By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Arnold Schwarzenegger downplayed the Trump administration’s climate skepticism Tuesday and threw his weight behind the Vatican’s environmental initiative, saying individual choice, local regulations and the Catholic Church’s moral leadership were far more important to “terminate” global warming.

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Schwarzenegger was at the Vatican to headline a three-day climate conference marking the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ landmark 2015 environmental encyclical, Laudato Si (Praised Be). The document, one of Francis’ main legacies, cast saving God’s creation as an urgent moral imperative and launched a broad, grassroots movement that Pope Leo XIV has fully embraced and made his own.

Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor of California, has devoted time to environmental causes since leaving political office in 2011. His Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative is one of the backers of the Vatican conference, which is being held at the Holy See’s newly inaugurated environmental educational center in Castel Gandolfo south of Rome.

At a news conference, Schwarzenegger was asked about President Donald Trump’s recent comments to the U.N. General Assembly, where he falsely said that climate change was a “con job.” Trump has long been a critic of climate science and policies aimed at helping the world transition to green energies like wind and solar. His administration has rolled back landmark regulations, withdrawn climate project funding and instead bolstered support for oil and gas production in the name of an “American energy dominance” agenda.

“Don’t use the federal government as an excuse,” Schwarzenegger told the Vatican briefing. “It’s an easy way out.”

He recalled his legal battles with the Bush administration over California’s environmental regulations when he was governor, and a particular victory where “we said ‘Hasta la vista, baby,’” Schwarzenegger said, quoting his famous line from “Terminator 2.”

Schwarzenegger said far more important were individual choices about turning off lights when you leave a room and state policies promoting solar power. With its 1.4 billion people, 400,000 priests the Catholic Church also has a critical mass of people who can back environmental initiatives, he said.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Riding high on the success of the single “Takedown” from the “K-Pop Demon Hunters” soundtrack, South Korean pop group Twice will hit the road for a North American arena tour that hits St. Paul’s Grand Casino Arena on April 12.

Tickets go on sale at 3 p.m. Oct. 9 through Ticketmaster. Fans who sign up at livemu.sc/twice by 6 p.m. Oct. 6 have access to a presale that starts at 11 a.m. Oct. 9. The concert will be performed on an in-the-round stage, allowing seats to be sold around the entire arena.

Twice emerged from a 2015 competitive reality television show “Sixteen,” which saw 16 young women — from South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, Canada and the United States — assessed for their singing and dancing abilities as well as their charisma and personality. Producers whittled the contestants down to the nine women who now make up the group.

The group’s sophomore single “Cheer Up” hit No. 1 on the Korean charts, as did the eight singles that followed. They found similar success in Japan and, later, around the world.

Twice scored their first U.S. success with the 2021 single “The Feels.” By 2024, they became the first female K-Pop group to headline both MLB and NFL stadiums, selling out Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium and New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. Their 2024 tour drew a total of more than 1.5 million fans across 51 shows in 27 cities worldwide. This year, they also became the first female K-Pop group to headline Lollapalooza, where they drew one of the festival’s largest crowds.

More recently, Twice’s song “Takedown” was used in the Netflix film “K-Pop Demon Hunters,” which now stands as the most-watched original film in the company’s history.

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President Donald Trump’s administration said Tuesday that the state of Minnesota and its governing body for high school sports are violating a key federal law against sex discrimination by allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls sports.

The ruling came from the civil rights offices at the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. The agencies said the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League are violating Title IX “by allowing males to compete in female sports and occupy female intimate facilities.”

The agencies said they found that the league has allowed transgender athletes to compete in girls Alpine and Nordic skiing, girls lacrosse team, girls track and field, girls volleyball and girls fastpitch softball.

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“The Trump Administration will not allow Minnesota or any other state to sacrifice the safety, fair treatment, and dignity of its female students to appease the false idols of radical gender ideology,” Craig Trainor, the federal Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.

Trump’s administration initiated its investigation after he issued an executive order in February giving the federal government wide latitude to pull funding from entities that “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities” by allowing transgender athletes to participate.

The Minnesota State High School League said in response back then that it would follow state law — not the executive order — and continue to allow transgender athletes to compete in prep athletics. Associations in some other states signaled they also might defy the president’s order, but others took a wait-and-see approach.

The federal agencies gave the state and league 10 days to voluntarily accept a list of conditions to reverse their policies or risk imminent enforcement action.

The state Department of Education said in a statement it is “reviewing the letter and remains committed to ensuring every child has the opportunity to thrive in a safe and supportive school community.”

The league did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has launched over two dozen investigations of transgender policies in schools and colleges, including access to sports, locker rooms and bathrooms, according The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news organization. The U.S. Education Department said in August that Denver schools violated Title IX by creating all-gender bathrooms.

Minnesota Democrats on Tuesday released a plan for a special legislative session on gun control and school safety that calls for lawmakers to return to the state Capitol early next week.

The framework signed by Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic-Farmer-Labor legislative leaders includes a ban on so-called assault weapons, funding boosts for school security and mental health services, and increased criminal penalties for firearm offenses.

Walz would call lawmakers back to St. Paul on Oct. 6 to pass a mixture of proposals floated by both DFLers and Republicans in the wake of the shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis last month, which took the lives of two children and injured 21 others.

Republican leaders didn’t sign on to the framework and continue to resist DFL pressure to create new gun control laws. No bills can reach the governor’s desk without bipartisan support in Minnesota’s narrowly divided Legislature, where the House is tied 67-67, and there is a one-seat DFL majority in the Senate.

“I think Minnesotans have the answer that they’ve been looking for about what the Republican position is on guns,” said House Democratic Leader Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids. “They’re not even willing to have a vote on the floor on the merits of these very important issues and that’s deeply disappointing to me.”

GOP: No pre-session deal

House Floor Leader Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, told reporters Tuesday that he did not believe any GOP members would back bills like a ban on semiautomatic rifles or magazine capacity limits. In a statement, Niska called the DFL framework “a pathetic attempt to engineer a predetermined outcome.”

House Speaker Lisa Demuth. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Niska and House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said any bills that ended up passing in a special session should go through a public hearing process and shouldn’t be the product of a “backroom” pre-session deal negotiated behind closed doors. Niska accused Walz of “political posturing.”

“Republicans have made clear that we’re open to serious bipartisan solutions when it comes to school safety, when it comes to public safety, when it comes to mental health,” Niska told reporters Tuesday. “And now it’s clear that the governor really isn’t interested in that; he’s really just interested in trying to politicize a really horrible tragedy.”

DFLers announced their special session framework early Tuesday afternoon after a brief meeting with GOP leaders and the governor.

Stephenson said he was “discouraged” by the lack of agreement after nearly a month of talks, but remained committed to pushing on GOP members for votes on gun control. Demuth said she didn’t think talks had necessarily “broken down” and said she believed there was still room for future discussions.

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said it became apparent in the meeting that they had reached an “impasse,” but that discussions hadn’t completely broken down.

“No one has said we wouldn’t go back to the table,” she said.

Little progress

Earlier in September, Walz said he would call a special session on guns “one way or another” even as it became apparent that the odds were low that any significant gun control bills would make it through the Legislature.

Two public Senate hearings earlier in the month did little to bring DFLers and Republicans any closer together on the issue.

Republicans have said they do not oppose a special session, but have remained unified in their opposition to gun restrictions and have instead floated proposals related to mental health and school security.

However, Republicans aren’t the only obstacle to major gun legislation. It’s also unclear if DFLers have enough votes in the Senate.

DFL senators from rural districts have resisted gun control bills in the past, including Judy Seeberger of Afton, Grant Hauschild of Hermantown and Rob Kupec of Moorhead. When the DFL controlled the Senate, House and governor’s office in 2023 and 2024, they did not pass a ban on assault weapons — semiautomatic rifles with features like pistol grips and detachable magazines.

Murphy couldn’t say whether she had enough votes to pass a bill like an assault weapons ban and acknowledged that it would be a “hard vote.”

“My colleagues are working very hard to understand how they will vote when this issue comes before them,” she said. “And, I’m counting my votes, and I will let you know. But no one has said ‘hell no.’”

Previous gun laws

In 2024, Minnesota enacted two major gun control laws passed by the DFL-controlled Legislature.

One created extreme risk protection orders, where family members and law enforcement can petition a court to remove firearms from an individual deemed an immediate threat to themselves or others. The other created universal background checks for firearms sales.

Courts also tossed some Minnesota gun laws this year.

Gun rights groups won their legal battle to reduce the minimum age to obtain a permit to carry a gun to 18 and overturned a state ban on binary triggers — a modification that can greatly increase a semiautomatic weapon’s rate of fire by allowing it to shoot both when the trigger is pulled and released. The state has appealed the decision.

In another ruling, the Minnesota Supreme Court said a decades-old law banning certain guns without serial numbers didn’t apply to homemade “ghost guns” as long as federal law doesn’t require a serial number.

DFLers as part of their special session framework, want to address the ghost gun loophole and pass another binary trigger ban.

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