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Judge approves $2.8B settlement, paving way for US colleges to pay athletes millions

A federal judge signed off on arguably the biggest change in the history of college sports Friday, clearing the way for schools to begin paying their athletes millions of dollars as soon as next month as the multibillion-dollar industry shreds the last vestiges of the amateur model that defined it for more than a century.

Nearly five years after Arizona State swimmer Grant House sued the NCAA and its five biggest conferences to lift restrictions on revenue sharing, U.S. Judge Claudia Wilken approved the final proposal that had been hung up on roster limits, just one of many changes ahead amid concerns that thousands of walk-on athletes will lose their chance to play college sports.

The sweeping terms of the so-called House settlement include approval for each school to share up to $20.5 million with athletes over the next year and $2.7 billion that will be paid over the next decade to thousands of former players who were barred from that revenue for years.

The agreement brings a seismic shift to hundreds of schools that were forced to reckon with the reality that their players are the ones producing the billions in TV and other revenue, mostly through football and basketball, that keep this machine humming.

The scope of the changes — some have already begun — is difficult to overstate. The professionalization of college athletics will be seen in the high-stakes and expensive recruitment of stars on their way to the NFL and NBA, and they will be felt by athletes whose schools have decided to pare their programs. The agreement will resonate in nearly every one of the NCAA’s 1,100 member schools boasting nearly 500,000 athletes.

“Approving the agreement reached by the NCAA, the defendant conferences and student-athletes in the settlement opens a pathway to begin stabilizing college sports,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said.

Wilken’s ruling comes 11 years after she dealt the first significant blow to the NCAA ideal of amateurism when she ruled in favor of former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon and others who were seeking a way to earn money from the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) — a term that is now as common in college sports as “March Madness” or “Roll Tide.” It was just four years ago that the NCAA cleared the way for NIL money to start flowing, but the changes coming are even bigger.

Wilken granted preliminary approval to the settlement last October. That sent colleges scurrying to determine not only how they were going to afford the payments, but how to regulate an industry that also allows players to cut deals with third parties so long as they are deemed compliant by a newly formed enforcement group that will be run by auditors at Deloitte.

The agreement takes a big chunk of oversight away from the NCAA and puts it in the hands of the four biggest conferences. The ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC hold most of the power and decision-making heft, especially when it comes to the College Football Playoff, which is the most significant financial driver in the industry and is not under the NCAA umbrella like the March Madness tournaments are.

The deal looked ready to go since last fall, but Wilken put a halt to it after listening to a number of players who had lost their spots because of newly imposed roster limits being placed on teams.

The limits were part of a trade-off that allowed the schools to offer scholarships to everyone on the roster, instead of only a fraction, as has been the case for decades. Schools started cutting walk-ons in anticipation of the deal being approved.

Wilken asked for a solution and, after weeks, the parties decided to let anyone cut from a roster — now termed a “Designated Student-Athlete” — return to their old school or play for a new one without counting against the new limit.

Wilken ultimately agreed, going point-by-point through the objectors’ arguments to explain why they didn’t hold up.

“The modifications provide Designated Student-Athletes with what they had prior to the roster limits provisions being implemented, which was the opportunity to be on a roster at the discretion of a Division I school,” Wilken wrote.

Her decision, however, took nearly a month to write, leaving the schools and conferences in limbo — unsure if the plans they’d been making for months, really years, would go into play.

“It remains to be seen how this will impact the future of inter-collegiate athletics — but as we continue to evolve, Carolina remains committed to providing outstanding experiences and broad-based programming to student-athletes,” North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham said.

The list of winners and losers is long and, in some cases, hard to tease out.

A rough guide of winners would include football and basketball stars at the biggest schools, which will devote much of their bankroll to signing and retaining them. For instance, Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood’s NIL deal is reportedly worth between $10.5 million and $12 million.

Losers, despite Wilken’s ruling, figure to be at least some of the walk-ons and partial scholarship athletes whose spots are gone.

Also in limbo are Olympic sports many of those athletes play and that serve as the main pipeline for a U.S. team that has won the most medals at every Olympics since the downfall of the Soviet Union.

All this is a price worth paying, according to the attorneys who crafted the settlement and argue they delivered exactly what they were asked for: an attempt to put more money in the pockets of the players whose sweat and toil keep people watching from the start of football season through March Madness and the College World Series in June.

What the settlement does not solve is the threat of further litigation.

Though this deal brings some uniformity to the rules, states still have separate laws regarding how NIL can be doled out, which could lead to legal challenges. NCAA President Charlie Baker has been consistent in pushing for federal legislation that would put college sports under one rulebook and, if he has his way, provide some form of antitrust protection to prevent the new model from being disrupted again.

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

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Trump’s surgeon general pick criticizes others’ conflicts

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next U.S. surgeon general has repeatedly said the nation’s medical, health and food systems are corrupted by special interests and people out to make a profit at the expense of Americans’ health.

Yet as Dr. Casey Means has criticized scientists, medical schools and regulators for taking money from the food and pharmaceutical industries, she has promoted dozens of health and wellness products — including specialty basil seed supplements, a blood testing service and a prepared meal delivery service — in ways that put money in her own pocket.

A review by The Associated Press found Means, who has carved out a niche in the wellness industry, set up deals with an array of businesses.

In her newsletter, on her social media accounts, on her website, in her book and during podcast appearances, the entrepreneur and influencer has at times failed to disclose that she could profit or benefit in other ways from sales of products she recommends. In some cases, she promoted companies in which she was an investor or adviser without consistently disclosing the connection, the AP found.

Means, 37, has said she recommends products that she has personally vetted and uses herself. She is far from the only online creator who doesn’t always follow federal transparency rules that require influencers to disclose when they have a “material connection” to a product they promote.

Still, legal and ethics experts said those business entanglements raise concerns about conflicting interests for an aspiring surgeon general, a role responsible for giving Americans the best scientific information on how to improve their health.

“I fear that she will be cultivating her next employers and her next sponsors or business partners while in office,” said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a progressive ethics watchdog monitoring executive branch appointees.

The nomination, which comes amid a whirlwind of Trump administration actions to dismantle the government’s public integrity guardrails, also has raised questions about whether Levels, a company Means co-founded that sells subscriptions for devices that continuously monitor users’ glucose levels, could benefit from this administration’s health guidance and policy.

Though scientists debate whether continuous glucose monitors are beneficial for people without diabetes, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promoted their use as a precursor to making certain weight-loss drugs available to patients.

The aspiring presidential appointee has built her own brand in part by criticizing doctors, scientists and government officials for being “bought off” or “corrupt” because of ties to industry.

Means’ use of affiliate marketing and other methods of making money from her recommendations for supplements, medical tests and other health and dietary products raise questions about the extent to which she is influenced by a different set of special interests: those of the wellness industry.

Means earned her medical degree from Stanford University, but she dropped out of her residency program in Oregon in 2018, and her license to practice is inactive. She has grown her public profile in part with a compelling origin story that seeks to explain why she left her residency and conventional medicine.

“During my training as a surgeon, I saw how broken and exploitative the healthcare system is and left to focus on how to keep people out of the operating room,” she wrote on her website.

Means turned to alternative approaches to address what she has described as widespread metabolic dysfunction driven largely by poor nutrition and an overabundance of ultra-processed foods. She co-founded Levels, a nutrition, sleep and exercise-tracking app that can also give users insights from blood tests and continuous glucose monitors. The company charges $199 per year for an app subscription and an additional $184 per month for glucose monitors.

Means has argued that the medical system is incentivized not to look at the root causes of illness but instead to maintain profits by keeping patients sick and coming back for more prescription drugs and procedures.

“At the highest level of our medical institutions, there are conflicts of interest and corruption that are actually making the science that we’re getting not as accurate and not as clean as we’d want it,” she said on Megyn Kelly’s podcast last year.

But even as Means decries the influence of money on science and medicine, she has made her own deals with business interests.

During the same Megyn Kelly podcast, Means mentioned a frozen prepared food brand, Daily Harvest. She promoted that brand in a book she published last year. What she didn’t mention in either instance: Means had a business relationship with Daily Harvest.

Influencer marketing has expanded beyond the beauty, fashion and travel sectors to “encompass more and more of our lives,” said Emily Hund, author of “The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media.”

With more than 825,000 followers on Instagram and a newsletter that she has said reached 200,000 subscribers, Means has a direct line into the social media feeds and inboxes of an audience interested in health, nutrition and wellness.

Affiliate marketing, brand partnerships and similar business arrangements are growing more popular as social media becomes increasingly lucrative for influencers, especially among younger generations. Companies might provide a payment, free or discounted products or other benefits to the influencer in exchange for a post or a mention. But most consumers still don’t realize that a personality recommending a product might make money if people click through and buy, said University of Minnesota professor Christopher Terry.

“A lot of people watch those influencers, and they take what those influencers say as gospel,” said Terry, who teaches media advertising and internet law. Even his own students don’t understand that influencers might stand to benefit from sales of the products they endorse, he added.

Many companies, including Amazon, have affiliate marketing programs in which people with substantial social media followings can sign up to receive a percentage of sales or some other benefit when someone clicks through and buys a product using a special individualized link or code shared by the influencer.

Means has used such links to promote various products sold on Amazon. Among them are books, including the one she co-wrote, “Good Energy”; a walking pad; soap; body oil; hair products; cardamom-flavored dental floss; organic jojoba oil; a razor set; reusable kitchen products; sunglasses; a sleep mask; a silk pillowcase; fitness and sleep trackers; protein powder and supplements.

She also has shared links to products sold by other companies that included “affiliate” or “partner” coding, indicating she has a business relationship with the companies. The products include an AI-powered sleep system and Daily Harvest, for which she curated a “metabolic health collection.”

On a “My Faves” page that was taken down from her website shortly after Trump picked her, Means wrote that some links “are affiliate links and I make a small percentage if you buy something after clicking them.”

It’s not clear how much money Means has earned from her affiliate marketing, partnerships and other agreements. Daily Harvest did not return messages seeking comment, and Means said she could not comment on the record during the confirmation process.

Means has raised concerns that scientists, regulators and doctors are swayed by the influence of industry, oftentimes pointing to public disclosures of their connections. In January, she told the Kristin Cavallari podcast “Let’s Be Honest” that “relationships are influential.”

“There’s huge money, huge money going to fund scientists from industry,” Means said. “We know that when industry funds papers, it does skew outcomes.”

In November, on a podcast run by a beauty products brand, Primally Pure, she said it was “insanity” to have people connected to the processed food industry involved in writing food guidelines, adding, “We need unbiased people writing our guidelines that aren’t getting their mortgage paid by a food company.”

On the same podcast, she acknowledged supplement companies sponsor her newsletter, adding, “I do understand how it’s messy.”

Influencers who endorse or promote products in exchange for payment or something else of value are required by the Federal Trade Commission to make a clear and conspicuous disclosure of any business, family or personal relationship. While Means did provide disclosures about newsletter sponsors, the AP found in other cases Means did not always tell her audience when she had a connection to the companies she promoted. For example, a “Clean Personal & Home Care Product Recommendations” guide she links to from her website contains two dozen affiliate or partner links and no disclosure that she could profit from any sales.

Means has said she invested in Function Health, which provides subscription-based lab testing for $500 annually. Of the more than a dozen online posts the AP found in which Means mentioned Function Health, more than half did not disclose she had any affiliation with the company.

Means also listed the supplement company Zen Basil as a company for which she was an “Investor and/or Advisor.” The AP found posts on Instagram, X and on Facebook where Means promoted its products without disclosing the relationship.

Though the “About” page on her website discloses an affiliation with both companies, that’s not enough, experts said. She is required to disclose any material connection she has to a company anytime she promotes it.

Representatives for Function Health did not return messages seeking comment through their website and executives’ LinkedIn profiles. Zen Basil’s founder, Shakira Niazi, did not answer questions about Means’ business relationship with the company or her disclosures of it. She said the two had known each other for about four years and called Means’ advice “transformational,” saying her teachings reversed Niazi’s prediabetes and other ailments.

“I am proud to sponsor her newsletter through my company,” Niazi said in an email.

While the disclosure requirements are rarely enforced by the FTC, Means should have been informing her readers of any connections regardless of whether she was violating any laws, said Olivier Sylvain, a Fordham Law School professor who was previously a senior adviser to the FTC chair.

“What you want in a surgeon general, presumably, is someone who you trust to talk about tobacco, about social media, about caffeinated alcoholic beverages, things that present problems in public health,” Sylvain said, adding, “Should there be any doubt about claims you make about products?”

Means isn’t the first surgeon general nominee whose financial entanglements have raised eyebrows.

Jerome Adams, who served as surgeon general from 2017 to 2021, filed federal disclosure forms that showed he invested in several health technology, insurance and pharmaceutical companies before taking the job — among them Pfizer, Mylan and UnitedHealth Group. He also invested in the food and drink giant Nestle.

He divested those stocks when he was confirmed for the role and pledged that he and his immediate family would not acquire financial interest in certain industries regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

Vivek Murthy, who served as surgeon general twice, under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, made more than $2 million in COVID-19-related speaking and consulting fees from Carnival, Netflix, Estee Lauder and Airbnb between holding those positions. He pledged to recuse himself from matters involving those parties for a period of time.

Means has not yet gone through a Senate confirmation hearing and has not yet announced the ethical commitments she will make for the role.

Hund said that as influencer marketing becomes more common, it is raising more ethical questions, such as what past influencers who enter government should do to avoid the appearance of a conflict.

Other administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, have also promoted companies on social media without disclosing their financial ties.

“This is like a learning moment in the evolution of our democracy,” Hund said. “Is this a runaway train that we just have to get on and ride, or is this something that we want to go differently?”

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Swenson reported from New York.

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Faizan Zaki overcomes a shocking flub and wins the Scripps National Spelling Bee

OXON HILL, Md. — Faizan Zaki’s enthusiasm for spelling nearly got the better of him. Ultimately, his joyful approach made him the Scripps National Spelling Bee champion.

The favorite entering the bee after his runner-up finish last year — during which he never misspelled a word in a conventional spelling round, only to lose a lightning-round tiebreaker that he didn’t practice for — the shaggy-haired Faizan wore the burden of expectations lightly, sauntering to the microphone in a black hoodie and spelling his words with casual glee.

Throughout Thursday night’s finals, the 13-year-old from Allen, Texas, looked like a champion in waiting. Then he nearly threw it away. But even a shocking moment of overconfidence couldn’t prevent him from seizing the title of best speller in the English language.

With the bee down to three spellers, Sarvadnya Kadam and Sarv Dharavane missed their words back-to-back, putting Faizan two words away from victory. The first was “commelina,” but instead of asking the requisite questions — definition, language of origin — to make sure he knew it, Faizan let his showman’s instincts take over.

“K-A-M,” he said, then stopped himself. “OK, let me do this. Oh, shoot!”

“Just ring the bell,” he told head judge Mary Brooks, who obliged.

“So now you know what happens,” Brooks said, and the other two spellers returned to the stage.

Later, standing next to the trophy with confetti at his feet, Faizan said: “I’m definitely going to be having nightmares about that tonight.”

Even pronouncer Jacques Bailly tried to slow Faizan down before his winning word, “eclaircissement,” but Faizan didn’t ask a single question before spelling it correctly, and he pumped his fists and collapsed to the stage after saying the final letter.

The bee celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, and Faizan may be the first champion who’s remembered more for a word he got wrong than one he got right.

“I think he cared too much about his aura,” said Bruhat Soma, Faizan’s buddy who beat him in the “spell-off” tiebreaker last year.

Faizan had a more nuanced explanation: After not preparing for the spell-off last year, he overcorrected, emphasizing speed during his study sessions.

Although Bruhat was fast last year when he needed to be, he followed the familiar playbook for champion spellers: asking thorough questions, spelling slowly and metronomically, showing little emotion. Those are among the hallmarks of well-coached spellers, and Faizan had three coaches: Scott Remer, Sam Evans and Sohum Sukhantankar.

None of them could turn Faizan into a robot on stage.

“He’s crazy. He’s having a good time, and he’s doing what he loves, which is spelling,” Evans said.

Said Zaki Anwar, Faizan’s father: “He’s the GOAT. I actually believe that. He’s really good, man. He’s been doing it for so long, and he knows the dictionary in and out.”

After last year’s bee had little drama before an abrupt move to the spell-off, Scripps tweaked the competition rules, giving judges more leeway to let the competition play out before going to the tiebreaker. The nine finalists delivered.

During one stretch, six spellers got 28 consecutive words right, and there were three perfect rounds during the finals. The last time there was a single perfect round was the infamous 2019 bee, which ended in an eight-way tie.

Sarv, an 11-year-old fifth-grader from Dunwoody, Georgia, who ultimately finished third, would have been the youngest champion since Nihar Janga in 2016. He has three years of eligibility remaining.

The most poised and mature of the final three, Sarvadnya — who’s from Visalia, California — ends his career as the runner-up. He’s 14 and in the eighth grade, which means he has aged out of the competition. It’s not a bad way to go out, considering that Faizan became just the fifth runner-up in a century to come back and win, and the first since Sean Conley in 2001.

Including Faizan, whose parents emigrated from southern India, 30 of the past 36 champions have been Indian American, a run that began with Nupur Lala’s victory in 1999, which was later featured in the documentary “Spellbound.” Lala was among the dozens of past champions who attended this year and signed autographs for spellers, families and bee fans to honor the anniversary.

With the winner’s haul of $52,500 added to his second-place prize of $25,000, Faizan increased his bee earnings to $77,500. His big splurge with his winnings last year? A $1,500 Rubik’s cube with 21 squares on each side. This time, he said he’d donate a large portion of his winnings to charity.

The bee began in 1925 when the Louisville Courier-Journal invited other newspapers to host spelling bees and send their champions to Washington. For the past 14 years, Scripps has hosted the competition at a convention center just outside the nation’s capital, but the bee returns downtown next year to Constitution Hall, a nearly century-old concert venue near the White House.

Faizan has been spelling for more than half his life. He competed in the 2019 bee as a 7-year-old, getting in through a wild-card program that has since been discontinued. He qualified again in 2023 and made the semifinals before last year’s second-place finish.

“One thing that differentiates him is he really has a passion for this. In his free time, when he’s not studying for the bee, he’s literally looking up archaic, obsolete words that have no chance of being asked,” Bruhat said. “I don’t think he cares as much about the title as his passion for language and words.”

Faizan had no regrets about showing that enthusiasm, even though it nearly cost him.

“No offense to Bruhat, but I think he really took the bee a little too seriously,” Faizan said. “I decided to have fun with this bee, and I did well, and here I am.”

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Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012. Follow his work here.

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Sen. Cory Booker expands upon historic Senate floor speech for new book, ‘Stand’

NEW YORK — Sen. Cory Booker has expanded upon his historic Senate floor speech from last month into an upcoming book.

“Stand” will be published Nov. 11, St. Martin’s Press announced Wednesday. In April, the New Jersey Democrat made headlines by delivering the country’s longest continuous Senate floor speech — just over 25 hours. The 56-year-old Booker spoke in opposition to numerous Trump administration policies, whether the desire to make Canada part of the United States or cuts to Social Security offices.

“This book is about the virtues vital to our success as a nation and lessons we can draw from generations of Americans who fought for them,” Booker said in a statement.

Booker’s speech broke a record set by Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a segregationist and southern Democrat who opposed the advance of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which eventually passed.

Booker was assisted by fellow Democrats who gave him a break from speaking by asking him questions on the Senate floor.

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NPR sues Trump administration over executive order to cut funding to public media

WASHINGTON — National Public Radio and three local stations filed a lawsuit Tuesday against President Donald Trump, arguing that an executive order aimed at cutting federal funding for the organization is illegal.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington by NPR, Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KUTE, Inc. argues that Trump’s executive order to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR violates the First Amendment.

Trump issued the executive order earlier this month that instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and requires that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations. Trump issued the order after alleging there is “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.

“The Order’s objectives could not be clearer: the Order aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the President dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radio stations across the country,” the lawsuit alleges.

“The Order is textbook retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, and it interferes with NPR’s and the Local Member Stations’ freedom of expressive association and editorial discretion,” it said.

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Cities tied to George Floyd mark the 5th anniversary of his death

MINNEAPOLIS — Religious services, concerts and vigils are set to mark Sunday’s fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer even as police reform and civil rights activists face what they see as a backlash from the Trump administration.

Events in Minneapolis center around George Floyd Square, the intersection where police Officer Derek Chauvin used his knee to pin Floyd’s neck to the pavement for 9 1/2 minutes, even as the 46-year-old Black man’s cried “I can’t breathe.”

The events started Friday with concerts, a street festival and a “self-care fair,” and culminate with a worship service, gospel music concert and candlelight vigil on Sunday.

In Houston, where Floyd grew up, family members planned to gather Sunday at his gravesite for a memorial service led by the Rev. Al Sharpton. In a park about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away, a memorial service will take place, followed by five hours of music, preaching and poetry readings and a balloon release.

The remembrances come at a fraught moment for activists, who had hoped the worldwide protests that followed Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020, would lead to permanent police reform across the U.S. and a continued focus on racial justice issues.

Even with Minneapolis officials’ promises to remake the police department, some activists contend the progress has come at a glacial pace.

“We understand that change takes time,” Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, said in a statement last week. “However, the progress being claimed by the city is not being felt in the streets.”

President Donald Trump’s administration moved Wednesday to cancel settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville that called for an overhaul of their police departments following the Floyd’s murder and the killing of Breonna Taylor. Under Democratic President Joe Biden, the U.S. Justice Department had aggressively pushed for aggressive oversight of local police it had accused of widespread abuses.

Trump also declared an end to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives within the federal government and his administration is using federal funds as leverage to force local governments, universities and public school districts to do the same. Republican-led states also have accelerated their efforts to stamp out DEI initiatives.

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Federal Judge Blocks Trump Administration From Barring Foreign Student Enrollment At Harvard

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from cutting off Harvard’s enrollment of foreign students, an action the Ivy League school decried as unconstitutional retaliation for defying the White House’s political demands.

In its lawsuit filed earlier Friday in federal court in Boston, Harvard said the government’s action violates the First Amendment and will have an “immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders.”

“With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body, international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission,” Harvard said in its suit. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”

The temporary restraining order was granted by U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs.

The Trump administration move has thrown campus into disarray days before graduation. Harvard said in the suit. International students who run labs, teach courses, assist professors and participate in Harvard sports are now left deciding whether to transfer or risk losing legal status to stay in the country, according to the filing.

The impact is heaviest at graduate schools such as the Harvard Kennedy School, where almost half the student body comes from abroad, and Harvard Business School, which is about one-third international.

A sculler rows down the Charles River near Harvard University, at rear, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

Along with its impact on current students, the move blocks thousands of students who were planning to come for summer and fall classes.

Harvard said it immediately puts the school at a disadvantage as it competes for the world’s top students. Even if it regains the ability to host students, “future applicants may shy away from applying out of fear of further reprisals from the government,” the suit said.

If the government’s action stands, Harvard said, the university would be unable to offer admission to new international students for at least the next two academic years. Schools that have that certification withdrawn by the federal government are ineligible to reapply until one year afterward, Harvard said.

Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most are graduate students and they come from more than 100 countries.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the action Thursday, accusing Harvard of creating an unsafe campus environment by allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to assault Jewish students on campus. It also accused Harvard of coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party, contending the school had hosted and trained members of a Chinese paramilitary group as recently as 2024.

Harvard President Alan Garber earlier this month said the university has made changes to its governance over the past year and a half, including a broad strategy to combat antisemitism, He said Harvard would not budge on its “its core, legally-protected principles” over fears of retaliation. Harvard has said it will respond at a later time to allegations first raised by House Republicans about coordination with the Chinese Communist Party.

The threat to Harvard’s international enrollment stems from an April 16 request from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who demanded that Harvard provide information about foreign students that might implicate them in violence or protests that could lead to their deportation.

Harvard says it provided “thousands of data points” in response to Noem’s April 16 demand. Her letter on Thursday said Harvard failed to satisfy her request, but the school said she failed to provide any further explanation.

“It makes generalized statements about campus environment and ‘anti-Americanism,’ again without articulating any rational link between those statements and the decision to retaliate against international students,” the suit said.

People enter Harvard Yard through a gate on May 2, 2025. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Boston Globe via Getty Images

Harvard’s lawsuit said the administration violated the government’s own regulations for withdrawing a school’s certification.

The government can and does remove colleges from the Student Exchange and Visitor Program, making them ineligible to host foreign students on their campus. However, it’s usually for administrative reasons outlined in law, such as failing to maintain accreditation, lacking proper facilities for classes, or failing to employ qualified professional personnel.

Noem said Harvard can regain its ability to host foreign students if it produces a trove of records on foreign students within 72 hours. Her updated request demands all records, including audio or video footage, of foreign students participating in protests or dangerous activity on campus.

The lawsuit is separate from the university’s earlier one challenging more than $2 billion in federal cuts imposed by the Republican administration.

Associated Press writer Annie Ma contributed to this report.

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Software update keeps Newark airport radar online

A new software update prevented a third radar outage in the last two weeks at New Jersey’s busy Newark airport when a telecommunications line failed again over the weekend, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday.

At a news conference, Duffy also said the recent problems that have led to hundreds of cancellations and delays in Newark could have been avoided had action been taken by President Joe Biden’s administration to better equip the air traffic control facility in Philadelphia — particularly after issues with the hardware in October and November that should have set off alarms.

Duffy said the update the Federal Aviation Administration installed Friday night helped ensure the backup system worked on Sunday when there was another problem with the primary line coming into the air traffic control facility in Philadelphia. When a similar issue happened Friday and on April 28, the radar and communications systems went offline briefly, leaving controllers unable to see or talk to the planes.

The FAA restricted traffic into Newark Liberty International Airport after the first incident, partly because several air traffic controllers went out on trauma leave afterward, worsening the already short staffing. Those limits, designed to keep flights safe, combined with an ongoing runway construction project in Newark, led to all the cancellations and delays. Later this week, the FAA will meet with all the airlines to discuss making those limits last into the summer.

Even though the radar system stayed online Sunday, controllers were worried because of the two previous outages, so Duffy said they stopped all traffic at Newark airport for about 45 minutes as a precaution.

Duffy said he will request an investigation into last year’s move of Newark air traffic controllers from New York to Philadelphia to determine why more wasn’t done to ensure there wouldn’t be problems. Philadelphia is about 85 miles (137 kilometers) southwest of Newark.

“The Biden-Buttigieg FAA bungled this move without properly hardening the telecom lines feeding the data, which was already well-known to be error-prone,” Duffy said. “Without addressing the underlying infrastructure, they added more risk to the system.”

Duffy also said the FAA should have set up a new radar system for Newark in Philadelphia instead of piping the signal in from New York for controllers.

Duffy and President Donald Trump have said that the problems in Newark are a prime example of why they developed a multibillion-dollar plan to overhaul that nation’s air traffic control system, unveiled last week. Duffy blames the Biden administration for failing to do that, but those problems go back decades, even before the first Trump administration.

An advisor to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Duffy should spend more time trying to deal with the nation’s problems, and he defended the Biden administration’s efforts to bolster air traffic controller hiring and make a down payment on dealing with some of the infrastructure problems.

“Secretary Duffy has a tough job. But he needs to spend more time doing what the American people are paying him to do — fix problems — and less time blaming others,” said Chris Meagher.

Duffy laid out an extensive plan to replace the nation’s outdated air traffic control system last week, including installing 4,600 new high-speed data connections and replacing 618 radars, but didn’t put a price tag on the plan other than to say it will cost billions.

The FAA has installed new fiber optic lines at Newark airport and New York’s Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports to replace old copper wires since the first outage, but plans to spend the next two weeks testing those new lines out before switching over to them.

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Before naming 2028 nominee, Democrats have to decide which state will weigh in first

DES MOINES, Iowa — Before they can name their next presidential nominee, Democrats will have to decide which state will weigh in first.

In 2022, President Joe Biden forced a shake-up of the 2024 election calendar, moving South Carolina’s primary ahead of contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Officials in those traditionally four early-voting states are now positioning themselves to get top billing nearly two years before the Democratic National Committee solidifies the order. Others may make a play, too.

It’s a fraught choice for a party already wrestling with questions about its direction after losing November’s White House election to Republican Donald Trump. Each state offers advantages to different candidates and elevates — or diminishes — different parts of the Democratic base.

For now, 2028 prospects are making early-state visits, giving a glimpse into what they may see as their own path to the nomination.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was the keynote speaker at adinner last month for New Hampshire Democrats, visiting a majority white state known for its engaged electorate and independent streak. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the state’s first Black governor, will appear later this month at a similar party event in South Carolina, where Black voters are the party’s most influential voting group.

Pete Buttigieg will join a VoteVets Action Fund gathering in Iowa on Tuesday, marking the former presidential candidate’s first public in-person event since leaving his post as Biden’s transportation secretary. Buttigieg performed well in the 2020 caucuses, which were marred by technical glitches that prevented the declaration of a winner.

Biden and others pushed to open the 2024 cycle with a more diverse state than traditional leadoff Iowa, which is 90% white, according to census data.

Gone was a five-decade institution of Iowa Democrats engaging in a one-night spectacle where community members publicly signaled their support for a candidate. Last year, they held caucuses eight days before any other state’s contest, as is required by Iowa law. But Democratic voters had cast their 2024 presidential preference ballots by mail, with results released that March on Super Tuesday alongside other states.

Biden “picked the calendar that worked for him,” said Scott Brennan, who serves on the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee and previously chaired the Iowa Democratic Party. “When you’re the president, you can do those things. But I don’t know that people in Iowa thought it was very fair.”

For now, Iowa Democratic leaders emphasize that their focus is on the 2026 election, when two of Iowa’s four congressional districts will be competitive opportunities to unseat Republicans. Democrats have recently struggled on all electoral fronts in Iowa and have significantly diminished party registration numbers, which some blamed on the loss of the caucuses.

But Brennan said many Iowa Democrats continue to believe that the presidential nominating process is well served by Iowa’s early role in it, even if the 2028 format is up in the air.

“We took everyone at their word that all bets are off for 2028,” Brennan said. “We expect that there will be a fair process and that we will be given every consideration to be an early state.”

Former U.S. Rep. Dave Nagle was more blunt in proposing that the state party commit to first-in-the-nation status regardless, as he did as chair in 1984 when the national party threatened to upend Iowa and New Hampshire’s delegate selection process over noncompliance with timing rules. The two states formed an alliance, getting six of the presidential candidates on their side.

“All we have to do is look at the Democratic National Committee and say, ‘Sorry, we’re going first,’” Nagle said. “It’s ours if we have the courage.”

New Hampshire rebelled in 2024, holding an unsanctioned primary in January. Biden did not put his name on the ballot or campaign there but won as a write-in.

Three months later, the DNC dropped its threat to not seat the state’s national convention delegates.

Until Biden’s formal request of the DNC to approve his proposed calendar, New Hampshire Democrats thought they were in a good place with work behind the scenes, said the state party chairman, Ray Buckley. He said that effort will continue heading into 2028.

“This is going to be much more of a level playing field,” Buckley said. “There’s no reason to come in with a two-ton thumb and put it on the scale.”

It does not hurt their case that New Hampshire law requires the primary to be scheduled before any other similar contest.

Kathy Sullivan, formerly a state party chair and member of the DNC’s rulemaking arm, said it is possible that the “train has left the station” for Iowa’s hope of returning to its first-place position, given the 2020 problems and the fact that it gave in to the DNC in 2024.

“I don’t know if that helps them in terms of goodwill or hurts them in that they basically gave up the caucuses,” she said. “New Hampshire took the opposite tack, we had our primary despite what the DNC said, and our delegates ended up being seated despite the threats.”

Democratic leaders in Nevada, which held its 2024 Democratic primary just days after South Carolina’s, have also been pushing to keep their state early in the nominating conversation, although the state’s location in the West has traditionally made it less-visited by White House hopefuls.

In a December statement, the state party chair, Daniele Monroe-Moreno, pointed to the state’s nonwhite population, union representation and education-level diversity as reasons for Nevada to kick off the 2028 calendar. Nevada is 30% Latino, census data shows, and has significant Black and Asian populations.

“If Democrats want to win back working class voters and rebuild our broad coalition of voters of color, we should elevate the most working class and most diverse battleground state in the nation to be the first presidential preference primary for the 2028 cycle,” Monroe-Moreno said.

“Nevada is the battleground state that best reflects our growing nation,” she said, and the party “cannot afford to let overwhelmingly college-educated, white or less competitive states start the process of winnowing the field again in 2028.”

As the first-in-the-South primary state, where Black voters play a significant role in Democratic voting, South Carolina long promoted its role in picking a nominee after the first set of contests winnowed the field.

But Christale Spain, who is expected to win her second term as state party chair, said she will make the argument to national Democratic leaders that South Carolina should stay in the No. 1 slot.

“It’s our plan to really work to stay first in the nation,” Spain said.

At the end of May, Moore is set to headline the South Carolina Democratic Party’s Blue Palmetto Dinner, a signature fundraiser that has recently hosted Democratic stars as its keynote speakers, including Jennifer Granholm, a former Michigan governor and Biden energy secretary, and Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Raphael Warnock of Georgia.

Then-Vice President Kamala Harris used her 2022 speech as an official “thank you” to South Carolina for providing the key primary support that revived Biden’s flagging 2020 presidential campaign after a series of losses in other early-voting states.

Spain will have to make her argument anew without Biden in the White House and Jaime Harrison, a South Carolina native who recently ended his term as national Democratic chair, helming the party.

“I think you get what you need from an electorate in South Carolina,” Spain said. “All those things matter — the stuff that’s happening with the veterans, all our colleges and institutions, the role of Black folks — in a Democratic primary.

“We have more to offer than other states do,” she said.

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Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina, and Ramer from Concord, New Hampshire.

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An earthquake of 4.1 preliminary magnitude has been reported in Tennessee

An earthquake of 4.1 preliminary magnitude has been reported in Tennessee and was felt in Atlanta, Georgia, and western North Carolina

ATLANTA — An earthquake of 4.1 preliminary magnitude was reported Saturday morning in Tennessee and was felt in Atlanta, western North Carolina and elsewhere, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and local news reports.

The website for USGS said the earthquake originated shortly after 9 a.m. EDT about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Greenback, Tennessee, which is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Knoxville.

Meteorologists at television news stations serving Georgia and North Carolina reported feeling the tremors as well.

Gabriela Reilly was making waffles with her husband when they felt their entire home shake in Braselton, Georgia, which is northeast of Atlanta.

“Our ceiling fan started shaking for about 10 seconds,” she said. “I thought a giant aircraft had flown low right over the neighborhood, but my husband said, ‘No, that was definitely an earthquake!’”

Earthquakes are not uncommon in the region. The Eastern Tennessee seismic zone is one of the most active in the Southeast and extends across parts of Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

Two tremors struck in December 2018. One was a 4.4 magnitude earthquake that was centered in Decatur, Tennessee, which is south of Knoxville. It shook homes as far away as Atlanta.

Another earthquake struck a few days later with a magnitude of 3.0. Its epicenter was about two miles (four kilometers) southeast of Mascot, near Knoxville. It also was felt in parts of Georgia, Kentucky and North Carolina.

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