By CORA LEWIS, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — As the cost of electricity outpaces inflation and summers grow deadlier, consumer advocates are sounding alarms about the risks to low-income people who can’t afford consistent air conditioning in dangerous temperatures.

While about half of U.S. states offer protections from utility shutoffs during extreme heat, the rest do not. In contrast, 41 states have “cold weather rules,” which forbid utility companies from shutting off household heat during extreme cold. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) provides funds for vulnerable groups who have trouble affording heating bills in the winter, but the program has less funding available to meet consumers’ increasing needs in the summer months.

Shylee Johnson, 27, based in Wichita, Kansas, saw firsthand the protection that the local Low Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP) brought to her community during the three years she worked as a case manager for families who were behind on utility bills.

“It was amazing at keeping people’s electricity on in the winter,” she said of the program, which subsidizes costs for households who can’t afford utility expenses. “Families would be deciding between paying their heating bill or another bill, and this took that decision away.”

In the summer, though, Johnson said she’s seen how late or missed utility payments can result in the shutoff of electricity and the removal of vital services, despite air conditioning becoming increasingly essential to families’ health and well-being.

“It’s terrifying,” she said. “There’s a ‘cold weather rule’ — in freezing temperatures, your heat can’t be turned off. But there isn’t an equivalent for summer in Kansas.”

The clients Johnson served were often the most vulnerable, including families with young children, pregnant people, and those with sick or disabled family members, including some who need electricity to operate essential medical equipment in their homes. LIHEAP also sometimes provides air conditioning units in the summer for households that can’t afford to purchase their own units.

Recent studies show that extreme heat in the summer is now the leading cause of weather-related deaths, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That’s ahead of deaths due to extreme cold in the winter or other weather emergencies, like hurricanes or tornadoes. The frequency, duration and intensity of extreme heat waves has significantly increased over the past several decades, according to the EPA, and insignificant support for low-income households contributes to the danger.

In 2023, the death certificates of more than 2,300 people who died in the summer mention the effects of excessive heat, the highest number in 45 years of records, according to an Associated Press analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. And that figure is only a fraction of the real death toll, according to coroner, hospital, and ambulance records, also analyzed by the AP.

Nationally, the cost of electricity has risen at twice the pace of the average cost of living, exacerbating the problem.

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According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), which represents state program managers of LIHEAP, almost 20% of very low-income families lack consistent access to cooling. Currently, 26 states and the District of Columbia offer assistance with summer energy bills, while 21 states plus D.C. have policies protecting low-income families from utility disconnections during summer months.

Still, roughly 85% of LIHEAP resources are used for heating in the winter, leaving little support for households seeking cooling, according to Mark Wolfe, executive director of NEADA.

“Rules that were written thirty years ago, that were adequate for winter, are not adequate for the summer,” he said. “How do we protect vulnerable households both during periods of extreme heat and extreme cold? The rules haven’t caught up.”

Karen Lusson, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center who focuses on energy and utility affordability, said that many deaths from extreme heat in the summer months are preventable.

“The impression we’ve all had is that weather is most dangerous in the wintertime,” she said. “Not any more.”

While the Trump administration fired the entire staff of the LIHEAP program in April, Wolfe and Lusson are hopeful Congress will approve slightly more funding for the program in the fall compared to the previous fiscal year, they said.

To protect households during increasingly hotter summers, Lusson recommends individuals seek information about their rights when it comes to utility shutoffs. State utility commissions, which regulate public utilities, dictate local rules. To find your relevant commission, consult the government site operated by the national association of regulatory commissions, which has a state-by-state look-up tool.

Lusson also encourages people to look into whether their state protections are calendar- or temperature-based, which can make a difference in planning. While some states forbid shut-offs during certain months of the year, others base the protections on the temperature of a given day or the presence of a heat advisory. This LIHEAP site has a break-down of every state’s policies.

Some state attorney generals’ offices also have public utility bureaus that advocate on behalf of consumers, Lusson said.

Lastly, it can be helpful to determine if your utility company offers discount rates or percentage-of-income payment plans to help with electricity bills. Both commission and utility websites have specific information about how to access LIHEAP assistance and whether or not the utility company itself offers assistance.

The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

By SEUNG MIN KIM and MEG KINNARD, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump launched Operation Warp Speed in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, an effort he has credited with saving tens of millions of lives. During a Cabinet meeting last week, he likened it to “one of the greatest achievements ever.”

Sitting at the table as a proud Trump spoke was Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who came under fire at a congressional hearing Thursday for his work to restrict access to vaccines, including the very COVID-19 shots still touted by his boss.

The three-hour hearing exposed an odd dichotomy: One of Trump’s most universal successes in his first term remains Operation Warp Speed, yet his handpicked health chief and a growing cadre of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” supporters are distrustful of the very mRNA vaccine technology that the president has championed.

Highlighting that divide, much of the praise of Trump’s unprecedented effort to find a vaccine for COVID-19 came Thursday from Democrats.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., called Operation Warp Speed “a monumental achievement.” Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., told Kennedy he was a health hazard and said Trump, “who put forward Operation Warp Speed, which worked,” should fire him. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, said he doesn’t “usually agree with” Trump but cited the president’s remarks on the COVID-19 vaccine and said the scientific community is aligned behind him.

Republicans were also critical of Kennedy’s approach to vaccines.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., speaks as Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician whose vote for Kennedy ensured his narrow confirmation, noted the overarching success of Operation Warp Speed at a time when thousands of people a day were dying from COVID-19, businesses were shuttered and much of everyday life had ground to a halt.

“Others said it couldn’t be done. We saved millions of lives globally. Trillions of dollars. We reopened the economy. An incredible accomplishment,” Cassidy said as he questioned Kennedy. “Do you agree with me that the president deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?”

When Kennedy answered, “Absolutely, Senator,” Cassidy pivoted sharply.

He pressed Kennedy on denouncing the vaccine in the past, working on lawsuits targeting pharmaceutical makers and filling vacancies on a powerful vaccine advisory committee with expert witnesses who testified against the drugmakers, suggesting they posed a conflict of interest.

“It just seems inconsistent that you would agree with me that the president deserves tremendous amount of credit for this,” Cassidy responded.

Hassan read from a June 2024 post on X in which Kennedy wrote that Trump “has a weakness for swamp creatures, especially corporate monopolies, their lobbyists, and their money” and called the vaccine operation among “the most devastating impact of President Trump’s weakness, but not the only one.”

“If you agree with President Trump that the vaccine saved millions of lives, why have you acted behind closed doors to overrule scientists and limit the freedom of parents to choose the COVID vaccine for their children?” Hassan asked.

Kennedy told Hassan she was “just making stuff up.”

Limiting vaccine access

Still, under Kennedy, U.S. regulators have limited the availability of COVID-19 vaccines for many Americans.

Last month, U.S. regulators approved updated COVID-19 shots but limited their use for many Americans — and removed one of the two vaccines available for young children. The new restrictions are a break from the previous U.S. policy, which recommended an annual COVID-19 shot for all Americans 6 months and up, sparking confusion and frustration from some Americans, including parents interested in vaccinating healthy children against the virus.

Many pharmacies are unwilling or legally barred from giving vaccines outside the uses endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration and other federal authorities.

Several administration officials came to Kennedy’s defense on vaccines. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said what Kennedy wants is “integrity and honesty” in the vaccine review process.

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“Democrats are, as usual, being intellectually dishonest to try — and fail — to drive a wedge between President Trump and Secretary Kennedy,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said Thursday. “Instead of playing politics and trying to get stupid sound bites, Democrats should spend more time working with Secretary Kennedy and the rest of the Administration to Make America Healthy Again.”

The White House on Thursday did not directly address the criticism from Cassidy. Asked later about Kennedy’s testimony, Trump said he hadn’t watched but Kennedy “means very well” and he likes the fact that Kennedy is different.

But the Louisiana Republican was not the only one from his party chastising Kennedy over vaccines.

“If we’re going to make America healthy again, we can’t allow public health to be undermined,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming, a staunch Trump ally, told Kennedy. “I’m a doctor. Vaccines work.”

Meanwhile, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis had a multitude of questions for Kennedy, including how he really feels about Operation Warp Speed, saying he’d accept Kennedy’s answers later in writing.

Trump’s changing messages

Asked in early August about Kennedy’s cancellation of the mRNA contracts, Trump said the effort was “now a long time ago and we’re on to other things,” but said he would continue to speak on it.

“Operation Warp Speed was, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, considered one of the most incredible things ever done in this country,” Trump said. “The efficiency, the way it was done, the distribution, everything about it was, has been amazing.”

But Trump himself has been inconsistent in his attitude toward vaccines.

He said in a social media post this week that the companies were responsible for the recent turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because they were not transparent about the science behind the shots. He has sometimes embraced discredited theories that vaccines could cause autism. Trump has also ferociously opposed vaccine mandates, threatening to withhold funding from schools with such policies.

The anti-vaccine movement within Trump’s party has been growing since the early days of the vaccine. Trump himself was booed at an event in December 2021 when he revealed that he had gotten the COVID-19 booster.

He tried, in vain, to rally his supporters back around Operation Warp Speed and remind them of what had been accomplished.

“Look, we did something that was historic. We saved tens of millions of lives worldwide. We together, all of us — not me, we — we got a vaccine done, three vaccines done, and tremendous therapeutics,” Trump said. “This was going to ravage the country far beyond what it is right now. Take credit for it. Take credit for it. … Don’t let them take it away. Don’t take it away from ourselves.”

Kinnard reported from Chapin, S.C. Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, Lauran Neergaard in Washington, and Jill Colvin and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

By SAM MEDNICK and SAMY MAGDY, Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Associated Press reporting into an Israeli attack on a Gaza Strip hospital that killed 22 people, including five journalists, raises serious questions about Israel’s rationale for the strikes and the way they were carried out. Among those killed was Mariam Dagga, who worked for AP and other news organizations.

Israeli forces struck a position well known as a journalists’ gathering point, because — a military official said — they believed a camera on the roof was being used by Hamas to observe troops. The official cited “suspicious behavior” and unspecified intelligence, but the only detail given was that there was a towel on the camera and the person with it — which the army interpreted as an effort to avoid identification. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

AP has gathered new evidence indicating the camera in question actually belonged to a Reuters video journalist who routinely covered his equipment with a white cloth to protect it from the scorching sun and dust. The journalist, Hussam al-Masri, was killed in the initial strike.

This photo taken on Aug. 13, 2025, shows Reuters videographer Hussam Al-Masri, in a white shirt, standing next to his video camera covered with a towel on the outside stairs of Nasser Hospital. (AP Photo/Mariam Dagga)

The evidence calls into question why Israeli forces went through with the strike. Witnesses say Israel frequently observed the position by drone, including about 40 minutes before the attack, giving an opportunity to correctly identify al-Masri.

AP’s findings also reveal other troubling decisions from the Aug. 25 attack:

— Soon after the first strike, Israeli forces hit the same position again, after medical and emergency workers had reached the scene to treat the injured, and as journalists including Dagga had rushed to cover the news. The strike has raised accusations of a “double tap” — a type of attack intended to kill those responding to casualties and which experts in international law say is a possible war crime.

— Troops used high-explosive tank shells to strike a hospital, instead of more precise guided weapons that might have resulted in fewer casualties.

— In all, Israel struck the hospital four times, the AP found, each time without warning.

The Israeli military refused to comment when asked if it hit the wrong person and has presented no evidence for their claims. It says it is still investigating but in their initial inquiry described “gaps” in how the attack was carried out. Israel has said none of the journalists killed were intended targets, nor were they linked to Hamas.

Israeli fire has killed 189 Palestinian reporters in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza since the war erupted in October 2023, giving Palestinian journalists a critical role in covering the conflict.

The AP’s analysis is based on information from current and former Israeli military officials, other officials and weapons analysts — and accounts from nearly 20 people who were in or near the hospital at the time of the strikes.

The attack has galvanized global anger as Israeli forces push ahead with a major offensive in famine-stricken Gaza City, exposing its population to even greater danger from Israeli bombardment and military operations. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “tragic mishap″ but stopped short of apologizing.

Covering a camera with a cloth

Before the attack, the Reuters journalist, al-Masri, was positioned with his video camera high up on an external stairwell of Nasser Hospital. A photograph taken by Dagga in mid-August shows al-Masri on the same stairwell next to his camera, with a white cloth draped over it.

In the weeks before the strikes, al-Masri had broadcast live almost daily from the stairwell, according to other journalists who worked there and hospital officials. Five journalists told the AP that he often used the cloth. It is common practice for video journalists around the world, including in Gaza, to use such high positions and to cover their cameras to protect them from the elements.

Nasser Hospital, one of the few functioning hospitals in Gaza, has been a vital location for Palestinian reporters.

It is a central point for reporting on dead and wounded from Israeli strikes, shootings of Palestinians seeking aid and on malnourished people brought in daily. The Wi-Fi signal offered a rare reliable link to transmit news.

Photographers and videographers used the building’s external staircase for months to get a bird’s-eye view of the city of Khan Younis — and in the case of global news agencies like Reuters and AP, to supply live video footage to newsrooms around the world. The AP had repeatedly informed the army that its journalists were stationed there.

An Israeli military official said that several days before the attack, Israeli forces spotted a camera on the roof and were tracking “suspicious behavior,” which he did not specify.

The official said the military believed Hamas was using the camera to monitor its forces and said the camera and the man operating it had what they described as a towel draped over them, suggesting an effort at concealment. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

A second person was killed in the strike that hit al-Masri. Hospital officials have identified all 22 dead, saying they were a mix of health and rescue workers, journalists, and relatives of patients. But they said they could not be certain which of them was the other person killed in the first strike, since all the bodies were collected at the same time.

There has been no evidence of a second camera at the site where al-Masri was killed.

At about the same time as the first stairway was hit, Israel struck another part of the hospital, according to witnesses and video footage showing smoke rising from the location.

Israel has struck hospitals and journalists on repeated occasions throughout the war. Both are supposed to be protected under international law, but hospitals can lose those protections if they are used for military purposes and journalists can, too, if they are armed or take part in hostilities.

Israel has accused Hamas of operating in or around hospitals but has provided limited evidence. During the war, Hamas security men have often been seen inside hospitals, blocking access to some areas of the facilities.

Based on analysis of the footage at the time of the attack, and speaking to multiple eyewitnesses, there is no evidence that anyone killed in the strikes was armed.

Double-tap strikes

The Israeli military has given no explanation why it carried out a second round of strikes.

After the first attack, a crowd of medics, journalists and others made their way up the staircase. Ibrahim Qannan, a correspondent with Cairo-based Al-Ghad TV who was filming from below, said another journalist, Moaz Abu Taha, waved to to him and shouted down to him, “Hussam was martyred.”

Within 10 minutes, two more loud blasts struck the staircase. Video analysis revealed the flashes of two projectiles and the booms of two explosions. Among those killed was Dagga, who had just snapped her last photos before heading up the stairs, and Abu Taha.

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Dagga’s brother Sediq had spent the previous night with her and saw her filming from the stairs moments before she was killed. “I rushed upstairs and recovered her body,” he said.

Double-tap strikes, which hit crowds that move into areas to rescue victims from initial strikes, have notoriously been used by al-Qaida and other extremist groups, as well as Russia’s military and forces loyal to former Syrian President Bashar Assad. First responders and other civilians are often harmed in such attacks.

Experts in international law say multiple aspects of this attack could point to potential war crimes, including targeting a hospital without warning, and the double-tap strategy that puts civilians in danger.

Israel Ziv, a retired general who once led the Israeli army’s operations directorate, said a double-tap strike would violate the army’s rules of engagement.

Raed al-Nims, head of the Palestinian Red Crescent’s media department in Gaza, said double tap strikes have “happened multiple times” in the war, hitting the group’s ambulances and personnel after the arrive at the scene of attacks.

Israel declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

Tank fire was not supposed to have been used

AP analyzed videos of the attack and found that Israel fired tank shells in the strikes — which the Israeli military confirmed following their initial inquiry.

Ziv said less deadly and more precise options than tank fire were available.

“There is no good explanation for that,” he said.

An official with knowledge of the attack said the tank wasn’t supposed to have been used, but was unable to say what the original plans were. The official spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

A munitions expert who analyzed photos of shrapnel from the hospital obtained by AP said it came from high-explosive shells fired by a tank.

The remnants show parts of at least three fin-stabilized tank gun projectiles, consistent with those used by Israel, said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, an Australian consulting firm.

Satellite imagery from the afternoon of the day of the strike shows Israeli tanks and armored vehicles operating about 4.5 kilometers (3 miles) northeast of the hospital.

The same brigade that carried out these strikes, the Golani Brigade, was involved in the March shooting of an ambulance convoy in southern Gaza that killed 15 Palestinian medics. An initial investigation of that attack by Israeli forces found a chain of “professional failures” and a deputy commander was fired.

Discrepancies over Israeli claims of fighters

A day after the strikes, Israel gave the names of six men who it said were combatants killed in the attack. But this statement also raised troubling discrepancies.

It provided no evidence, and one man on its list, Omar Kamel Shahada Abu Teim, does not appear on the hospital’s list of casualties obtained by the AP. Doctors and morgue workers said no one by that name was killed, and unlike with the other five, Israel did not provide a picture.

Another person named, Jumaa al-Najjar, was a health care worker employed by Nasser Hospital, according to the morgue list. Another, Imad al-Shaer, was a driver for Gaza’s Civil Defense first responders.

The other three names appear on the casualty list, but no other details about them were immediately available.

Israel also did not say if any of the six were killed in its initial strike on the camera. Most were killed in the second round of strikes, and officials have not said whether they were identified among the crowd on the stairwell before troops struck it.

The Health Ministry and the Civil Defense are part of the Hamas-run government. Israel has in the past claimed that some emergency responders were fighters. That was the case in the March attack that killed 15 medics.

A joint letter from the AP and Reuters expressed outrage at the strikes and demanded answers.

“Unfortunately, we have found the (Israeli military’s) willingness and ability to investigate itself in past incidents to rarely result in clarity and action, raising serious questions including whether Israel is deliberately targeting live feeds in order to suppress information,” they said.

In the past, Israel has acknowledged targeting and killing journalists it accuses of being combatants, allegations denied by them and their employers. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas.

Jody Ginsberg, the CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said journalists are civilians and must never be targeted in a war. “To do so is a war crime,” she said.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press reporters Melanie Lidman and Angela Charlton in Jerusalem, and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, contributed.

LONDON (AP) — European Union regulators on Friday hit Google with a 2.95 billion euro ($3.5 billion) fine for breaching the bloc’s competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services, marking the fourth such antitrust penalty for the company as well as a retreat from previous threats to break up the tech giant.

The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive branch and top antitrust enforcer, also ordered the U.S. tech giant to end its “self-preferencing practices” and take steps to stop “conflicts of interest” along the advertising technology supply chain.

Google said the decision was “wrong” and that it would appeal.

“It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, the company’s global head of regulatory affairs, said in a statement.

The decision was long overdue, coming more than two years after the European Commission announced antitrust charges against Google.

The commission had said at the time that the only way to satisfy antitrust concerns about Google’s lucrative digital ad business was to sell off parts of its business. However, this decision marks a retreat from that earlier position and comes amid renewed tensions between Brussels and the Trump administration over trade, tariffs and technology regulation.

Top EU officials had said earlier that the commission was seeking a forced sale because past cases that ended with fines and requirements for Google to stop anti-competitive practices have not worked, allowing the company to continue its behavior in a different form.

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The commission’s penalty follows a formal investigation that it opened in June 2021, looking into whether Google violated the bloc’s competition rules by favoring its own online display advertising technology services at the expense of rival publishers, advertisers and advertising technology services.

Its investigation found that Google “abused” its dominant positions in the ad-technology ecosystem, the commission said.

Online display ads are banners and text that appear on websites and are personalized based on an internet user’s browsing history.

Mulholland said, “There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.”