By MICHELLE GUMEDE and GERALD IMRAY

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A bus veered off a road and plunged down an embankment on a steep mountain pass in northern South Africa, killing at least 42 people and leaving another 49 passengers injured, authorities said Monday.

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The crash happened around 6 p.m. Sunday on the N1 highway near the town of Louis Trichardt, around 248 miles north of the capital, Pretoria.

The Transport Ministry said in a statement that the victims included seven children, 17 men and 18 women. It said six people were critically injured and another 31 had serious injuries and had been taken to several hospitals. One critically injured child was airlifted to a hospital, the ministry said.

Images released by authorities showed the blue bus lying upside down in the embankment with rescuers working underneath it to search for victims. The Limpopo provincial government said rescue operations continued late into Sunday night.

The bus was traveling to Zimbabwe and was carrying Zimbabwean and Malawian nationals who were on their way to their home countries, the Transport Ministry said. It said the cause of the crash was not yet known.

In a statement, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa offered “his deep condolences to the nations of Zimbabwe and Malawi who have lost compatriots.”

“This sadness is compounded by the fact that this incident has taken place during our annual transport month, where we place a special focus on the importance of safety on our roads,” Ramaphosa said.

Last year, 45 people were killed in a bus crash in the same Limpopo province when their vehicle veered off a bridge and into a ravine. An 8-year-old girl was the only survivor of that crash. That bus was carrying mainly Botswana nationals who were traveling to an Easter church gathering in South Africa.

Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

By COLLIN BINKLEY, AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new round of layoffs at the Education Department is depleting an agency that was hit hard in the Trump administration’s previous mass firings, threatening new disruption to the nation’s students and schools in areas from special education to civil rights enforcement and after-school programs.

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The Trump administration started laying off 466 Education Department staffers on Friday amid mass firings across the government meant to pressure Democratic lawmakers over the federal shutdown. The layoffs would cut the agency’s workforce by nearly a fifth and leave it reduced by more than half its size when President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20.

The cuts play into Trump’s broader plan to shut down the Education Department and parcel its operations to other agencies. Over the summer, the department started handing off its adult education and workforce programs to the Department of Labor, and it previously said it was negotiating an agreement to pass its $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department.

Department officials have not released details on the layoffs and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AFGE Local 252, a union that represents more than 2,700 department workers, said information from employees indicates cuts will decimate several offices within the agency.

All workers except a small number of top officials are being fired at the office that implements the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law that ensures millions of students with disabilities get support from their schools, the union said. Unknown numbers are being fired at the Office for Civil Rights, which investigates complaints of discrimination at the nation’s schools and universities.

The layoffs would eliminate or heavily deplete teams that oversee the flow of grant funding to schools across the nation, the union said. It hits the office that oversees Title I funding for the country’s low-income schools along with the team that manages 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the primary federal funding source for after-school and summer learning programs.

It will also hit an office that oversees TRIO, a set of programs that help low-income students pursue college, and another that oversees federal funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

In a statement, union president Rachel Gittleman said the new reductions, on top of previous layoffs, will “double down on the harm to K-12 students, students with disabilities, first generation college students, low-income students, teachers and local education boards.”

The Education Department had about 4,100 employees when Trump took office. After the new layoffs, it would be down to fewer than 2,000. Earlier layoffs in March had roughly halved the department, but some employees were hired back after officials decided they had cut too deep.

The new layoffs drew condemnation from a range of education organizations.

Although states design their own competitions to distribute federal funding for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the small team of federal officials provided guidance and support “that is absolutely essential,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance.

“Firing that team is shocking, devastating, utterly without any basis, and it threatens to cause lasting harm,” Grant said in a statement.

The government’s latest layoffs are being challenged in court by the American Federation of Government Employees and other national labor unions. Their suit, filed in San Francisco, said the government’s budgeting and personnel offices overstepped their authority by ordering agencies to carry out layoffs in response to the shutdown.

In a court filing, the Trump administration said the executive branch has wide discretion to reduce the federal workforce. It said the unions could not prove they were harmed by the layoffs because employees would not actually be separated for another 30 to 60 days after receiving notice.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By CHAN HO-HIM

HONG KONG (AP) — China’s exports to the United States fell 27% in September from the year before, even though growth in its global exports hit a six-month high.

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Customs figures released Monday showed that China’s worldwide exports were 8.3% higher than a year earlier, at $328.5 billion, surpassing economists’ estimates. That was markedly better than the 4.4% year-on-year increase in August.

Imports grew 7.4% last month, significantly better than a 1.3% increase by year in August, although a weaker domestic economy and a real estate sector downturn continue to weigh on demand and consumption.

China’s exports to the United States have fallen for six straight months. In August they dropped 33%.

The outlook is cloudy as a truce between Beijing and Washington unravels and both sides hit out with new tariffs and other retaliatory measures.

As exports to the United States have come under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies aimed at trying to get manufacturers to shift factories to America, China has expanded markets for its products in other regions.

Shipments to Southeast Asia grew 15.6% year-on-year in September. Exports to Latin America and Africa were up 15% and 56%, respectively.

“Currently, the external environment is still severe and complicated. Trade is facing increasing uncertainty and difficulties,” Wang Jun, vice minister of China’s customs agency, said at a press conference Monday. “We still need to put in more efforts to stabilize trade in the fourth quarter.”

China’s exports “continue to show resilience given the low costs and limited choices for replacement globally despite the higher tariffs”, said Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis.

“What is more worrisome is not only tariffs but export controls,” Ng added. “If we begin to see an escalation in export controls halting supply chains, this may have a more prolonged impact.”

Tensions with the U.S. reignited Friday after Trump threatened an additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods and export controls on “critical” software.

That came after China announced it would hit American ships with new port fees in response to a U.S plan to impose port fees on Chinese vessels docking in the country. Beijing also extended export controls on lithium-ion batteries and on exports of rare earths and related technologies.

The friction could jeopardize plans for a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in late October. It also suggests a lack of progress in efforts to forge a broad trade agreement between the world’s two biggest economies.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — OpenAI said Monday it is working with chipmaker Broadcom to design its own artificial intelligence computer chips.

The two California companies didn’t disclose the financial terms of the deal but said they will start deploying the new racks of customized “AI accelerators” late next year.

It’s the latest big deal between OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, and the companies building the chips and data centers required to power AI.

OpenAI in recent weeks has announced partnerships with chipmakers Nvidia and AMD that will supply the AI startup with specialized chips for running its AI systems. OpenAI has also made big deals with Oracle, CoreWeave and other companies developing the data centers where those chips are housed.

Many of the deals rely on circular financing, in which the companies are both investing in OpenAI and supplying the world’s most valuable startup with technology, fueling concerns about an AI bubble. OpenAI doesn’t yet turn a profit but says its flagship chatbot now has more than 800 million weekly users.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the work to develop a custom chip began more than a year ago.

“Developing our own accelerators adds to the broader ecosystem of partners all building the capacity required to push the frontier of AI to provide benefits to all humanity,” he said in a statement.

Broadcom shares surged more than 9% on Monday after the morning announcement.

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan said in a statement that “we are thrilled to co-develop and deploy 10 gigawatts of next generation accelerators and network systems to pave the way for the future of AI.”