WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is proposing a new rule that would strip private schools and colleges of their tax-exempt status if they provide targeted help to students based on their race, a significant escalation in the White House’s campaign to eradicate diversity programs directed at Black, Hispanic and other minority students.
The Treasury Department proposed the change Thursday in a new regulation that, if made final, would kick in after May 2027. The rule is broadly aimed at ending any policies or programs that help students because of their race, and it specifically says such benefits in admissions, scholarships, and facilities “would be incompatible” with the rule.
It’s the latest attempt by the Trump administration to pressure schools and colleges to weed out diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that had become common before President Donald Trump returned to the White House with a promise to end them. Trump officials have used Civil Rights-era laws to unwind the policies, saying they discriminate against white and Asian American students.
Higher education leaders criticized the proposal.
“The administration’s latest rules changes are its most blatant attack to keep working class Americans and people of color from accessing higher education and a better life,” Mike Gavin, Alliance for Higher Education president and CEO, said in a statement. “By claiming that efforts to increase fair opportunity for all students are discriminatory, the administration is trying to gaslight the American people into believing that up is down and black is white.”
Thousands of colleges could be affected
Scores of universities have shut down or rebranded their DEI offices and ended scholarships and clubs designed for minority students under pressure from the White House. In a statement announcing the proposal, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested that even policies that are no longer under the banner of DEI could be targeted.
“Schools rebranding race-based preferences as equitable, inclusive, or diversity-enhancing does not change their discriminatory nature,” Bessent said.
The Treasury Department and IRS estimate that up to 18,000 private schools, colleges, and other education institutions could be affected by the proposal.
America’s private universities have been exempt from many taxes for more than a century because they provide a public good. The benefit saves many universities millions of dollars every year.
Trump has seen the tax-exempt status as a lever to pull in his pressure campaign against colleges that he describes as hotbeds of “wokeness.” He threatened to cut the benefit for Harvard University last year during his battle with the nation’s oldest college. In a response, Harvard officials said there was no legal basis for doing so and argued it would force cuts to financial aid and crucial medical research.
In the 1970s, a college lost tax-exempt status over a ban on interracial dating
It’s incredibly rare for the federal government to go after a college’s tax-exempt status, but there’s one notable precedent. Bob Jones University, a small Christian school in South Carolina, lost the benefit in the 1970s over a ban on interracial dating and marriage on campus. The Supreme Court upheld the IRS’s decision to deny the school its exemption. The school has since ended the ban and regained tax-exempt status in 2017.
Laws forbid the IRS from targeting individuals and organizations for ideological reasons, and federal officials are not allowed to direct IRS investigations.
To maintain nonprofit status, which allows donations to be tax-deductible, organizations must follow IRS rules on lobbying, political campaign activity, and annual reporting requirements, as well as other obligations.
The Trump administration describes the new proposal as a move toward restoring merit in the nation’s education systems.
Marjorie Hass, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, said the change would most likely impact donations, which are often earmarked for scholarships.
The uncertainty around the proposal also will create challenges for schools, said Tim Powers, a vice president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
“Our institutions are committed to complying with applicable civil rights laws and maintaining safe and supportive campuses free from discrimination,” Powers said. “However, the proposed rule may create new compliance burdens and legal uncertainties for institutions of higher education that are already operating in line with existing nondiscrimination rules.”
The Justice Department has separately opened investigations into several medical schools that it accuses of favoring Black and Hispanic students in admissions. Trump officials say any such favoritism violates Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal law that forbids discrimination in education and was created to fight segregation and its impact.
A statement from IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said private schools that promote discriminatory practices will no longer be exempt from taxes.
“Today’s proposed regulations put institutions on notice and schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination should expect to lose that status,” he said.
NEW YORK — Gloria Steinem, the celebrated author and activist who became one of the most visible symbols and potent voices of the U.S. women’s movement and a fierce advocate for feminist causes throughout her life, has died. She was 92.
With her trademark streaked hair parted down the middle and large aviator glasses, Ms. Steinem, a co-founder of Ms. Magazine, was a hugely recognizable presence wherever she went. And she went everywhere: Much of her life as an advocate was spent on the road, speaking at college campuses and community centers, at rallies and marches.
She died Wednesday at her home in New York City, according to her and her foundation’s social media pages.
“Gloria’s greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard,” the posts said. “Her words, actions, and example gave people permission to be their truest selves. Gloria lived true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor.”
Ms. Steinem enjoyed writing and spending time in the community in recent years, the posts said. She also hosted talking circles for hundreds of people in her home. She died just before a planned memoir was to be released this fall.
“You can’t do it on the phone or on the web,” she told The Associated Press in a 2015 interview. “You have to be there with all five senses. It should be obvious that people can’t empathize with each other unless we’re in the same room.”
Ms. Steinem changed her career path after a start as a journalist
Ms. Steinem at an Equal Rights Amendment rally outside the White House on July 4, 1981.Scott Applewhite
She began her career as a journalist, notably one who reported, in 1963, on degrading conditions in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire, an undercover assignment she came to later regret. She credits a meeting six years later, where women spoke out boldly in favor of abortion rights, with changing her career path.
“That speak-out was the beginning of activism for me,” Ms. Steinem, who had undergone a secret illegal abortion herself at age 22, told the AP in an email in 2022, reflecting on the reversal of Roe v Wade. “Either our control over our own bodies is equal, regardless of sex or race, or we’re not living in a democracy.”
Though she soon became a known activist, those who watched Ms. Steinem denounce discrimination for so many years likely never suspected that she’d had to overcome a deep fear of public speaking. She would have simply stuck to writing, she said, if only editors at the time had been willing to let her write about the women’s movement.
But they weren’t interested, she told the AP in 2015. “So I ended up going out and speaking, which was my nightmare,” she said. “I mean, I was terrified. But I’m grateful, even though I still get scared even now.”
Ms. Steinem’s visibility endured throughout her life
Ms. Steinem claps as she walks on the stage during an International Women’s Day event in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in 2023.Kamran Jebreili
Time hardly slowed Ms. Steinem down; well into her 80s she was traveling the globe and speaking out on issues of importance to her. These included everything from genital mutilation to Korean reconciliation, but it was equality for women that took precedence. “Being a feminist means that you see the world as whole instead of half,” she once said. “It shouldn’t need a name, and one day it won’t.”
As the years went on, Ms. Steinem’s visibility endured. At 83, she sat in the front row of her first fashion show, guest of designer Prabal Gurung. A few days after her 85th birthday, she was leading a women’s “talking circle” at an off-Broadway play celebrating her life, where one by one, women in the audience — many fighting tears — rose to thank her and tell their own stories of discrimination. In 2020, her life was the subject of a feature film, The Glorias, A Life on The Road, based on her 2015 memoir and starring Julianne Moore.
And at 91, she collaborated on a picture book with Liberian peace activist and Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee aimed at inspiring young people to change the world. Rise, Girl, Rise: Our Sister-Friend Journey. Together for All was published in February.
The constant visibility came with a price; even into her older years, Ms. Steinem expressed frustration that despite her accomplishments, she was often described as beautiful or glamorous (A 1992 Vanity Fair profile even noted her “spectacular racehorse legs.”) It was a label she said unfairly detracted from her message.
“Nobody ever called me beautiful until I was publicly a feminist, and that was in my mid-30s,” she told AP in a 2011 interview. “It was clear that label was being assigned to me. The most hurtful part is that you work very hard, and people say it’s because of your looks.”
Ms. Steinem dealt with hostility from many directions
Of course, Ms. Steinem also had to deal with hostility. Sometimes it came from surprising places. Appearing on Larry King’s talk show on CNN in 1990, she was visibly stunned when a female caller greeted her cheerfully, then told her to “rot in hell” because she had ruined “the beautiful American family.”
But by then, she noted, at least people were taking feminists seriously. That wasn’t the case in 1972 when she co-founded Ms. Magazine and many commentators — especially male — dismissed it as ridiculous, predicting an early demise. (The magazine continues to this day, published by the Feminist Majority Foundation.)
Among Ms. Steinem’s detractors was President Richard Nixon, who was caught on an Oval Office tape ridiculing both her and the “Ms.” title. The ridicule was mutual: In a 1972 National Press Club speech, Ms. Steinem called Nixon “the most sexually insecure chief of state since Napoleon.”
It was just one example of Ms. Steinem’s trademark wit. Before she married at 66, she often explained her singlehood by saying “I can’t mate in captivity.” Laughter, she wrote, was “the only free emotion — the only one that can’t be compelled.”
In 2013, Ms. Steinem was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. “Because of her work across America and around the world, more women are afforded the respect and opportunities that they deserve,” he said, “but she also changed how women thought about themselves.”
Ms. Steinem ‘read everything I could get my hands on’ growing up
Gloria Marie Steinem was born on March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio. Her father was a traveling antique salesperson; she spent her early years on the road with her parents, not attending regular school. “I just read everything I could get my hands on,” she told an audience at Manhattan’s 92Y in 2026. “Which was frequently completely unsuitable … just everything and anything. I also was in love with the movies — my idea of heaven was a movie and a malted.”
In 1944 her parents divorced, and 10-year-old Gloria was left to take care of her mother. a once-promising journalist who struggled to combine her work with running a household, and eventually suffered a nervous breakdown.
As a young girl she excelled at tap dancing — it was even going to be her “ticket out of Toledo,” she said. Although she remained a good dancer, that particular career didn’t materialize. She attended Smith College in the ’50s, a time when, she has said, women were being educated to be mothers and wives.
But marriage was not on Ms. Steinem’s mind. “I was engaged to a very nice man. It wasn’t his fault, but I just didn’t want to get married,” she told her 2026 audience. Instead, she took advantage of a modest fellowship to travel to India. After that, Ms. Steinem headed to Manhattan, where she couldn’t rent her own apartment because, she said, landlords avoided single women, assuming “if you could earn enough, you must be a hooker.”
The aspiring journalist wanted to write about politics. But editors gave her assignments on food, fashion, and, in what she jokingly called “the low point of my life,” an article about textured stockings. Even more demoralizing was her experience with an editor who, she said, gave her a choice one day: Spend the afternoon in a hotel with him, or mail his letters on the way out.
She chose to mail the letters. “There was no word for sexual harassment then,” she has said. “It was just life.”
But one assignment in 1963 sounded compelling: posing as a Playboy Bunny, for an exposé in the now-defunct Show magazine. Ms. Steinem went through the audition process, assuming she’d be weeded out. But she was given her bunny costume — “so tight, it would give a man a cleavage,” she joked — and worked in the job for about a month.
“I could not have made a bigger mistake,” she told the AP in 2011. “It was personally and professionally a disaster. In the short term, it was much harder to get assignments, and in the long term it’s been used to ridicule me.”
Ms. Steinem’s writing became more political in her 30s
Ms. Steinem was in her 30s when she joined the editorial board of New York magazine, and her writing became more political. In 1969, she went to cover an abortion rights hearing. She had never told anyone about her illegal abortion at 22, in London. That was the moment, she has said, that triggered her career as a women’s rights activist. “I don’t think I had ever felt part of a group before,” she said in a 1970 TV interview.
Ms. Steinem founded the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971 along with Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug. The latter became a dear lifelong friend — “the woman I wished I had had as a mother,” she said at Abzug’s funeral.
Unlike Abzug, Ms. Steinem was naturally reserved, not comfortable in front of a crowd. Gradually, with her early speaking partner Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a Black feminist and child welfare advocate, she found her footing. The two formed a powerful partnership at a time when feminism was viewed as largely a white, middle-class movement. In an iconic photo, the two raise their right arms together in the Black Power salute.
As she grew more famous, Ms. Steinem drew attention not just for her work but for a glamorous Manhattan life. Asked once about her streaked hair and aviator glasses, she explained that the hair was inspired by Holly Golightly, the free-spirited character played by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The glasses? They were “more about hiding,” she said.
When reaction was hostile, Ms. Steinem would try to reason that it was a step above ridicule. But sometimes it stung, like a snarky Esquire profile in the early ’70s, so hurtful that she cried, and colleagues called a news conference to defend her.
Ms. Steinem co-founded Ms. Magazine and stayed with it as an adviser
(From left) Tennis star Billie Jean King, astronaut Sally Ride, and Ms. Steinem at a reception hosted by the Girls Club of America and Ms. Magazine to honor Ride in 1983.ASSOCIATED PRESS
Then came Ms. Magazine in 1972, a magazine by women, for women. “I was so obsessed with the fear that it would fail and be a disgrace to the movement,” Ms. Steinem, age 37 when it launched, told the AP in 2011. And opponents hoped that would happen. TV newsman Harry Reasoner, an especially tart critic, later apologized on air. Ms. Steinem continued with Ms. until it was bought in 2001 by the Feminist Majority Foundation, and remained an adviser.
By 1977, numerous gains had been made for women, including Roe in 1973. But the Equal Rights Amendment, which had passed the House and Senate in 1972 but needed to be ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures, remained elusive. The issue was front and center at the 1977 National Women’s Conference, convened on a congressional mandate to examine women’s rights.
“If they want us to become the radicals that they fear we are, just let them stop the ERA and we will become those radicals,” Ms. Steinem said there.
Among groups Ms. Steinem co-founded were the Women’s Action Alliance, which was active through the 1990s; the Women’s Media Center in 2004, the Voters for Choice political action committee in 1977, and the Ms. Foundation for Women. She also helped establish the Take Our Daughters to Work Day.
Ms. Steinem never had her own children, and said she never regretted it. “No, not for a millisecond,” she told the AP, describing an incident in which she was afraid to answer that question in front of a group of women in India, fearing they wouldn’t like the answer. “But they applauded,” she said. “It’s important that some of us not have children, to show that we have a choice.”
In 2000, Ms. Steinem she did something she’d never planned to: She got married, at 66, to British activist and businessman David Bale, whom she met at a fundraiser (Bale was the father of actor Christian Bale.)
“I thought, ‘I haven’t changed, marriage had changed,’” Ms. Steinem said. “David and I wanted to be together, we loved each other. He needed a green card.” They married at a Cherokee ceremony in Oklahoma. Several years later, he became ill with brain lymphoma, and Ms. Steinem cared for him until his death in 2003.
Ms. Steinem said she had few regrets in life, but did miss being present when her father died. She received word that he’d been in a serious car accident, but did not respond in time, and he died alone. “I had taken care of my mom as a child, and I feared I’d never come back,” she explained. She was also sorry that she didn’t become closer to her mother. “I was so fearful of becoming her,” she said in an HBO documentary, Gloria: In Her Own Words.
Ms. Steinem’s books included ‘A Life on the Road’
Ms. Steinem’s books included the 2015 road memoir A Life on the Road — but she wryly noted at the time that she’d actually never learned to drive. It would have taken away, she said, from her ability to converse with her hosts, who would pick her up from airports or train stations. And, she noted, she always loved to chat with taxi drivers.
On Jan. 21, 2017, when hundreds of thousands of women gathered in Washington in their pink “pussy hats” for the historic Women’s March, it surprised nobody that the keynote speaker, and the most rousing, was Ms. Steinem.
“We are linked,” she told the crowd. “And this is a day that will change us forever because we are together.”
For many women, Ms. Steinem was the galvanizing voice that day. She would go on to advocate fiercely. But, though many saw her as a singular figure in history, she often liked to say that if she hadn’t come along, someone else would have accomplished the same things.
By the same token, she said, it was less important that younger people listen to her, and more important that they listen to themselves.
“The primary thing is not that they know who I am,” she said, “but that they know who THEY are.”
WARSAW, Poland — Russia will close German cultural centers on its territory, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday in a retaliatory measure reflecting the deepening tensions between Moscow and European countries that are helping Ukraine resist the Kremlin’s 4 ½-year-old invasion.
Lavrov’s announcement came after Berlin blamed Moscow for an attempted drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport on Aug. 4. The explosives-laden drone was found near a Ukrainian plane at the airport, a major international freight hub used for providing support to Ukraine. The drone was later defused.
Earlier Thursday in Munich, several incendiary devices were thrown at a construction site near a building where several companies, including from the defense sector, are located, the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office said. There was a brief fire that caused no significant damage, police said, adding they suspect the target was one of the companies in the area.
Two Bulgarian nationals were arrested, police said, but their suspected involvement was not confirmed.
Western officials have repeatedly accused Moscow of conducting a campaign of sabotage and disruption in their countries with the aim of undermining support for Ukraine and destabilizing European nations, something Russia denies.
Germany says it has become a “daily target” of the Kremlin’s hybrid campaign.
It said Wednesday it was closing both the Russian Consulate in Bonn and the Russian House cultural center in the German capital.
Lavrov countered that cultural centers belonging to Germany’s Goethe-Institut would be closed in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg, adding that any other response would show a lack of “self-respect” on Russia’s part.
He told an economic forum in the far east city of Vladivostok that Germany “could not have failed to understand” that closing the center in Berlin would “signify the end of their cultural presence in Russia.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Berlin wants to distract from its own failings and dissatisfaction among voters. Any proof being offered “has been planted,” Putin said.
Europe increasingly views itself as facing what it calls hybrid attacks by Russia, marked by cyberwarfare and disinformation as well as a conventional military threat. Each side accuses the other of state terrorism.
The tension has continued for months and grown into a major foreign and defense policy challenge for countries in the European Union.
Putin is testing the West with tactics that fall “just below the threshold of war” and is determined to “harass NATO members,” the head of Britain’s MI6 spy agency said last year.
European countries seek to counter Russia’s threat
Following Germany’s claims, Poland, Denmark, Finland, the U.K., the Czech Republic, and Lithuania have summoned Russian diplomats stationed in their countries.
In Norway, authorities on Wednesday seized a Russian vessel in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard at the request of Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz energy group.
A Norwegian court ordered the seizure as part of efforts by Naftogaz to recover a $4.22 billion arbitration award stemming from Russia’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea and its seizure of Ukrainian energy assets, including gas fields and pipelines. After Moscow refused to pay the 2023 award, Naftogaz petitioned national courts for orders to seize Russian commercial assets.
Putin on Thursday compared it to “state terrorism,” and Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned Norway’s ambassador to Moscow, Heidi Olufsen, to protest the seizure of the vessel, which it said belongs to the state weather and environmental monitoring agency.
It carried workers, scientists, and cargo to Russian settlements on one of the islands in Svalbard, the ministry said, adding that Moscow “will seek to lift the vessel’s arrest.”
In Finland, meanwhile, more than 2,000 people took part Thursday in the biggest civil defense exercise in Europe since the end of World War II. Among the threats envisioned were missile strikes from neighboring Russia.
EU weighs how to respond further
EU ministers on Wednesday weighed how best to respond to the attempted drone attack but struggled to find new ways to meet the challenge without resorting to military means.
The EU has slapped almost two dozen packages of sanctions on Russia over the war, targeting over 3,000 officials, oligarchs, and entities including banks, energy companies, and drone makers.
One senior EU official said the bloc’s anti-terrorism procedures could be put to effective use.
“If we list individuals as terrorists, we can deploy a range of instruments to actually target those individuals and to track them, all their activities, and people associated with those individuals,” EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Bartjan Wegter said.
He told The Associated Press that EU methods for combating terrorist financing and money laundering, as well as boosting the resilience of infrastructure like airports, could be put to good use.
“It is a very worrying development,” Wegter said of the failed Leipzig drone attack. But he noted that “it is not new what we’re seeing.”
Both Russia and Iran have used hybrid warfare methods before, he said.
“They’re actually deploying terrorist tactics” that are meant to “destabilize our society,” Wegter added.
Denmark sounds alarm about Russian sabotage plans
Danish security services are warning that Russian acts of sabotage against the country’s defense industry may be imminent.
Intelligence services have seen signs of specific planning by Russia to conduct sabotage operations in Denmark, Emil Græsholm, head of counterintelligence at the national security and intelligence service PET, told the Berlingske newspaper.
The targets are primarily companies in the defense industry and especially those associated with delivering military components to Ukraine, he said.
Russian Ambassador Vladimir Barbin said PET has not presented any concrete evidence that Moscow was preparing sabotage acts in Denmark. He said Græsholm’s comments were actually an acknowledgement of Denmark’s involvement in Ukraine.
The transformation of Danish territory into a production and logistics base for the Ukrainian military posed a security risk to Denmark, he added.
Italy’s Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told AP on Wednesday that the German airport incident was “a very serious act that could have very grave consequences.”
But he said the threats aren’t discouraging Italy from further helping Kyiv as Rome weighs whether to send SAMP/T air defense batteries. As in other Western countries, limited weapons production capacity is hampering efforts to supply more to Ukraine, he said.
WASHINGTON — A plan by the Environmental Protection Agency could make it harder for the public to learn about and comment on proposed AI data centers that have sparked backlash in communities across the United States and transformed the midterm election landscape.
The EPA proposal would eliminate a federal requirement that states notify the public and seek comment before issuing air pollution permits for data centers and other industrial facilities. States could still offer opportunities for public comment, but the EPA would no longer mandate them as a condition for states to grant permits.
Critics say the move could thwart local residents from learning about proposed data centers or making their voices heard before projects are approved and construction begins. The move comes during a widespread backlash as tech giants build hundreds of massive server warehouses to fuel artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
“By eliminating the long-standing federal requirement for public notice, this proposal continues efforts by the Trump administration to turn its back on the fundamental EPA principle of transparency,” said Mike Koerber, a former deputy director of EPA’s air quality office.
If made final, the plan could create “an unlevel playing field where citizens in one state are kept completely in the dark about new data centers and heavy industrial emissions in their backyards, while neighboring states maintain oversight,” he said.
Under the EPA plan, states with weak or no requirements for public comment could speed permits for data centers, power plants and other pollution sources without consulting the public or even informing communities where the facilities are located, Koerber and other critics said.
Communities deserve a chance to weigh in, advocates say
“Data centers and other industrial sources should not be able to get their air pollution permits in secret,” said Keri Powell, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, an advocacy organization that leads a coalition of nearly 200 environmental, health and community groups that filed comments with the EPA opposing the plan. “Communities deserve a chance to weigh in” before potentially harmful projects are approved.
An EPA spokesperson called that a false narrative.
“In our proposal we are saying that states get to pick how they want their permitting process to go for minor sources” of air pollution, spokesperson Carolyn Holran said.
The EPA proposal does not specifically identify data centers, she said, noting that the plan also would apply to laundromats, car repair shops and even landfills and steel mills that are considered “minor” pollution sources under the federal Clean Air Act.
The proposal does not demand that states make particular changes to their programs, nor does it alter federal emission standards or weaken environmental protections, Holran said. “Rather, the proposal simply aligns the national program with the Clean Air Act language to ensure that states are in the lead regarding their programs.”
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who has made U.S. leadership in AI a top agency priority, said in a statement that the plan is aimed at “cutting unnecessary and burdensome red tape, unleashing American energy and advancing cooperative federalism” with states. The EPA is expected to make the rule final next year.
President Donald Trump continues to stick up for data centers, even as politicians from both parties criticize them and many communities try to block them. Trump said on social media this week that U.S. communities that don’t have data centers will “end up being backwards and poor.”
Trump says data centers are crucial in the AI race against China
Trump has acknowledged that data centers need “a little public relations help” and has pushed tech companies to generate their own electricity to shield consumers from higher utility bills. The Republican president calls data centers critical to winning the AI race against China.
Environmental groups and other critics say the EPA proposal ignores the reality that many states, particularly in the South and Midwest, don’t require public notice or hearings beyond those set by federal agencies. The federal plan would leave many communities in the dark before data centers show up in their backyards, they said.
“It’s beyond cruel for Trump’s EPA to silence front-line communities who bear the brunt of unhealthy air,” said Brandon Jones-Cobb, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, another environmental group.
The EPA “has already turned its back on science, cut enforcement against industrial polluters and eliminated life-saving air pollution measures,” he said. “Now it wants to shut the public out of decisions to build or expand facilities that expose communities to dangerous air pollution, including data centers.”
Powell, whose organization focuses on six Southern states from Virginia to Alabama, said many states “only do what is required by federal law” when it comes to public notice of land-use projects and other environmental concerns.
“We rely on a minimum federal requirement to ensure we have environmental protections and a voice,’’ she said in an interview, calling regulation of data centers a crucial issue in a region where the energy-hungry behemoths are proliferating. Virginia and Georgia are both among states with the highest concentration of current and proposed data centers.
Americans worry data centers could cause pollution, job losses
Besides powering AI and cloud computing, data centers are often sources of nitrogen oxide, which helps form ozone, as well as carbon monoxide and other air pollutants. Local communities also have expressed concerns about excessive water use and noise from data centers. Many Americans worry that AI could increase economic disparities and cause widespread job losses.
Data center advocates stress that local taxes paid by the centers can help fund public schools, reducing the financial burden on homeowners.
Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, said even if data centers ultimately are approved, “every community should be able to participate robustly in governmental decisions that can pollute our air.’’
Rolling back the EPA rule “pulls a dark cloud, filled with soot and toxic chemicals, over communities’ right to know what polluting facilities are planned in their community,” she said.
LOS ANGELES — The NBA imposed a sweeping punishment against the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday for violating salary cap circumvention rules, suspending owner Steve Ballmer for one year and forcing the team to forfeit five draft picks.
Also, two-time NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard was hit with a $700,000 penalty, president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank was banned for six months and team president of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended for one year.
The league came down hard on the organization after a nearly yearlong investigation led by an outside law firm.
The Clippers had said multiple times that they had done nothing wrong and expected to be exonerated.
The team maintained that stance after the league’s announcement.
“We vehemently reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” the team said in a statement. “What the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly, and they have not held themselves close to the standard Commissioner (Adam) Silver set at the start of this investigation to ensure its fairness and accuracy.”
The Clippers said they will “now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence. We intend to vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us and look forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process.”
The league said it and the players’ union agreed to confirm the penalties as final and binding on all parties. It said the outside law firm continues to receive information involving the investigation, and the league “will consider further action as appropriate.”
“I am deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations of our rules and by the Clippers’ institutional and leadership failures that led to this misconduct,” Silver said in a statement. “The severity of the penalties reflects the seriousness of the violations.”
The NBA began investigating in September 2025 whether a $28 million endorsement contract between Leonard and Aspiration Fund Adviser LLC — a company that filed for bankruptcy last year — broke league rules, following a report by journalist Pablo Torre. Earlier this year, Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to defrauding investors and lenders of at least $248 million.
The league said Ballmer knowingly sought to help Leonard obtain off-court income deals, approved a business deal that he knew was a precondition for Aspiration to enter into an endorsement contract with Leonard, and for failing to create conditions under which his team followed league rules.
“I accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle and regret the distraction this situation has caused the fans and my family,” Leonard said in a statement issued through his new agent, Harrison Gaines.
The NBA said Leonard, through his former business manager and uncle Dennis Robertson, “violated the circumvention rules by pressuring the Clippers to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities, successfully obtaining those opportunities, and failing to reimburse payments by the Clippers for personal expenses.”
“I entered into my contract with the Clippers as well as the agreements in question in good faith, fully committed to fulfilling my obligations and with no knowledge of any intent on anyone’s part to circumvent the salary cap,” Leonard said in his statement.
The league said Ballmer was suspended for “knowingly seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities,” among other issues.
Leonard’s trade to the Toronto Raptors has been on hold pending the outcome of the investigation. The Raptors had said they still want Leonard, and he apparently is just as eager to return to the team where he won an NBA title and was Finals MVP in 2019.
“As I return to Toronto, I am focused on what I can control, closing this chapter, and moving forward with a clean slate,” Leonard said in his statement.
The Clippers and their personnel will be under a compliance and monitoring program by the league for five years and Robertson was banned from doing business with NBA teams for five years.
The league penalized Frank for his involvement with the impermissible endorsement arrangements and for approving impermissible expenses incurred by Leonard and his family. Zucker was banned for being primarily and directly culpable for the illegal endorsement arrangements and for lying to investigators. Both will lose their salaries during their bans.
It’s not the first time the Clippers have run afoul of NBA rules under Ballmer, who bought the team for $2 billion in August 2014.
They were fined $250,000 a year later for violating rules against offering unauthorized business or investment opportunities to players during their courting of free agent DeAndre Jordan. A presentation to him improperly included a $200,000-per-year deal with luxury carmaker Lexus.
Ballmer, 70, was CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014.
The $1 coin designed to celebrate America’s 250th birthday — and seemingly President Donald Trump, whose face gazes from one side of the gold finish — will go on sale Wednesday, according to the U.S. Mint.
The coin’s design — Trump’s visage as “heads” and the Great Seal of the United States as “tails” — received the stamp of approval this year from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members Trump appointed. In past comments, the president said that the idea to stamp his face on a coin was “very unusual” but that he was “honored by it.”
The president’s second term has brought several such brandings, or attempts at them, that have become tangled up in lawsuits. That includes moves to put Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace, as Trump works to leave his stamp on history and on Washington, D.C.
The coins, which can be used as legal tender, drew some criticism, particularly because of federal law that bars the depiction of a living president on U.S. currency. But in some circumstances, the Treasury Secretary does have authority to authorize the minting and issuance of special coins.
The coins were struck to “honor 250 years of great American heritage,” the U.S. Mint wrote on its website. In an arc above Trump’s face is written “LIBERTY,” and below is “1776 (tilde) 2026.” On the flip side is the Great Seal of the United States, with the bald eagle gripping arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other. In a banner clutched in its beak is written “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” Latin for ”out of many, one.”
A roll of 25 coins will cost $61, and a bag of 100 will cost $154.50, and the U.S. Mint said it randomly hid some special-issue coins among the rolls and bags. Those will be marked “July 4th” because they were struck on that day, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Households are limited to only two orders, the U.S. Mint wrote, but that cap will be lifted at 2 p.m. Thursday.
KATHMANDU, Nepal — Tourists previously reported missing in Nepal have made contact with authorities, officials said Wednesday, as families of locals still unaccounted for after last week’s catastrophic floods held symbolic funerals for their loved ones.
Nepal’s Foreign Ministry said 324 foreign nationals have been rescued, while another 590 from 39 countries remain missing following the Aug. 26 floods that killed at least 1,118 people and left more than 3,900 missing.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday that the number of Australians missing in the disaster had fallen from 43 to 38 after five were confirmed safe overnight.
“Amidst all of this tragedy, we are seeing some positive news. Today, another five Australians have been confirmed safe,” Albanese told reporters in Palau, where he is attending a regional summit.
“We hope, of course, for positive news further, and we’re doing everything we can to work with authorities,” Albanese added.
Sunil Sharma, a spokesperson for the Nepal Tourism Board, said at least five other tourists who were previously reported missing had contacted authorities by email or telephone in recent days.
It is thought the disaster happened when a glacial collapse in the Himalayas sent rock, ice and meltwater into valleys below, triggering powerful floods downstream. The surge entered rivers flowing through Tibet and Nepal, causing them to rise rapidly. Floodwaters swept away homes, buildings, roads and bridges, carrying mud and rocks downstream.
Families hold symbolic funerals
Some families in Nuwakot, one of Nepal’s worst-affected districts, have held symbolic funerals for relatives still missing, hoping to free their souls after they were presumed dead.
In Hindu tradition, cremation is an important final rite, and for some families, performing the ceremony even without the bodies of their loved ones provides a sense of spiritual release.
Mukunda Rijal said his cousins and their daughters had not been found, prompting the family to perform a symbolic funeral for them.
Along the banks of the Trishuli River, a priest placed straw effigies representing the missing family members and covered them with small piles of wood before setting them alight. The symbolic funeral pyres were surrounded by offerings to Hindu deities as relatives gathered to perform the final rites.
Authorities in Nepal have also been burying recovered bodies in temporary graves until they can be identified. They are preserving DNA samples, photographing distinguishing facial features and recording other identifying details to help match the remains with missing people and eventually return them to their families.
China builds access road for rescue crews
On the Chinese side, rescue crews completed a makeshift road to the disaster site at Gyirong Port on the Nepal border, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Wednesday.
Crews have been clearing access for heavy machinery to be used in the search at the border crossing complex, which was washed away by the floods. The road leading to the crossing was destroyed and buried under water, mud and rocks.
At least 21 people have been killed and 541 remain missing in China, according to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua.
Survivors find shelter in Kathmandu
Some flood survivors are fleeing the devastation to seek shelter in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.
Around 400 survivors, mostly from the town of Timure, about 65 miles west of Kathmandu, have been staying at the Yellow Gumba monastery. The shelter is being organized by locals and relatives, with relief supplies donated by individuals and charity organizations.
Riya Tamang, 21, who fled with her 10-month-old baby as the floodwaters approached, is among those taking shelter at the monastery. She lost her grandparents in the disaster.
“I was the last one to leave the house. It was so difficult to escape,” she said.
Her husband, who works as a cook in Gyirong town on the Chinese side of the border, also survived, and the couple now stays in touch through video calls.
The Chinese government is pressing for answers after a Chinese man died hours after being taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a U.S. territory.
Lianyong Wei, 51, died Aug. 23 at a hospital in the Northern Mariana Islands, ICE announced in a news release Tuesday.
Wei was arrested Aug. 21 by the Northern Mariana Islands Department of Public Safety on criminal charges stemming from an alleged assault on a family of five at their home, according to ICE. He was taken into ICE custody the next day pending removal proceedings.
ICE said a guard at the lockup in Saipan found Wei unresponsive during routine morning checks on Aug. 23. He was taken to a hospital emergency room, where he was pronounced dead after “life-sustaining interventions were initiated,” the agency said, noting that the cause of his death is under investigation.
Wei entered the U.S. territory in February 2019 and was authorized to stay for two weeks, according to ICE. U.S. authorities began removal proceedings in July 2026, and Wei’s next hearing had been scheduled for this month.
The Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles said it had been notified of Wei’s death.
“We have expressed serious concerns to the relevant U.S. authorities over this incident and required a timely and thorough investigation into the cause of Mr. Wei’s death, notification of the findings, measures to prevent any recurrence of similar incidents, and assistance to the family of the deceased in handling the aftermath,” the consulate said in a statement.
Wei is at least the fifth Chinese national who has died in the custody of ICE or the U.S. Border Patrol since March 2025, according to tracking by The Associated Press. Two of the first four deaths have been ruled suicides, and the other two were the result of medical complications.
At least 57 ICE detainees have died since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, a death rate that has alarmed public health experts, advocates for immigrants, and the Mexican government.
ICE hasn’t said whether Wei received the medical intake screening, which the agency promises to detainees within their first 12 hours in custody. Medical experts say a thorough screening is critical to preventing deaths.
It’s unclear why it took ICE more than a week to acknowledge Wei’s death, which was announced by authorities in the Northern Mariana Islands on Aug. 24. ICE has said it aims to issue a news release on detainee deaths within two business days.
The lockup in Saipan has held an average of 18 ICE detainees on any given day this year, according to ICE data. Roughly 50,000 people live in the Northern Mariana Islands.
“Following this incident, the Department is reviewing relevant procedures and will implement any necessary corrective actions to strengthen prevention and response measures,” Northern Mariana Islands corrections commissioner Anthony Torres said in a statement.
Iran fired on U.S. allies in the Gulf early Wednesday following a night of American bombardment that Iranian state media says included a deadly strike on a wedding party.
The latest violence came after a monthlong lull in fighting. The six-month war has led to a spike in oil prices, roiled the global economy and posed increasing political problems for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican Party ahead of November midterm elections.
Fighting has escalated since the American military hit Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, saying Iran was planning to use them to lay mines. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at American bases in Jordan that were intercepted.
American military resources are stretched and political pressure in Washington is mounting, while Iran’s economy has been battered by sanctions and an American naval blockade. Iran’s currency hit another record low on Wednesday, with traders in Tehran exchanging 2.20 million rials for one U.S. dollar, a 10% hike from last week’s record.
Neither side can continue indefinitely between full-scale war and a truce, said Hamidreza Azizi, senior Iran analyst at the Crisis Group, an international think tank.
“At some point, one of the sides may see a need to escalate in order to break this cycle,” he cautioned. “So that could bring the two sides to a point that they have been trying to avoid until now, which is a full-scale war.”
The struggle is focused on the Strait of Hormuz and oil prices
The latest flare-up in violence came as the standoff seemed to be shifting slightly more in the U.S.’ favor, with the price of oil around $80 a barrel and Iranian leaders talking about growing economic hardships, said Sascha Bruchmann, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Middle East office in Bahrain.
“The U.S. is trying to reinstall some kind of confidence into the global oil markets … and the Iranians had to respond to that by reinserting insecurity and doubt,” Bruchmann said.
Since the fighting resumed, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, has climbed to around $95, up more than 30% from the start of the war.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran will “continue to feel the squeeze” from the United States until it drops any nuclear weapons ambitions and ends support for armed groups in the Middle East. Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is peaceful.
U.S. allies in the region fend off Iranian attacks
Following the strikes on Jordan, U.S. Gulf allies Kuwait and Bahrain said they had also come under attack, without reporting any casualties.
“You will soon see that Iran’s new strategy on the battlefield, in diplomacy, and in confronting the economic blockade will shatter your foundations,” the recently appointed head of Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, said on X.
In Iraq, where Iranian-backed forces are active, Kurdish authorities said they had intercepted 10 drones laden with explosives in the Irbil area. Iranian television reported that American bases in Irbil had been targeted.
Israel’s military also said that Iran-backed Hezbollah fired two explosive drones at its soldiers in southern Lebanon, without causing casualties.
The U.S. Central Command said Tuesday’s strikes focused on Iranian military targets, including air defense sites, radar systems and maritime assets.
Strike on wedding killed 4 and wounded dozens, Iranian officials say
One U.S. strike hit a home hosting a wedding in Kuhestak, a small coastal town overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian state media.
Four people were killed — two women and two children, aged 4 and 16 — and at least 68 were wounded, the state news agency IRNA and state TV said Wednesday. Just after the strike, Ahmad Nafisi, the province’s deputy governor, had told Iranian state television that five people were killed. There was no explanation for the change.
Several heavy explosions shook Kuhestak, with fireballs that lit up the night sky, according to security camera footage carried by the semiofficial Fars news agency.
Images from Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency showed several hospitalized children being treated for injuries at a hospital in the nearby town of Minab, where a U.S. missile strike on the opening day of the war hit a primary school, killing more than 100 children.
Footage from the Iranian Red Crescent showed rescue workers entering a damaged home in the wake of the strike. It showed a hole in the roof of one house in a neighborhood of densely packed homes.
Experts say a ‘very precise’ weapon appears to have been used
Two weapons experts told The Associated Press that images of fragments of a missile, which Iranian media said was used in the strike, were from a U.S.-made SLAM-ER cruise missile.
Trevor Ball, an analyst with Armament Research Services, said the SLAM-ER was “developed as a very precise weapon” that can be retargeted in flight by a human operator watching by infrared camera.
N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, said the air-launched missile is also used by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Neither has reported carrying out any recent strikes on Iran.
“Make no mistake: these crimes will not go unpunished,” Ebrahim Azizi, chairperson of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said on X.
U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said the U.S. military was “aware of the reports, which originated from Iranian state media, and we are looking into them.” He would not say if CENTCOM had launched a formal investigation.
Separately, Iran has said four members of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and 10 members of the Guard’s volunteer Basij forces died in the U.S. attacks. A total of 108 people were injured in the latest round of attacks, state broadcaster the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting quoted the country’s health minister as saying.
The Strait of Hormuz remains largely shut down
During last month’s lull in fighting, the U.S. ramped up economic pressure on Iran as Washington sought to fully open the Strait of Hormuz.
About a fifth of the world’s traded oil was shipped through the key waterway before Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran on Feb. 28 and Iran largely shut it down in response. Despite many pronouncements from Washington that the strait is open, only a handful of ships are making the passage each day and Iran has regularly attacked vessels.
On Wednesday, Saudi shipping company Bahri said two Filipino sailors were killed in an attack late Monday as their vessel transited the strait.
A ceasefire deal reached in June quickly fell apart amid exchanges of strikes that same month. Mediator Pakistan has been working to restart talks.
Late Tuesday, Trump said he would not force Iran to the bargaining table.
“I couldn’t care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement. I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing. They are just playing out the inevitable. When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?” Trump wrote on social media.
MILLINOCKET, Maine — More than 14 million older adults fall every year in the U.S., perhaps none so often as 91-year-old Dale Sanders.
By his count, Sanders fell 71 times while reclaiming his record as the oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail. Six were what he calls hard falls, including one that led to a brief hospitalization and another just 200 yards from the finish. But none were enough to permanently divert him from the 2,193-mile trail that runs between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine.
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy defines a thru-hike as completing all of the trail’s sections in any order within a year, allowing for pauses. Sanders started Sept. 6 in West Virginia, hopscotched around with some brief breaks, and finished Monday atop Maine’s highest peak, where he paused to pray at the sign marking the summit.
“I had to thank God, and I had to thank my support team and everybody that got me here,” he said.
A long-planned comeback
Sanders, whose trail name is Grey Beard, first set the Appalachian Trail record in 2017 at age 82. Four years later, his 83-year-old friend M.J. Eberhart, aka Nimblewill Nomad, took the title. But within months, Sanders announced his comeback plan.
While Sanders’ first journey was easier than he expected, the latest was considerably harder. Despite six months of training, he said he wasn’t in the best condition when he returned to the trail.
“And even today, I feel that I should probably be in better shape than I am,” he said last month. “But I just have to always go back and say, ‘But I am 91, so I’m blazing new ground hiking long distances like this.’”
In June, Sanders was descending Killington Mountain in central Vermont when he fell forward in a boulder field, scraping his legs, arms, and hands.
“Thank God nothing got broken, but I was banged up,” he said. “I didn’t rub the blood off, I just kept hiking.”
Weeks later, his left arm went numb and he ended up at a Maine hospital. What doctors initially feared was a stroke turned out to be a pinched nerve, but though he was soon cleared to resume hiking, he considered giving up.
He returned home to Tennessee in early August to be with his wife, whose mother had just died, and she convinced him to press on.
His mission changed along the way
Some of Sanders’ best days were in Pennsylvania, where he enjoyed well-maintained trails and treats delivered by “trail angels.”
“When people are taking care of you and bringing you caramel frappes on the trail, the rocks don’t matter,” he said.
In fact, Sanders has become something of a star among fellow hikers. Thousands more follow him on social media, which surprised Sanders and caused him to expand his mission beyond reclaiming his record.
“I want to get it back, but right now, that’s secondary,” he said. ”Right now, what’s the most important thing — and it’s one of the things that surprised me — is that people are motivated and given encouragement by my efforts.”
Meredith Ewenson, who met Sanders in June while leading a hike in New Hampshire for 10 other women, said he embodied not just the idea that anything is possible, but that the journey matters most.
“Seeing it in real life is something that I’ll definitely remember forever,” she said.
Ewenson said her group spotted Sanders early in the morning, but it wasn’t until he blazed by them hours later that they saw the Grey Beard logo on his T-shirt and realized who he was. They caught up with him that night at an Appalachian Mountain Club hut, arriving around 4 p.m.
“I got here at noon,” he told them.
The next morning, she and others cheered as Sanders performed a “victory dance” before setting off again.
“My first thought was ‘Wow, his mobility is insane,’” Ewenson said. “His face on that body just doesn’t make any sense. My brain couldn’t compute how he was so impossibly fit for being that age.”
Off-trail adventures
Sanders was born in Kentucky in 1935, two years before the Appalachian Trail was completed. Bullied as a child for his small size, he gained confidence in solo sports like acrobatics and swimming. He later served in the Navy and retired in 2002 after a long career in parks and recreation.
Sanders holds numerous other age-related records, including becoming the oldest person to paddle the entire length of the Mississippi River, an 87-day trip he started on his 87th birthday.
On his latest adventure, he tackled obstacles like downed trees or steep scrambles with vigor, though he started to get a bit wobbly toward the end of one 12-mile day. He laid down on the trail, said he needed a power nap, and briefly fell asleep.
