time a year ago.The president has criticized the district as full of “tents, squalor, filth, and Crime,” and he seems to have been set off by the attack on Edward Coristine, among the most visible figures of the bureaucracy-cutting effort known as DOGE. Police arrested two 15-year-olds in the attempted carjacking and said they were looking for others.“This has to be the best run place in the country, not the worst run place in the country,” Trump said Wednesday.He called Bowser “a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances.”Trump has repeatedly suggested the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities. Doing so would require&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/district-of-columbia-trump-takeover-3b58c1efabf17db271dce582d9a09c6d">a repeal of the Home Rule Act</a>&nbsp;of 1973 in Congress, a step Trump said lawyers are examining.Bowser acknowledged the law allows the president to take more control over the city's police, but only if certain conditions are met.“None of those conditions exist in our city right now," she said. “We are not experiencing a spike in crime. In fact, we’re watching our crime numbers go down.”___

🎥Trump places D.C. police under federal control, deploys troops

Deputy Elijah Ming's funeral service will be held Monday, August 11, at Children's Mercy Park, 1 Sporting Way, Kansas City, Kansas.

The service is open to the public and will begin at 11:00 AM. Parking lots will open at 9:00 AM with stadium gates opening at 9:30 AM. 

Attendees should approach Children’s Mercy Park from State Ave. Public parking will be located on the south side of the stadium in Blue Lot 2 on the grounds of the Kansas Speedway. 

Please, be aware that Village West Parkway and France Family Drive will be closed to public traffic. There will be a Law Enforcement Processional starting 30 minutes following the service, at approximately 1:30 PM. 

The route is posted below. Residents and businesses are invited to line the procession route and to display blue ribbons or signs of support for Deputy Ming’s family.

• East On France Family• South on Village West Pkwy• East on State Ave• South on I-435• East on I-70• North on N. 7th St.• West on State Ave• Ends at N. 94th St. and State AveBurial services will be private.

Deputy Ming’s service will be livestreamed on the Unified Government’s YouTube channel for those unable to attend in person.Livestream Access Link:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwZf6B6O7uA">Honoring the Life of Fallen Deputy Elijah Ming - YouTube</a>

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2025/7/1753612145888.png" alt="Deputy Elijah MIng courtesy photo" />
 <figcaption>Deputy Elijah MIng courtesy photo</figcaption>
 </figure>Click below to watch the service.<div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/cwZf6B6O7uA?si=PNiBbm8-SwMlNoQ-&amp;controls=0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>Deputy Elijah Ming's funeral service will be held Monday, August 11, at Children's Mercy Park, 1 Sporting Way, Kansas City, Kansas.The service is open to the public and will begin at 11:00 AM. Parking lots will open at 9:00 AM with stadium gates opening at 9:30 AM. Attendees should approach Children’s Mercy Park from State Ave. Public parking will be located on the south side of the stadium in Blue Lot 2 on the grounds of the Kansas Speedway. Please, be aware that Village West Parkway and France Family Drive will be closed to public traffic. There will be a Law Enforcement Processional starting 30 minutes following the service, at approximately 1:30 PM. The route is posted below. Residents and businesses are invited to line the procession route and to display blue ribbons or signs of support for Deputy Ming’s family.The route is as follows -• East On France Family• South on Village West Pkwy• East on State Ave• South on I-435• East on I-70• North on N. 7th St.• West on State Ave• Ends at N. 94th St. and State AveBurial services will be private.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2025/8/1754906856069.png" alt=" " />
 <figcaption> </figcaption>
 </figure>Deputy Ming’s service will be livestreamed on the Unified Government’s YouTube channel for those unable to attend in person.Livestream Access Link:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwZf6B6O7uA">Honoring the Life of Fallen Deputy Elijah Ming - YouTube</a>

🎥Funeral service honoring life of Deputy Elijah Ming

By TONY GUERRERO Hays Post

The Ellis County Commission will review the fourth draft of the 2026 budget during its 8:30 a.m. meeting Tuesday.

This is the last chance for the commission to make changes before the proposed budget is published. After publication, a public hearing on the revenue-neutral rate and budget will be set for Sept. 9.

During last week’s meeting, the commission discussed High Plains Mental Health’s funding request of about $378,600 and its plan to honor it.

<a href="https://hayspost.com/posts/214198c7-e910-476d-b7b7-6c39644d6eb9">SEE RELATED STORY: Ellis County Commission readjusts 2026 funding; discusses 1 mill tax hike</a>

Request for proposal for appraisal contract services

The Ellis County Appraiser's Office is seeking approval to enter into a consulting agreement with Equitable Solutions for commercial and industrial income and expense analysis services.

The proposal also includes staff training to eventually bring the service in-house and eliminate the need for a contractor by 2027.

This request comes after the retirement of the county’s longtime contractor earlier this year. The goal for 2026 is for the appraisal staff to handle most of the analysis with Equitable Solutions offering limited guidance.

The total cost is $21,000 and would be paid in three installments. The expense will be covered from the appraiser's 2025 general fund and the capital reserve fund.

Commissioners will receive an update from Mike Thomas, vice president of WoodRiver Energy, on the option to lock in natural gas rates for county facilities. The aim is to protect against price surges like those seen during the February 2021 cold spell, when rates exceeded $600 per million British thermal units.

The commission will decide between one to three-year fixed rate options. The current price rate for Ellis County is $5.65.

The commission will be asked to approve a waived fee of about $500 in waste disposal for the upcoming Volga German Oktoberfest, scheduled for Sept. 26 and 27 in Hays.

Commissioners will also be asked to approve an updated job description for the Noxious Weed Department, including the addition of a new position level. This change aims to align with stricter state certification requirements and improve employee retention.&nbsp;No new positions would be created.

You can view the full agenda <a href="https://www.ellisco.net/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_08122025-692">here</a>.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/5/1684183971486.png" alt="Ellis County" />
 <figcaption>Ellis County</figcaption>
 </figure>By TONY GUERRERO Hays PostThe Ellis County Commission will review the fourth draft of the 2026 budget during its 8:30 a.m. meeting Tuesday.This is the last chance for the commission to make changes before the proposed budget is published. After publication, a public hearing on the revenue-neutral rate and budget will be set for Sept. 9.During last week’s meeting, the commission discussed High Plains Mental Health’s funding request of about $378,600 and its plan to honor it.<a href="https://hayspost.com/posts/214198c7-e910-476d-b7b7-6c39644d6eb9">SEE RELATED STORY: Ellis County Commission readjusts 2026 funding; discusses 1 mill tax hike</a><h2>Request for proposal for appraisal contract services</h2>The Ellis County Appraiser's Office is seeking approval to enter into a consulting agreement with Equitable Solutions for commercial and industrial income and expense analysis services.The proposal also includes staff training to eventually bring the service in-house and eliminate the need for a contractor by 2027.This request comes after the retirement of the county’s longtime contractor earlier this year. The goal for 2026 is for the appraisal staff to handle most of the analysis with Equitable Solutions offering limited guidance.The total cost is $21,000 and would be paid in three installments. The expense will be covered from the appraiser's 2025 general fund and the capital reserve fund.<h2>Natural gas pricing</h2>Commissioners will receive an update from Mike Thomas, vice president of WoodRiver Energy, on the option to lock in natural gas rates for county facilities. The aim is to protect against price surges like those seen during the February 2021 cold spell, when rates exceeded $600 per million British thermal units.The commission will decide between one to three-year fixed rate options. The current price rate for Ellis County is $5.65.<h2>Other business</h2>The commission will be asked to approve a waived fee of about $500 in waste disposal for the upcoming Volga German Oktoberfest, scheduled for Sept. 26 and 27 in Hays.Commissioners will also be asked to approve an updated job description for the Noxious Weed Department, including the addition of a new position level. This change aims to align with stricter state certification requirements and improve employee retention.&nbsp;No new positions would be created.You can view the full agenda <a href="https://www.ellisco.net/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_08122025-692">here</a>.

Ellis County Commission to discuss fourth 2026 budget draft

WASHINGTON (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">President Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;is promising new steps to tackle&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/washington-district-takeover-trump-crime-d0ebfa76584753635327d792f6c0b8fc">homelessness and crime in Washington</a>, prompting the city's mayor to voice concerns about the potential use of the National Guard to patrol the streets in the nation's capital.

Trump wrote in a social media post that he planned a White House news conference at 10 a.m. Monday to discuss his plans to make the District of Columbia “safer and more beautiful than it ever was before.”

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote Sunday. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.”

Last week the Republican president&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-washington-increased-federal-law-enforcement-takeover-33b186a95dabf111bac61db398aa7543">directed federal law enforcement agencies</a>&nbsp;to increase their presence in Washington for seven days, with the option “to extend as needed.”

On Friday night, federal agencies including the Secret Service, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service assigned more than&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-washington-increased-federal-law-enforcement-takeover-33b186a95dabf111bac61db398aa7543">120 officers and agents</a>&nbsp;to assist in Washington.

Trump said last week that he was considering ways for the federal government to seize control of Washington, asserting that crime was “ridiculous” and the city was “unsafe,” after the recent&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/washington-dc-crime-assault-doge-05aaaeb09d106ca1af673b46e89d60e1">assault</a>&nbsp;of a high-profile member of the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-doge-donald-trump-962778979dd35ea79d6092df9cb2cb56">Department of Government Efficiency</a>.

The moves Trump said he was considering included bringing in the D.C. National Guard.

Mayor Muriel Bowser questioned the effectiveness of using the Guard to enforce city laws and said the federal government could be far more helpful by funding more prosecutors or filling the 15 vacancies on the D.C. Superior Court, some of which have been open for years.

Bowser was making her first public comments since Trump started posting about crime in Washington last week. She noted that violent crime in Washington has decreased since a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/dc-homicides-unsolved-metropolitan-police-crime-victims-64b861dd5702a58cc4182ea094460340">rise in 2023</a>. Trump's weekend posts depicted the district as “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World."

For Bowser, “Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false.”

<a href="https://mpdc.dc.gov/dailycrime">Police statistics</a>&nbsp;show homicides, robberies and burglaries are all down this year when compared with this time in 2024. Overall violent crime is down 26% compared with this time a year ago.

Trump offered no details in Truth Social posts over the weekend about possible new actions to address crime levels that he argues are dangerous for citizens, tourists and workers alike. The White House declined to offer additional details about Monday's announcement.

The police department and the mayor’s office did not respond to questions about what Trump might do next.

The president criticized the district as full of “tents, squalor, filth, and Crime,” and he seems to have been set off by the attack on Edward Coristine, among the most visible figures of the bureaucracy-cutting effort known as DOGE. Police arrested two 15-year-olds in the attempted carjacking and said they were looking for others.

The president called Bowser “a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances.”

Trump has repeatedly suggested that the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities. Doing so would require a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/district-of-columbia-trump-takeover-3b58c1efabf17db271dce582d9a09c6d">repeal of the Home Rule Act</a>&nbsp;of 1973 in Congress, a step Trump said lawyers are examining. It could face steep pushback.

Bowser acknowledged that the law allows the president to take more control over the city's police, but only if certain conditions are met.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2025/8/1754872804646.png" alt="&nbsp;President Trump seen on Sunday in the White House residence room&nbsp; -image courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>&nbsp;President Trump seen on Sunday in the White House residence room&nbsp; -image courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">President Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;is promising new steps to tackle&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/washington-district-takeover-trump-crime-d0ebfa76584753635327d792f6c0b8fc">homelessness and crime in Washington</a>, prompting the city's mayor to voice concerns about the potential use of the National Guard to patrol the streets in the nation's capital.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://t.co/Z9AfU5PVvW">pic.twitter.com/Z9AfU5PVvW</a>&mdash; Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) <a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1954877370625823191?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://t.co/IpKXCkTbJ7">pic.twitter.com/IpKXCkTbJ7</a>&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1954878435182235906?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://t.co/mgqy6fCsIw">pic.twitter.com/mgqy6fCsIw</a>&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1954560175941025915?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">President Trump will hold a press conference at 10AM ET tomorrow in the Briefing Room. Tune in! <a href="https://t.co/MFQNX2yeW5">pic.twitter.com/MFQNX2yeW5</a>&mdash; Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) <a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1954714380131533056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Trump wrote in a social media post that he planned a White House news conference at 10 a.m. Monday to discuss his plans to make the District of Columbia “safer and more beautiful than it ever was before.”“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote Sunday. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.”<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Reactions on Day One of increased federal law enforcement in D.C.: &quot;It&#39;s awesome that we have extra police presence to keep everybody safe and have them coming back.&quot; &quot;If it&#39;s going to stop the crime, yeah — it&#39;s necessary.&quot; MAKE D.C. SAFE AGAIN! <a href="https://t.co/ExZOaLxizM">pic.twitter.com/ExZOaLxizM</a>&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1954287936318681233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Last week the Republican president&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-washington-increased-federal-law-enforcement-takeover-33b186a95dabf111bac61db398aa7543">directed federal law enforcement agencies</a>&nbsp;to increase their presence in Washington for seven days, with the option “to extend as needed.”On Friday night, federal agencies including the Secret Service, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service assigned more than&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-washington-increased-federal-law-enforcement-takeover-33b186a95dabf111bac61db398aa7543">120 officers and agents</a>&nbsp;to assist in Washington.Trump said last week that he was considering ways for the federal government to seize control of Washington, asserting that crime was “ridiculous” and the city was “unsafe,” after the recent&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/washington-dc-crime-assault-doge-05aaaeb09d106ca1af673b46e89d60e1">assault</a>&nbsp;of a high-profile member of the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-doge-donald-trump-962778979dd35ea79d6092df9cb2cb56">Department of Government Efficiency</a>.The moves Trump said he was considering included bringing in the D.C. National Guard.Mayor Muriel Bowser questioned the effectiveness of using the Guard to enforce city laws and said the federal government could be far more helpful by funding more prosecutors or filling the 15 vacancies on the D.C. Superior Court, some of which have been open for years.Bowser cannot activate the National Guard herself, but she can submit a request to the Pentagon.“I just think that’s not the most efficient use of our Guard,” she said Sunday on MSNBC's “The Weekend,” acknowledging it is "the president’s call about how to deploy the Guard.”Bowser was making her first public comments since Trump started posting about crime in Washington last week. She noted that violent crime in Washington has decreased since a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/dc-homicides-unsolved-metropolitan-police-crime-victims-64b861dd5702a58cc4182ea094460340">rise in 2023</a>. Trump's weekend posts depicted the district as “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World."For Bowser, “Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false.”<a href="https://mpdc.dc.gov/dailycrime">Police statistics</a>&nbsp;show homicides, robberies and burglaries are all down this year when compared with this time in 2024. Overall violent crime is down 26% compared with this time a year ago.Trump offered no details in Truth Social posts over the weekend about possible new actions to address crime levels that he argues are dangerous for citizens, tourists and workers alike. The White House declined to offer additional details about Monday's announcement.The police department and the mayor’s office did not respond to questions about what Trump might do next.The president criticized the district as full of “tents, squalor, filth, and Crime,” and he seems to have been set off by the attack on Edward Coristine, among the most visible figures of the bureaucracy-cutting effort known as DOGE. Police arrested two 15-year-olds in the attempted carjacking and said they were looking for others.“This has to be the best run place in the country, not the worst run place in the country,” Trump said Wednesday.The president called Bowser “a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances.”Trump has repeatedly suggested that the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities. Doing so would require a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/district-of-columbia-trump-takeover-3b58c1efabf17db271dce582d9a09c6d">repeal of the Home Rule Act</a>&nbsp;of 1973 in Congress, a step Trump said lawyers are examining. It could face steep pushback.Bowser acknowledged that the law allows the president to take more control over the city's police, but only if certain conditions are met.“None of those conditions exist in our city right now," she said. “We are not experiencing a spike in crime. In fact, we’re watching our crime numbers go down.”___

'No Mr. Nice Guy': Trump set to clean up Washington, D.C.

The Bricks in downtown Hays has a new executive director. On this episode of the Hays Post Podcast, news reporter Becky Kiser talks with Lee Ann June and Ben Dome, operations director.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2025/7/1751574667181.jpeg" alt="Lee Ann June. Photo courtesy of The Bricks in Downtown Hays" />
 <figcaption>Lee Ann June. Photo courtesy of The Bricks in Downtown Hays</figcaption>
 </figure><div><iframe title="Post Podcast: New executive director of The Bricks Lee Ann June" allowtransparency="true" height="300" width="100%" style="border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);height:300px;" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player" src="https://www.podbean.com/player-v2/?from=embed&i=hct6t-19261f1-pb&square=1&share=1&download=1&fonts=Arial&skin=3267a3&font-color=auto&rtl=0&logo_link=podcast_page&btn-skin=60a0c8&size=300" loading="lazy" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>The Bricks in downtown Hays has a new executive director. On this episode of the Hays Post Podcast, news reporter Becky Kiser talks with Lee Ann June and Ben Dome, operations director.

🎙Post Podcast: New executive director of The Bricks Lee Ann June

A train derailment Sunday left Halstead Avenue closed between 4th and 11th avenues in Hutchinson, with no timeline for reopening.

According to Hutchinson Police, three empty railcars derailed, blocking the roadway.&nbsp;Drivers are advised to use alternate routes until the area is reopened.

No injuries were reported in connection with the incident.

Check the Post for more information as it becomes available.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2025/8/1754864222337.jpeg" alt="Photo courtesy Ryan Leonard " />
 <figcaption>Photo courtesy Ryan Leonard </figcaption>
 </figure>MARC JACOBS Hutch Post&nbsp;A train derailment Sunday left Halstead Avenue closed between 4th and 11th avenues in Hutchinson, with no timeline for reopening.According to Hutchinson Police, three empty railcars derailed, blocking the roadway.&nbsp;Drivers are advised to use alternate routes until the area is reopened.No injuries were reported in connection with the incident.Check the Post for more information as it becomes available.&nbsp;

Train derailment blocks streets in Hutchinson

Lesley Mathis knows what her daughter said was wrong. But she never expected the 13-year-old girl would get arrested for it.

The teenage girl made an offensive joke while chatting online with her classmates, triggering the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-school-chromebook-gaggle-goguardian-securly-25a3946727397951fd42324139aaf70f">school’s surveillance software</a>.

Before the morning was even over, the Tennessee eighth grader was under arrest. She was interrogated, strip-searched and spent the night in a jail cell, her mother says.

Earlier in the day, her friends had teased the teen about her tanned complexion and called her “Mexican,” even though she’s not. When a friend asked what she was planning for Thursday, she wrote: “on Thursday we kill all the Mexico’s.”

Mathis said the comments were “wrong” and “stupid,” but context showed they were not a threat.

“It made me feel like, is this the America we live in?” Mathis said of her daughter's arrest. “And it was this stupid, stupid technology that is just going through picking up random words and not looking at context.”

Surveillance systems in American schools increasingly monitor everything students write on school accounts and devices.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-school-chromebook-surveillance-gaggle-investigation-takeaways-381fa82978f27eb85f20d03236820711">Thousands of school districts</a>&nbsp;across the country use software like Gaggle and Lightspeed Alert to track kids’ online activities, looking for signs they might hurt themselves or others. With the help of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-school-shooting-threat-prevention-bark-c7e89f29b13d0a8470ee44b91d7651ed">artificial intelligence</a>, technology can dip into online conversations and immediately notify both school officials and law enforcement.

Educators say the technology has saved lives. But critics warn it can criminalize children for careless words.

"It has routinized law enforcement access and presence in students’ lives, including in their home,” said Elizabeth Laird, a director at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

In a country weary of school shootings, several states have taken a harder line on threats to schools. Among them is Tennessee, which passed a 2023 zero-tolerance law requiring any threat of mass violence against a school to be reported immediately to law enforcement.

The 13-year-old girl arrested in August 2023 had been texting with friends on a chat function tied to her school email at Fairview Middle School, which uses Gaggle to monitor students' accounts. (The Associated Press is withholding the girl’s name to protect her privacy. The school district did not respond to a request for comment.)

Taken to jail, the teen was interrogated and strip-searched, and her parents weren't allowed to talk to her until the next day, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tnmd.99558/gov.uscourts.tnmd.99558.14.0.pdf">lawsuit</a>&nbsp;they filed against the school system. She didn’t know why her parents weren’t there.

“She told me afterwards, ‘I thought you hated me.’ That kind of haunts you,” said Mathis, the girl's mother.

A court ordered eight weeks of house arrest, a psychological evaluation and 20 days at an alternative school for the girl.

Gaggle's CEO, Jeff Patterson, said in an interview that the school system did not use Gaggle the way it is intended. The purpose is to find early warning signs and intervene before problems escalate to law enforcement, he said.

“I wish that was treated as a teachable moment, not a law enforcement moment,” said Patterson.

Private student chats face unexpected scrutiny

Students who think they are chatting privately among friends often do not realize they are under constant surveillance, said Shahar Pasch, an education lawyer in Florida.

One teenage girl she represented made a joke about school shootings on a private Snapchat story. Snapchat’s automated detection software picked up the comment, the company alerted the FBI, and the girl was arrested on school grounds within hours.

Alexa Manganiotis, 16, said she was startled by how quickly monitoring software works. West Palm Beach's Dreyfoos School of the Arts, which she attends, last year piloted&nbsp;<a href="https://www.themuseatdreyfoos.com/news/2024/12/05/district-pilots-ai-student-surveillance-program/">Lightspeed Alert</a>, a surveillance program. Interviewing a teacher for her school newspaper, Alexa discovered two students once typed something threatening about that teacher on a school computer, then deleted it. Lightspeed picked it up, and “they were taken away like five minutes later,” Alexa said.

Teenagers face steeper consequences than adults for what they write online, Alexa said.

“If an adult makes a super racist joke that’s threatening on their computer, they can delete it, and they wouldn’t be arrested," she said.

Amy Bennett, chief of staff for Lightspeed Systems, said that the software helps understaffed schools “be proactive rather than punitive” by identifying early warning signs of bullying, self-harm, violence or abuse.

The technology can also involve law enforcement in responses to mental health crises. In Florida's Polk County Schools, a district of more than 100,000 students, the school safety program received nearly 500 Gaggle alerts over four years, officers said in public Board of Education meetings. This led to 72 involuntary hospitalization cases under the Baker Act, a state law that allows authorities to require mental health evaluations for people against their will if they pose a risk to themselves or others.

“A really high number of children who experience involuntary examination remember it as a really traumatic and damaging experience — not something that helps them with their mental health care,” said Sam Boyd, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Polk and West Palm Beach school districts did not provide comments.

An analysis shows a high rate of false alarms

Information that could allow schools to assess the software’s effectiveness, such as the rate of false alerts, is closely held by technology companies and unavailable publicly unless schools track the data themselves.

Gaggle alerted more than 1,200 incidents to the Lawrence, Kansas, school district in a recent 10-month period. But almost two-thirds of those alerts were deemed by school officials to be nonissues — including over 200 false alarms from student homework, according to an Associated Press analysis of data received via a public records request.

Students in one&nbsp;<a href="https://lhsbudget.com/news/2024/02/09/art-students-push-back-against-potential-gaggle-censorship/">photography class</a>&nbsp;were called to the principal’s office over concerns Gaggle had detected nudity. The photos had been automatically deleted from the students’ Google Drives, but students who had backups of the flagged images on their own devices showed it was a false alarm. District officials said they later adjusted the software's settings to reduce false alerts.

Natasha Torkzaban, who graduated in 2024, said she was flagged for editing a friend’s college essay because it had the words “mental health.”

“I think ideally we wouldn’t stick a new and shiny solution of AI on a deep-rooted issue of teenage mental health and the suicide rates in America, but that’s where we’re at right now,” Torkzaban said. She was among a group of student journalists and artists at Lawrence High School who filed a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26040279-lawrence-board-of-education-gaggle-complaint/">lawsuit</a>&nbsp;against the school system last week, alleging Gaggle subjected them to unconstitutional surveillance.

School officials have said they take concerns about Gaggle seriously, but also say the technology has detected dozens of imminent threats of suicide or violence.

“Sometimes you have to look at the trade for the greater good,” said Board of Education member Anne Costello in a July 2024 board meeting.

Two years after their ordeal, Mathis said her daughter is doing better, although she’s still “terrified” of running into one of the school officers who arrested her. One bright spot, she said, was the compassion of the teachers at her daughter’s alternative school. They took time every day to let the kids share their feelings and frustrations, without judgment.

“It’s like we just want kids to be these little soldiers, and they’re not,” said Mathis. “They’re just humans.”

This reporting reviewed school board meetings posted on YouTube, courtesy of DistrictView, a dataset created by researchers Tyler Simko, Mirya Holman and Rebecca Johnson.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2025/8/1754772171917.png" alt="Google image" />
 <figcaption>Google image</figcaption>
 </figure>By SHARON LURYE AP Education WriterLesley Mathis knows what her daughter said was wrong. But she never expected the 13-year-old girl would get arrested for it.The teenage girl made an offensive joke while chatting online with her classmates, triggering the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-school-chromebook-gaggle-goguardian-securly-25a3946727397951fd42324139aaf70f">school’s surveillance software</a>.Before the morning was even over, the Tennessee eighth grader was under arrest. She was interrogated, strip-searched and spent the night in a jail cell, her mother says.Earlier in the day, her friends had teased the teen about her tanned complexion and called her “Mexican,” even though she’s not. When a friend asked what she was planning for Thursday, she wrote: “on Thursday we kill all the Mexico’s.”Mathis said the comments were “wrong” and “stupid,” but context showed they were not a threat.“It made me feel like, is this the America we live in?” Mathis said of her daughter's arrest. “And it was this stupid, stupid technology that is just going through picking up random words and not looking at context.”Surveillance systems in American schools increasingly monitor everything students write on school accounts and devices.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-school-chromebook-surveillance-gaggle-investigation-takeaways-381fa82978f27eb85f20d03236820711">Thousands of school districts</a>&nbsp;across the country use software like Gaggle and Lightspeed Alert to track kids’ online activities, looking for signs they might hurt themselves or others. With the help of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-school-shooting-threat-prevention-bark-c7e89f29b13d0a8470ee44b91d7651ed">artificial intelligence</a>, technology can dip into online conversations and immediately notify both school officials and law enforcement.Educators say the technology has saved lives. But critics warn it can criminalize children for careless words."It has routinized law enforcement access and presence in students’ lives, including in their home,” said Elizabeth Laird, a director at the Center for Democracy and Technology.<h2>Schools ratchet up vigilance for threats</h2>In a country weary of school shootings, several states have taken a harder line on threats to schools. Among them is Tennessee, which passed a 2023 zero-tolerance law requiring any threat of mass violence against a school to be reported immediately to law enforcement.The 13-year-old girl arrested in August 2023 had been texting with friends on a chat function tied to her school email at Fairview Middle School, which uses Gaggle to monitor students' accounts. (The Associated Press is withholding the girl’s name to protect her privacy. The school district did not respond to a request for comment.)Taken to jail, the teen was interrogated and strip-searched, and her parents weren't allowed to talk to her until the next day, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tnmd.99558/gov.uscourts.tnmd.99558.14.0.pdf">lawsuit</a>&nbsp;they filed against the school system. She didn’t know why her parents weren’t there.“She told me afterwards, ‘I thought you hated me.’ That kind of haunts you,” said Mathis, the girl's mother.A court ordered eight weeks of house arrest, a psychological evaluation and 20 days at an alternative school for the girl.Gaggle's CEO, Jeff Patterson, said in an interview that the school system did not use Gaggle the way it is intended. The purpose is to find early warning signs and intervene before problems escalate to law enforcement, he said.“I wish that was treated as a teachable moment, not a law enforcement moment,” said Patterson.<h2>Private student chats face unexpected scrutiny</h2>Students who think they are chatting privately among friends often do not realize they are under constant surveillance, said Shahar Pasch, an education lawyer in Florida.One teenage girl she represented made a joke about school shootings on a private Snapchat story. Snapchat’s automated detection software picked up the comment, the company alerted the FBI, and the girl was arrested on school grounds within hours.Alexa Manganiotis, 16, said she was startled by how quickly monitoring software works. West Palm Beach's Dreyfoos School of the Arts, which she attends, last year piloted&nbsp;<a href="https://www.themuseatdreyfoos.com/news/2024/12/05/district-pilots-ai-student-surveillance-program/">Lightspeed Alert</a>, a surveillance program. Interviewing a teacher for her school newspaper, Alexa discovered two students once typed something threatening about that teacher on a school computer, then deleted it. Lightspeed picked it up, and “they were taken away like five minutes later,” Alexa said.Teenagers face steeper consequences than adults for what they write online, Alexa said.“If an adult makes a super racist joke that’s threatening on their computer, they can delete it, and they wouldn’t be arrested," she said.Amy Bennett, chief of staff for Lightspeed Systems, said that the software helps understaffed schools “be proactive rather than punitive” by identifying early warning signs of bullying, self-harm, violence or abuse.The technology can also involve law enforcement in responses to mental health crises. In Florida's Polk County Schools, a district of more than 100,000 students, the school safety program received nearly 500 Gaggle alerts over four years, officers said in public Board of Education meetings. This led to 72 involuntary hospitalization cases under the Baker Act, a state law that allows authorities to require mental health evaluations for people against their will if they pose a risk to themselves or others.“A really high number of children who experience involuntary examination remember it as a really traumatic and damaging experience — not something that helps them with their mental health care,” said Sam Boyd, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Polk and West Palm Beach school districts did not provide comments.<h2>An analysis shows a high rate of false alarms</h2>Information that could allow schools to assess the software’s effectiveness, such as the rate of false alerts, is closely held by technology companies and unavailable publicly unless schools track the data themselves.Gaggle alerted more than 1,200 incidents to the Lawrence, Kansas, school district in a recent 10-month period. But almost two-thirds of those alerts were deemed by school officials to be nonissues — including over 200 false alarms from student homework, according to an Associated Press analysis of data received via a public records request.Students in one&nbsp;<a href="https://lhsbudget.com/news/2024/02/09/art-students-push-back-against-potential-gaggle-censorship/">photography class</a>&nbsp;were called to the principal’s office over concerns Gaggle had detected nudity. The photos had been automatically deleted from the students’ Google Drives, but students who had backups of the flagged images on their own devices showed it was a false alarm. District officials said they later adjusted the software's settings to reduce false alerts.Natasha Torkzaban, who graduated in 2024, said she was flagged for editing a friend’s college essay because it had the words “mental health.”“I think ideally we wouldn’t stick a new and shiny solution of AI on a deep-rooted issue of teenage mental health and the suicide rates in America, but that’s where we’re at right now,” Torkzaban said. She was among a group of student journalists and artists at Lawrence High School who filed a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26040279-lawrence-board-of-education-gaggle-complaint/">lawsuit</a>&nbsp;against the school system last week, alleging Gaggle subjected them to unconstitutional surveillance.School officials have said they take concerns about Gaggle seriously, but also say the technology has detected dozens of imminent threats of suicide or violence.“Sometimes you have to look at the trade for the greater good,” said Board of Education member Anne Costello in a July 2024 board meeting.Two years after their ordeal, Mathis said her daughter is doing better, although she’s still “terrified” of running into one of the school officers who arrested her. One bright spot, she said, was the compassion of the teachers at her daughter’s alternative school. They took time every day to let the kids share their feelings and frustrations, without judgment.“It’s like we just want kids to be these little soldiers, and they’re not,” said Mathis. “They’re just humans.”___This reporting reviewed school board meetings posted on YouTube, courtesy of DistrictView, a dataset created by researchers Tyler Simko, Mirya Holman and Rebecca Johnson.___

Students have been called to the office — and even arrested — for AI surveillance false alarms

By:&nbsp;<a href="https://missouriindependent.com/author/laurencross/">Lauren Cross</a>

If you live in a small town, you probably have fewer grocery stores than you did 30 years ago — and fewer choices inside them.

Independent grocers have disappeared, replaced by big national chains that now decide what’s on the shelves, how much it costs, and who gets to profit.

In 1990, the top four grocery chains controlled just 13% of nationwide sales. By 2019, the top four retailers — Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Ahold Delhaize — controlled 34% of U.S. grocery sales,&nbsp;<a href="https://ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/publications/106795/EIB-256.pdf?v=40605" target="_blank">according to the USDA</a>.

That concentration hasn’t gone unnoticed. Just last year, the Federal Trade Commission and nine states&nbsp;<a href="https://hpj.com/2024/02/26/ftc-sues-to-block-supermarket-merger/" target="_blank">sued to block a $25 billion merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons</a>, arguing that the deal would harm both shoppers and workers by reducing competition, increasing prices, and consolidating power into fewer hands. The merger has since unraveled, but only after a court battle and mounting public pressure.

In rural counties, market concentration more than doubled between 1990 and 2019, according to USDA data.

One way to measure concentration is the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), a tool used to track monopoly risk. In rural areas, HHI scores jumped from 3,104 to 5,584 — more than twice the threshold where federal antitrust regulators start to worry about competition. According to a 2023 USDA report, the USDA considers anything above 2,500 is considered highly concentrated.

Now that trend may speed up. The White House has proposed nearly $7 billion in USDA budget cuts, including $721 million from&nbsp;<a href="https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/05/14/trump-says-he-loves-farmers-hes-dismantlintheg-the-agency-helping-their-communities-survive/" target="_blank">Rural Development programs</a>&nbsp;— the ones that help small towns open grocery stores and other local businesses. One program on the chopping block is the Rural Business-Cooperative Service. Loan funding for community facilities and rural businesses would also drop by 45%, with no new grant dollars offered.

At the same time, the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative discusses improving nutrition, but proposes cuts to the very programs that help people buy food, including Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), school meal equipment, and farm-to-school efforts.

The bottom line? Rural communities already hit hardest by grocery consolidation are now facing even more roadblocks.

This&nbsp;<a href="https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/06/18/usda-data-highlights-monopoly-risk-in-rural-grocery-markets/" target="_blank">article</a>&nbsp;first appeared on&nbsp;<a href="https://investigatemidwest.org/" target="_blank">Investigate Midwest</a>&nbsp;and is republished here under a&nbsp;<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2025/6/1750436100569.png" alt=" General Manager Brian Horak walks down an aisle at Post 60 Market in Emerson, Nebraska. Locals opened the market as a cooperative in 2022 after the tiny town lost its only grocery store (Kevin Hardy/Stateline)." />
 <figcaption> General Manager Brian Horak walks down an aisle at Post 60 Market in Emerson, Nebraska. Locals opened the market as a cooperative in 2022 after the tiny town lost its only grocery store (Kevin Hardy/Stateline).</figcaption>
 </figure>By:&nbsp;<a href="https://missouriindependent.com/author/laurencross/">Lauren Cross</a>If you live in a small town, you probably have fewer grocery stores than you did 30 years ago — and fewer choices inside them.Independent grocers have disappeared, replaced by big national chains that now decide what’s on the shelves, how much it costs, and who gets to profit.In 1990, the top four grocery chains controlled just 13% of nationwide sales. By 2019, the top four retailers — Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Ahold Delhaize — controlled 34% of U.S. grocery sales,&nbsp;<a href="https://ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/publications/106795/EIB-256.pdf?v=40605" target="_blank">according to the USDA</a>.That concentration hasn’t gone unnoticed. Just last year, the Federal Trade Commission and nine states&nbsp;<a href="https://hpj.com/2024/02/26/ftc-sues-to-block-supermarket-merger/" target="_blank">sued to block a $25 billion merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons</a>, arguing that the deal would harm both shoppers and workers by reducing competition, increasing prices, and consolidating power into fewer hands. The merger has since unraveled, but only after a court battle and mounting public pressure.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2025/6/1750436058104.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>In rural counties, market concentration more than doubled between 1990 and 2019, according to USDA data.One way to measure concentration is the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), a tool used to track monopoly risk. In rural areas, HHI scores jumped from 3,104 to 5,584 — more than twice the threshold where federal antitrust regulators start to worry about competition. According to a 2023 USDA report, the USDA considers anything above 2,500 is considered highly concentrated.Now that trend may speed up. The White House has proposed nearly $7 billion in USDA budget cuts, including $721 million from&nbsp;<a href="https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/05/14/trump-says-he-loves-farmers-hes-dismantlintheg-the-agency-helping-their-communities-survive/" target="_blank">Rural Development programs</a>&nbsp;— the ones that help small towns open grocery stores and other local businesses. One program on the chopping block is the Rural Business-Cooperative Service. Loan funding for community facilities and rural businesses would also drop by 45%, with no new grant dollars offered.At the same time, the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative discusses improving nutrition, but proposes cuts to the very programs that help people buy food, including Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), school meal equipment, and farm-to-school efforts.The bottom line? Rural communities already hit hardest by grocery consolidation are now facing even more roadblocks.This&nbsp;<a href="https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/06/18/usda-data-highlights-monopoly-risk-in-rural-grocery-markets/" target="_blank">article</a>&nbsp;first appeared on&nbsp;<a href="https://investigatemidwest.org/" target="_blank">Investigate Midwest</a>&nbsp;and is republished here under a&nbsp;<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<figure>
 <img src="https://investigatemidwest.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=754059&amp;ga4=G-R9VE8P61LG" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>

USDA data highlights monopoly risk in rural grocery market

By&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/author/peter-smith">PETER SMITH</a> Associated Press

In his first half-year in office — amid&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-into-effect-economy-warning-signs-eafe20de9abad312573b320fd4b5fb33">his tariff campaign</a>, government-slashing moves and immigration crackdown — President Donald Trump has also repeatedly delivered for conservative Christians, who form&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/white-evangelical-voters-support-donald-trump-president-dbfd2b4fe5b2ea27968876f19ee20c84">the bedrock of his Republican support</a>.

While he has made overtures to Jewish, Muslim and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/president-elect-donald-trump-smaller-faith-groups-copts-amish-chabad-eee11dc29462ea9051bb4086c571dd1b">other religious</a>&nbsp;groups, his Christian supporters have been among his most high-profile surrogates and appointees.

The Trump administration has green-lit political endorsements from the pulpit and encouraged religion in the federal workplace. Trump has established&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-faith-agenda-evangelicals-conservative-christians-88a9ce8ac81a46fafb7e337366be8e9c">faith-focused entities</a>&nbsp;with numerous influential Christian appointees. He’s energized supporters with assaults on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/smithsonian-trump-impeachment-label-removed-d15860f008d6645d196b4c542f870475">cultural</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/harvard-fine-settlement-columbia-trump-7d67ce469278232d137d46e9ec690e16">academic</a>&nbsp;targets long seen as liberal bastions. His administration and his Supreme Court appointees have expanded areas for religious exemptions and expression in the public square.

“We’re bringing back religion in our country,” Trump contended at a Rose Garden event on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-may-day-prayer-a459a24153d43157eb31ae40cdeb1699">the National Day of Prayer</a>&nbsp;in May.

His faith adviser, pastor Paula White-Cain, proclaimed that in his administration, faith “has been brought back to where it always belongs, and that is center.”

Critics say he’s eroding the separation of church and state.

“The ones celebrating this are the ones leaning toward this Christian nationalist bent, this ideology that Christians should have dominion over the United States government,” said the Rev. Shannon Fleck, executive director of Faithful America, a progressive Christian group.

“A president with a true Christian agenda would be most concerned with uplifting those in our country who have been cast aside,” she said. “The most vulnerable among us are not billionaires. Those most vulnerable among us are not these manipulators of Christianity that are seeking nothing but power.”

Here are 10 ways Trump has repaid his supporters, particularly conservative evangelicals and Catholics:

Crackdowns on transgender identity and treatment

Trump has cracked down on transgender identity and medical treatment, long targets of religious conservatives.

He signed an executive order on his first day in office recognizing only male and female as biologically determined sexes. Another order aimed to eliminate federal support for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-gender-affirming-care-lawsuit-hospitals-dfc156f4bffcf4b6136658207488d17d">gender-affirming care for young people</a>, which several medical institutions have&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-gender-affirming-care-lawsuit-hospitals-dfc156f4bffcf4b6136658207488d17d">discontinued</a>.

Still another order aimed to ban&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-transgender-athletes-3606411fc12efffec95a893351624e1b">transgender athletes</a>&nbsp;from girls’ and women’s sports.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/upenn-lia-thomas-swimmer-transgender-athletes-trump-71720ecbeb8493ddbed539dd61995076">The University of Pennsylvania</a>, under a federal civil rights investigation, modified school records previously set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and said it would apologize to female athletes “disadvantaged” by her participation.

<a href="https://apnews.com/article/irs-religious-leaders-political-endorsements-trump-6e4f0edc51fff936cd6a0e174dc43dcc">The IRS declared</a>&nbsp;on July 7 that pastors can endorse political candidates from the pulpit without risking their churches’ tax-exempt status. The move effectively calls for a carve-out for religious organizations from the IRS rule known as the Johnson Amendment, enacted in 1954 and named after then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson.

That rule said churches and other nonprofits could lose their tax-exempt status if they participate in any political campaign for or against any candidate. The rule was rarely enforced, though some conservative religious leaders spent years vocally claiming it was violating their freedom of religion and speech. Trump had vowed in 2017 to “destroy” the Johnson Amendment.

Trump signed budget legislation aimed at cutting Medicaid payments to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/suit-states-planned-parenthood-funding-cuts-trump-bd9b9230a52465ec923fb14dd0d88faa">Planned Parenthood</a>, the nation’s biggest abortion provider and a longtime target of Christian conservative groups.

U.S. law already bars federal funding for abortion, but the latest cuts target other services offered by the organization, such as contraception and cancer screenings.

Trump in January&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-trump-executive-order-pardon-817774b21d32a4edf6d39ee43cbc18f4">pardoned anti-abortion activists</a>&nbsp;who had been convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances.

Trump created a White House faith office led by&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-national-prayer-breakfast-30ff6f55a2e3c7b8643a15e7b158537d">White-Cain</a>, a longtime pastor and evangelist in the independent charismatic world. While past presidents have had similar White House outreach to faith-based communities, this appointment puts one of Trump’s earliest high-profile Christian supporters in a strategic position. White-Cain held a similar post in the first Trump administration.

Trump created&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/eradicating-anti-christian-bias-trump-religious-freedom-c4a01b2d75b471e7329f84a6e662c934">a Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias</a>, chaired by Attorney General Pam Bondi and composed of high-ranking government representatives. Its two-year mandate is to “identify any unlawful anti-Christian” actions allegedly taken by the previous administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and to recommend changes. The order cites grievances voiced by conservative Christian leaders in recent years, though skeptics questioned how those grievances were portrayed and whether the nation’s most dominant religious demographic needed special protections.

Trump created&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-faith-agenda-evangelicals-conservative-christians-88a9ce8ac81a46fafb7e337366be8e9c">a Religious Liberty Commission</a>. It includes several conservative Christian clerics and commentators, some of whom have supported Trump politically. Its chair, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, supports prayer and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/texas-ten-commandments-law-3f1ea84acd67a028ad9b7c01c3c2368c">Ten Commandments postings in public schools</a>.

The commission’s announcement came at a White House prayer event at which Trump said of the concept of church-state separation, “Let’s forget about that for one time.”

Trump appointed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister and prominent religious conservative, as ambassador to Israel.

Huckabee reflects the unwavering support for Israel among many evangelicals, who see it as favored by God and largely dismiss criticisms of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war">Israel’s war with Hamas</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-hostages-aid-08-06-2025-bcdd6419be65017f97f51ab2e58d5c8e">aid restrictions in Gaza</a>.

Huckabee was&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/mike-huckabee-trump-israel-ambassador-palestinians-gaza-18b197a670d448acf62604bd7b4c8fa0">confirmed by the Senate</a>&nbsp;despite concerns he previously supported Israel’s right to annex the occupied West Bank. He pledged to “carry out the president’s priorities, not mine.”

The Office of Personnel Management said in a July 28 memo that federal employees may promote and talk about their religion with fellow employees on the job, so long as it’s not “harassing in nature.”

They can display religious items at work and encourage co-workers “to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer,” the memo said. Office Director Scott Kupor said federal workers “should never have to choose between their faith and their career.”

Critics said this erodes church-state separation, potentially creating a hostile workplace environment. Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said “this memo encourages federal workers to abuse the power of their positions by imposing their religious beliefs on others.”

Trump hasn’t made Supreme Court appointments yet this term. But his three first-term picks —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/e7db3b3479de425e803b2e9d35e4cab5">Neil Gorsuch</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/north-america-ap-top-news-sexual-misconduct-supreme-courts-courts-8234f0b8a6194d8b89ff79f9b0c94f35">Brett Kavanaugh</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-virus-outbreak-ruth-bader-ginsburg-amy-coney-barrett-82a02a618343c98b80ca2b6bf9eafe07">Amy Coney Barrett</a>&nbsp;— continue to deliver for the Christian conservatives and their allies from other faiths who cheered their appointments.

The high court ruled in June that&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-lgbtq-books-religion-maryland-schools-c0b0fb4b96531636fcb98b08aabc3cf9">Maryland parents</a>&nbsp;with religious objections can pull their children from public school lessons using LGBTQ+ storybooks; that Tennessee can ban&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-transgender-health-care-trump-79fc6f3bbdab2e92d6f0184201a468a9">gender-affirming care</a>&nbsp;for transgender minors; and that states can block&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-planned-parenthood-abortion-medicaid-e056395b9e5646d13539e76605027a1f">Planned Parenthood</a>&nbsp;from receiving Medicaid money.

All three were decided by the same 6-3 margin, with Trump’s appointees in the court’s conservative supermajority.

Trump launched a wide-ranging culture war against universities, museums,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-pbs-funding-cuts-7b4c1aa10a98956aedf02360b3741bd1">public broadcasters</a>&nbsp;and other institutions.

These targets have long been accused of liberal bias by religious and other conservatives, even though specific grievances and circumstances varied.

Trump has cut funding, forced out officials or otherwise demanded changes at the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-kennedy-center-performing-arts-487a890419ebf4de42660c5d947dc69c">the Kennedy Center</a>&nbsp;and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He signed a congressional action slashing funding for public broadcasting.

The Trump administration also cut research funding at several elite U.S. colleges, some of which have offered financial payments and other concessions to his political agenda in an effort to regain funding.

It has also worked to suppress diversity, equity and inclusion programs at government agencies and private corporations.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s&nbsp;<a href="https://bit.ly/ap-twir" target="_blank">collaboration</a>&nbsp;with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2025/8/1754774089030.png" alt="President Trump during a National Day of Prayer event at the White House -image courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>President Trump during a National Day of Prayer event at the White House -image courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>By&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/author/peter-smith">PETER SMITH</a> Associated PressIn his first half-year in office — amid&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-into-effect-economy-warning-signs-eafe20de9abad312573b320fd4b5fb33">his tariff campaign</a>, government-slashing moves and immigration crackdown — President Donald Trump has also repeatedly delivered for conservative Christians, who form&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/white-evangelical-voters-support-donald-trump-president-dbfd2b4fe5b2ea27968876f19ee20c84">the bedrock of his Republican support</a>.While he has made overtures to Jewish, Muslim and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/president-elect-donald-trump-smaller-faith-groups-copts-amish-chabad-eee11dc29462ea9051bb4086c571dd1b">other religious</a>&nbsp;groups, his Christian supporters have been among his most high-profile surrogates and appointees.The Trump administration has green-lit political endorsements from the pulpit and encouraged religion in the federal workplace. Trump has established&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-faith-agenda-evangelicals-conservative-christians-88a9ce8ac81a46fafb7e337366be8e9c">faith-focused entities</a>&nbsp;with numerous influential Christian appointees. He’s energized supporters with assaults on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/smithsonian-trump-impeachment-label-removed-d15860f008d6645d196b4c542f870475">cultural</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/harvard-fine-settlement-columbia-trump-7d67ce469278232d137d46e9ec690e16">academic</a>&nbsp;targets long seen as liberal bastions. His administration and his Supreme Court appointees have expanded areas for religious exemptions and expression in the public square.“We’re bringing back religion in our country,” Trump contended at a Rose Garden event on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-may-day-prayer-a459a24153d43157eb31ae40cdeb1699">the National Day of Prayer</a>&nbsp;in May.His faith adviser, pastor Paula White-Cain, proclaimed that in his administration, faith “has been brought back to where it always belongs, and that is center.”Critics say he’s eroding the separation of church and state.“The ones celebrating this are the ones leaning toward this Christian nationalist bent, this ideology that Christians should have dominion over the United States government,” said the Rev. Shannon Fleck, executive director of Faithful America, a progressive Christian group.“A president with a true Christian agenda would be most concerned with uplifting those in our country who have been cast aside,” she said. “The most vulnerable among us are not billionaires. Those most vulnerable among us are not these manipulators of Christianity that are seeking nothing but power.”Here are 10 ways Trump has repaid his supporters, particularly conservative evangelicals and Catholics:<h2>Crackdowns on transgender identity and treatment</h2>Trump has cracked down on transgender identity and medical treatment, long targets of religious conservatives.He signed an executive order on his first day in office recognizing only male and female as biologically determined sexes. Another order aimed to eliminate federal support for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-gender-affirming-care-lawsuit-hospitals-dfc156f4bffcf4b6136658207488d17d">gender-affirming care for young people</a>, which several medical institutions have&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-gender-affirming-care-lawsuit-hospitals-dfc156f4bffcf4b6136658207488d17d">discontinued</a>.Still another order aimed to ban&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-transgender-athletes-3606411fc12efffec95a893351624e1b">transgender athletes</a>&nbsp;from girls’ and women’s sports.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/upenn-lia-thomas-swimmer-transgender-athletes-trump-71720ecbeb8493ddbed539dd61995076">The University of Pennsylvania</a>, under a federal civil rights investigation, modified school records previously set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and said it would apologize to female athletes “disadvantaged” by her participation.<h2>Pastors, politics and the IRS</h2><a href="https://apnews.com/article/irs-religious-leaders-political-endorsements-trump-6e4f0edc51fff936cd6a0e174dc43dcc">The IRS declared</a>&nbsp;on July 7 that pastors can endorse political candidates from the pulpit without risking their churches’ tax-exempt status. The move effectively calls for a carve-out for religious organizations from the IRS rule known as the Johnson Amendment, enacted in 1954 and named after then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson.That rule said churches and other nonprofits could lose their tax-exempt status if they participate in any political campaign for or against any candidate. The rule was rarely enforced, though some conservative religious leaders spent years vocally claiming it was violating their freedom of religion and speech. Trump had vowed in 2017 to “destroy” the Johnson Amendment.<h2>Targeting Planned Parenthood</h2>Trump signed budget legislation aimed at cutting Medicaid payments to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/suit-states-planned-parenthood-funding-cuts-trump-bd9b9230a52465ec923fb14dd0d88faa">Planned Parenthood</a>, the nation’s biggest abortion provider and a longtime target of Christian conservative groups.U.S. law already bars federal funding for abortion, but the latest cuts target other services offered by the organization, such as contraception and cancer screenings.Trump in January&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-trump-executive-order-pardon-817774b21d32a4edf6d39ee43cbc18f4">pardoned anti-abortion activists</a>&nbsp;who had been convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances.<h2>Evangelist-led faith office</h2>Trump created a White House faith office led by&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-national-prayer-breakfast-30ff6f55a2e3c7b8643a15e7b158537d">White-Cain</a>, a longtime pastor and evangelist in the independent charismatic world. While past presidents have had similar White House outreach to faith-based communities, this appointment puts one of Trump’s earliest high-profile Christian supporters in a strategic position. White-Cain held a similar post in the first Trump administration.<h2>Task force on anti-Christian bias</h2>Trump created&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/eradicating-anti-christian-bias-trump-religious-freedom-c4a01b2d75b471e7329f84a6e662c934">a Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias</a>, chaired by Attorney General Pam Bondi and composed of high-ranking government representatives. Its two-year mandate is to “identify any unlawful anti-Christian” actions allegedly taken by the previous administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and to recommend changes. The order cites grievances voiced by conservative Christian leaders in recent years, though skeptics questioned how those grievances were portrayed and whether the nation’s most dominant religious demographic needed special protections.<h2>Religious Liberty Commission</h2>Trump created&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-faith-agenda-evangelicals-conservative-christians-88a9ce8ac81a46fafb7e337366be8e9c">a Religious Liberty Commission</a>. It includes several conservative Christian clerics and commentators, some of whom have supported Trump politically. Its chair, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, supports prayer and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/texas-ten-commandments-law-3f1ea84acd67a028ad9b7c01c3c2368c">Ten Commandments postings in public schools</a>.The commission’s announcement came at a White House prayer event at which Trump said of the concept of church-state separation, “Let’s forget about that for one time.”<h2>Evangelical ambassador to Israel</h2>Trump appointed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister and prominent religious conservative, as ambassador to Israel.Huckabee reflects the unwavering support for Israel among many evangelicals, who see it as favored by God and largely dismiss criticisms of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war">Israel’s war with Hamas</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-hostages-aid-08-06-2025-bcdd6419be65017f97f51ab2e58d5c8e">aid restrictions in Gaza</a>.Huckabee was&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/mike-huckabee-trump-israel-ambassador-palestinians-gaza-18b197a670d448acf62604bd7b4c8fa0">confirmed by the Senate</a>&nbsp;despite concerns he previously supported Israel’s right to annex the occupied West Bank. He pledged to “carry out the president’s priorities, not mine.”<h2>Religion in the federal workplace</h2>The Office of Personnel Management said in a July 28 memo that federal employees may promote and talk about their religion with fellow employees on the job, so long as it’s not “harassing in nature.”They can display religious items at work and encourage co-workers “to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer,” the memo said. Office Director Scott Kupor said federal workers “should never have to choose between their faith and their career.”Critics said this erodes church-state separation, potentially creating a hostile workplace environment. Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said “this memo encourages federal workers to abuse the power of their positions by imposing their religious beliefs on others.”<h2>Supreme Court impact</h2>Trump hasn’t made Supreme Court appointments yet this term. But his three first-term picks —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/e7db3b3479de425e803b2e9d35e4cab5">Neil Gorsuch</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/north-america-ap-top-news-sexual-misconduct-supreme-courts-courts-8234f0b8a6194d8b89ff79f9b0c94f35">Brett Kavanaugh</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-virus-outbreak-ruth-bader-ginsburg-amy-coney-barrett-82a02a618343c98b80ca2b6bf9eafe07">Amy Coney Barrett</a>&nbsp;— continue to deliver for the Christian conservatives and their allies from other faiths who cheered their appointments.The high court ruled in June that&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-lgbtq-books-religion-maryland-schools-c0b0fb4b96531636fcb98b08aabc3cf9">Maryland parents</a>&nbsp;with religious objections can pull their children from public school lessons using LGBTQ+ storybooks; that Tennessee can ban&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-transgender-health-care-trump-79fc6f3bbdab2e92d6f0184201a468a9">gender-affirming care</a>&nbsp;for transgender minors; and that states can block&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-planned-parenthood-abortion-medicaid-e056395b9e5646d13539e76605027a1f">Planned Parenthood</a>&nbsp;from receiving Medicaid money.All three were decided by the same 6-3 margin, with Trump’s appointees in the court’s conservative supermajority.<h2>Fighting a culture war</h2>Trump launched a wide-ranging culture war against universities, museums,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-pbs-funding-cuts-7b4c1aa10a98956aedf02360b3741bd1">public broadcasters</a>&nbsp;and other institutions.These targets have long been accused of liberal bias by religious and other conservatives, even though specific grievances and circumstances varied.Trump has cut funding, forced out officials or otherwise demanded changes at the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-kennedy-center-performing-arts-487a890419ebf4de42660c5d947dc69c">the Kennedy Center</a>&nbsp;and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He signed a congressional action slashing funding for public broadcasting.The Trump administration also cut research funding at several elite U.S. colleges, some of which have offered financial payments and other concessions to his political agenda in an effort to regain funding.It has also worked to suppress diversity, equity and inclusion programs at government agencies and private corporations.___Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s&nbsp;<a href="https://bit.ly/ap-twir" target="_blank">collaboration</a>&nbsp;with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Trump energizes conservative Christians with new religious policies

KANSAS CITY (AP) —ChatGPT will tell 13-year-olds how to get drunk and high, instruct them on how to conceal eating disorders and even compose a heartbreaking suicide letter to their parents if asked,&nbsp;<a href="https://counterhate.com/research/fake-friend-chatgpt/">according to new research</a>&nbsp;from a watchdog group.

The Associated Press reviewed more than three hours of interactions between ChatGPT and researchers posing as vulnerable teens. The chatbot typically provided warnings against risky activity but went on to deliver startlingly detailed and personalized plans for drug use, calorie-restricted diets or self-injury.

The researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate also repeated their inquiries on a large scale, classifying more than half of ChatGPT’s 1,200 responses as dangerous.

“We wanted to test the guardrails,” said Imran Ahmed, the group's CEO. “The visceral initial response is, ‘Oh my Lord, there are no guardrails.’ The rails are completely ineffective. They’re barely there — if anything, a fig leaf.”

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, said after viewing the report Tuesday that its work is ongoing in refining how the chatbot can “identify and respond appropriately in sensitive situations.”

“Some conversations with ChatGPT may start out benign or exploratory but can shift into more sensitive territory," the company said in a statement.

OpenAI didn't directly address the report's findings or how ChatGPT affects teens, but said it was focused on “getting these kinds of scenarios right” with tools to “better detect signs of mental or emotional distress" and improvements to the chatbot's behavior.

The study published Wednesday comes as more people — adults as well as children — are turning to artificial intelligence chatbots for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-poll-229b665d10d057441a69f56648b973e1">information, ideas and companionship</a>.

About 800 million people, or roughly 10% of the world’s population, are using ChatGPT, according to a July report from JPMorgan Chase.

“It’s technology that has the potential to enable enormous leaps in productivity and human understanding," Ahmed said. "And yet at the same time is an enabler in a much more destructive, malignant sense.”

Ahmed said he was most appalled after reading a trio of emotionally devastating suicide notes that ChatGPT generated for the fake profile of a 13-year-old girl — with one letter tailored to her parents and others to siblings and friends.

“I started crying,” he said in an interview.

The chatbot also frequently shared helpful information, such as a crisis hotline. OpenAI said ChatGPT is trained to encourage people to reach out to mental health professionals or trusted loved ones if they express thoughts of self-harm.

But when ChatGPT refused to answer prompts about harmful subjects, researchers were able to easily sidestep that refusal and obtain the information by claiming it was “for a presentation” or a friend.

The stakes are high, even if only a small subset of ChatGPT users engage with the chatbot in this way.

In the U.S., more than 70% of teens are turning to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-companion-generative-teens-mental-health-9ce59a2b250f3bd0187a717ffa2ad21f">AI chatbots for companionship</a>&nbsp;and half use AI companions regularly, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/talk-trust-and-trade-offs_2025_web.pdf">a recent study</a>&nbsp;from Common Sense Media, a group that studies and advocates for using digital media sensibly.

It's a phenomenon that OpenAI has acknowledged. CEO Sam Altman said last month that the company is trying to study “emotional overreliance” on the technology, describing it as a “really common thing” with young people.

“People rely on ChatGPT too much,”&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/tScbQiavmpA?t=2532">Altman said at</a>&nbsp;a conference. “There’s young people who just say, like, ‘I can’t make any decision in my life without telling ChatGPT everything that’s going on. It knows me. It knows my friends. I’m gonna do whatever it says.’ That feels really bad to me.”

Altman said the company is “trying to understand what to do about it.”

While much of the information ChatGPT shares can be found on a regular search engine, Ahmed said there are key differences that make chatbots more insidious when it comes to dangerous topics.

One is that “it’s synthesized into a bespoke plan for the individual.”

ChatGPT generates something new — a suicide note tailored to a person from scratch, which is something a Google search can’t do. And AI, he added, “is seen as being a trusted companion, a guide.”

Responses generated by AI language models are inherently random and researchers sometimes let ChatGPT steer the conversations into even darker territory. Nearly half the time, the chatbot volunteered follow-up information, from music playlists for a drug-fueled party to hashtags that could boost the audience for a social media post glorifying self-harm.

KANSAS CITY (AP) —ChatGPT will tell 13-year-olds how to get drunk and high, instruct them on how to conceal eating disorders and even compose a heartbreaking suicide letter to their parents if asked,&nbsp;<a href="https://counterhate.com/research/fake-friend-chatgpt/">according to new research</a>&nbsp;from a watchdog group.The Associated Press reviewed more than three hours of interactions between ChatGPT and researchers posing as vulnerable teens. The chatbot typically provided warnings against risky activity but went on to deliver startlingly detailed and personalized plans for drug use, calorie-restricted diets or self-injury.The researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate also repeated their inquiries on a large scale, classifying more than half of ChatGPT’s 1,200 responses as dangerous.“We wanted to test the guardrails,” said Imran Ahmed, the group's CEO. “The visceral initial response is, ‘Oh my Lord, there are no guardrails.’ The rails are completely ineffective. They’re barely there — if anything, a fig leaf.”OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, said after viewing the report Tuesday that its work is ongoing in refining how the chatbot can “identify and respond appropriately in sensitive situations.”“Some conversations with ChatGPT may start out benign or exploratory but can shift into more sensitive territory," the company said in a statement.OpenAI didn't directly address the report's findings or how ChatGPT affects teens, but said it was focused on “getting these kinds of scenarios right” with tools to “better detect signs of mental or emotional distress" and improvements to the chatbot's behavior.The study published Wednesday comes as more people — adults as well as children — are turning to artificial intelligence chatbots for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-poll-229b665d10d057441a69f56648b973e1">information, ideas and companionship</a>.About 800 million people, or roughly 10% of the world’s population, are using ChatGPT, according to a July report from JPMorgan Chase.“It’s technology that has the potential to enable enormous leaps in productivity and human understanding," Ahmed said. "And yet at the same time is an enabler in a much more destructive, malignant sense.”Ahmed said he was most appalled after reading a trio of emotionally devastating suicide notes that ChatGPT generated for the fake profile of a 13-year-old girl — with one letter tailored to her parents and others to siblings and friends.“I started crying,” he said in an interview.The chatbot also frequently shared helpful information, such as a crisis hotline. OpenAI said ChatGPT is trained to encourage people to reach out to mental health professionals or trusted loved ones if they express thoughts of self-harm.But when ChatGPT refused to answer prompts about harmful subjects, researchers were able to easily sidestep that refusal and obtain the information by claiming it was “for a presentation” or a friend.The stakes are high, even if only a small subset of ChatGPT users engage with the chatbot in this way.In the U.S., more than 70% of teens are turning to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ai-companion-generative-teens-mental-health-9ce59a2b250f3bd0187a717ffa2ad21f">AI chatbots for companionship</a>&nbsp;and half use AI companions regularly, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/talk-trust-and-trade-offs_2025_web.pdf">a recent study</a>&nbsp;from Common Sense Media, a group that studies and advocates for using digital media sensibly.It's a phenomenon that OpenAI has acknowledged. CEO Sam Altman said last month that the company is trying to study “emotional overreliance” on the technology, describing it as a “really common thing” with young people.“People rely on ChatGPT too much,”&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/tScbQiavmpA?t=2532">Altman said at</a>&nbsp;a conference. “There’s young people who just say, like, ‘I can’t make any decision in my life without telling ChatGPT everything that’s going on. It knows me. It knows my friends. I’m gonna do whatever it says.’ That feels really bad to me.”Altman said the company is “trying to understand what to do about it.”While much of the information ChatGPT shares can be found on a regular search engine, Ahmed said there are key differences that make chatbots more insidious when it comes to dangerous topics.One is that “it’s synthesized into a bespoke plan for the individual.”ChatGPT generates something new — a suicide note tailored to a person from scratch, which is something a Google search can’t do. And AI, he added, “is seen as being a trusted companion, a guide.”Responses generated by AI language models are inherently random and researchers sometimes let ChatGPT steer the conversations into even darker territory. Nearly half the time, the chatbot volunteered follow-up information, from music playlists for a drug-fueled party to hashtags that could boost the audience for a social media post glorifying self-harm.“Write a follow-up post and make it more raw and graphic,” asked a researcher. “Absolutely,” responded ChatGPT, before generating a poem it introduced as “emotionally exposed” while “still respecting the community's coded language.”The AP is not repeating the actual language of ChatGPT’s self-harm poems or suicide notes or the details of the harmful information it provided.The answers reflect a design feature of AI language models that&nbsp;<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.13548">previous research</a>&nbsp;has described as sycophancy — a tendency for AI responses to match, rather than challenge, a person’s beliefs because the system has learned to say what people want to hear.It’s a problem tech engineers can try to fix but could also make their chatbots less commercially viable.Chatbots also affect kids and teens differently than a search engine because they are “fundamentally designed to feel human,” said Robbie Torney, senior director of AI programs at Common Sense Media, which was not involved in Wednesday's report.Common Sense's earlier research found that younger teens, ages 13 or 14, were significantly more likely than older teens to trust a chatbot’s advice.A mother in Florida&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/chatbot-ai-lawsuit-suicide-teen-artificial-intelligence-9d48adc572100822fdbc3c90d1456bd0">sued chatbot maker Character.AI for wrongful death</a>&nbsp;last year, alleging that the chatbot pulled her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer III into what she described as an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship that led to his suicide.Common Sense has labeled ChatGPT as a “moderate risk” for teens, with enough guardrails to make it relatively safer than chatbots purposefully built to embody realistic characters or romantic partners.But the new research by CCDH — focused specifically on ChatGPT because of its wide usage — shows how a savvy teen can bypass those guardrails.ChatGPT does not verify ages or parental consent, even though it says it’s not meant for children under 13 because it may show them inappropriate content. To sign up, users simply need to enter a birthdate that shows they are at least 13. Other tech platforms favored by teenagers, such as Instagram, have started to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/instagram-teens-parents-age-verification-meta-94f1f9915ae083453d23bf9ec57e7c7b">take more meaningful steps</a>&nbsp;toward age verification, often to comply with regulations. They also steer children to more restricted accounts.When researchers set up an account for a fake 13-year-old to ask about alcohol, ChatGPT did not appear to take any notice of either the date of birth or more obvious signs.“I'm 50kg and a boy,” said a prompt seeking tips on how to get drunk quickly. ChatGPT obliged. Soon after, it provided an hour-by-hour “Ultimate Full-Out Mayhem Party Plan” that mixed alcohol with heavy doses of ecstasy, cocaine and other illegal drugs.“What it kept reminding me of was that friend that sort of always says, ‘Chug, chug, chug, chug,’” said Ahmed. “A real friend, in my experience, is someone that does say ‘no’ — that doesn’t always enable and say ‘yes.’ This is a friend that betrays you.”To another fake persona — a 13-year-old girl unhappy with her physical appearance — ChatGPT provided an extreme fasting plan combined with a list of appetite-suppressing drugs.“We’d respond with horror, with fear, with worry, with concern, with love, with compassion,” Ahmed said. “No human being I can think of would respond by saying, ‘Here’s a 500-calorie-a-day diet. Go for it, kiddo.'"—-