By STEPHEN GROVES

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans are facing pressure Wednesday from President Donald Trump to oppose a Democratic resolution that would nullify the presidential emergency on fentanyl he is using to implement tariffs on Canada.

Just hours before Trump was set to announce his plan for “reciprocal tariffs” on China, Mexico and Canada — his so-called “Liberation Day” — the Senate was expected to vote on a resolution that offers Republicans an off-ramp to the import taxes on Canada. It is a significant test for Republican loyalty to Trump’s vision of remaking the U.S. economy by clamping down on free trade. Many economists are warning that the plan could force an economic contraction, and GOP senators are already watching with unease.

The votes of at least four Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Rand Paul of Kentucky — were in doubt ahead of the vote. If all Democrats plus the four Republicans vote for the resolution, it would boost it to the simple majority needed to pass the Senate. The legislation would still need to be brought up and passed in the Republican-controlled House.

In a social media post just before 1 a.m. Wednesday, Trump singled out the four senators, saying they “will hopefully get on the Republican bandwagon, for a change, and fight the Democrats wild and flagrant push to not penalize Canada for the sale, into our Country, of large amounts of Fentanyl.”

To justify the tariffs, Trump has argued that Canada is not doing enough to stop illegal drugs from entering the northern border. Customs and Border Protection seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the northern border during the 2024 fiscal year, and since January, authorities have seized less than 1.5 pounds, according to federal data. Meanwhile, at the southern border, authorities seized over 21,000 pounds last year.

Sen. Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democrat who initiated the resolution, said at at news conference Tuesday that Trump was inventing a “made-up emergency” to help pay for extending tax cuts that he argued would mostly benefit the wealthy.

“How are they going to pay for it? Massive cuts in programs like Medicaid and Medicare, and tariffs imposed on the backs of everyday Americans,” Kaine said.

Democrats were highlighting how the tariffs on Canada could make it more expensive to build homes, disrupt industries like shipbuilding and beer brewing and raise prices on imported grocery products.

“Today, Donald Trump takes a sledgehammer to the American economy and even to the American dream,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech. He added, “The Senate has a chance to slow this trade war down today if Republicans join us.”

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For their part, Republican leaders were trying to hold their members in line against the tariff resolution by emphasizing that Trump was acting to address fentanyl trafficking and border security.

Majority Whip Sen. John Barrasso claimed in a floor speech that former President Joe Biden had “also thrown open the northern border. The criminal cartels noticed and they took advantage.”

“There are unique threats to the United States at our northern border,” the Wyoming senator said. “President Trump is taking the bold, decisive, swift, swift action that is necessary to secure that border as well.”

However, a key group of Senate Republicans are worried about the economic impacts from the tariffs on Canada. Collins noted that already “Canada is beefing up its security on the border” to address drug trafficking and said she was concerned what tariffs would do to businesses and households in Maine.

“We have a paper mill in northern Maine that gets its pulp from Canada. It’s pumped across the river and then made into paper. That mill employs 510 people. It’s going to be in trouble if there’s a tariff of 25% put on pulp,” Collins said.

Still, other Republicans noted their concerns about the tariff impacts on farmers and other industries, but still wanted to give Trump room to negotiate better trade deals.

North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said that he has been in constant talks with both Canadian officials and businesses in his state like Bobcat, which does a significant amount of its sales in Canada. But he didn’t plan on supporting the resolution. Instead, he hoped that Trump’s Wednesday announcement would just be a starting point for negotiations for the reciprocal dropping of tariffs.

The Republican added: “I’m not overly concerned about it, but obviously it occupies a lot of attention and time and a lot of political anxiety.”

The Taste of Minnesota festival, once a St. Paul tradition, will return to Minneapolis for the third year in July.

The free festival will take place at Nicollet Mall and Washington Avenue in downtown Minneapolis from noon to 10 p.m. on Saturday, July 5, and Sunday, July 6.

Cheap Trick and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts will headline on July 5, followed by Ludacris on July 6, organizers announced on Wednesday.

Other acts on July 5 include Bluewater Kings, Rhythm Street Movement and The Steels Family Affair, featuring DJ Sophia Eris.

On July 6, look for NUR-D, David Yang, Frankie Torres and Good for Gary with Eris as DJ.

The festival will also feature two additional stages with local bands, with lineups to be announced later.

Beyond music, there will be local food vendors and family-friendly activities with more than 100 visual artists, makers and performers showcasing Minnesota’s vibrant creative scene.

The late Ron Maddox founded Taste of Minnesota in 1983 on the state Capitol grounds in St. Paul. The idea was to provide a free, family friendly festival with live music and plenty of food options. After stops and starts and changes in ownership, organizers and locations in recent years, the festival found its new home in Minneapolis in 2023.

While the festival is free, there is a new option for ticketed VIP passes. Featuring “extra perks and comfort,” according to a news release, the passes include drink tickets, reserved viewing area, access to air-conditioned bathrooms and more. The packages will cost $350 for both days or $200 for a single day.

Ticket sales begin on Tuesday, April 8. More info at tasteofmn.com.

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By JANIE HAR

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge in California on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore legal aid to tens of thousands of migrant children who are in the United States without a parent or guardian.

The Republican administration on March 21 terminated a contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, which provides legal services for unaccompanied migrant children under 18 through a network of legal aid groups that subcontract with the center. Eleven subcontractor groups sued, saying that 26,000 children were at risk of losing their attorneys; Acacia is not a plaintiff.

Those groups argued that the government has an obligation under a 2008 anti-trafficking law to provide vulnerable children with legal counsel.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of San Francisco granted a temporary restraining order late Tuesday. She wrote that advocates raised legitimate questions about whether the administration violated the 2008 law, warranting a return to the status quo while the case continues. The order will take effect Wednesday and runs through April 16.

“The Court additionally finds that the continued funding of legal representation for unaccompanied children promotes efficiency and fairness within the immigration system,” she wrote.

It is the third legal setback in less than a week for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, though all may prove temporary as the lawsuits advance. On Friday, a federal judge in Boston said people with final deportation orders must have a “ meaningful opportunity ” to argue against being sent to a country other than their own. On Monday, another federal judge in San Francisco put on hold plans to end protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, including 350,000 whose legal status was scheduled to expire April 7.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which created special protections for migrant children who cannot navigate a complex immigration system on their own. Plaintiffs said some of their clients are too young to speak and others are too traumatized and do not know English.

The law requires the government to ensure “to the greatest extent practicable” that all children entering the country alone have legal counsel to represent them in proceedings and to “protect them from mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.”

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Defendants, which include the Department of Health and Human Services and its Office of Refugee Resettlement, said that taxpayers have no obligation to pay the cost of direct legal aid to migrant children at a time when the government is trying to save money. They also said district courts have no jurisdiction over a contract termination that would have expired at the end of March.

Acacia is under a new contract with the government to provide legal orientations, including “know your rights” clinics.

But plaintiffs said they are not asking for the contract to be restored; rather, they want a return to the status quo, which is spending $5 billion that Congress appropriated so children have representation, said Karen Tumlin with the Justice Action Center at a court hearing Tuesday.

She said the administration cannot simply zero out funding without providing direction on who will help these children.

“They need to make sure to the greatest extent practicable that there is a plan,” she said.

Jonathan Ross with the U.S. Department of Justice said the government is still funding legally required activities, such as the “know your rights” clinics, and that legal clinics can offer their services without charge.

“They’re still free to provide those services on a pro bono basis,” he said.

Judge Martínez-Olguín is a Biden appointee.

By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican senators are meeting Wednesday morning with President Donald Trump at the White House as they push ahead on his big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts while delaying some of the most difficult decisions, including the costs and how to pay for the multitrillion-dollar package.

The Senate GOP’s budget framework would be the companion to the House Republicans’ $4.5 trillion tax cuts package that also calls for cutting some $2 trillion from health care and other programs. If the Senate can move the blueprint forward, it would edge Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill closer to a compromise setting the stage for a final product in the coming weeks.

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“Obviously we are hopeful this week we can get a budget resolution on the floor that will unlock the process,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. “And so we are continuing to move forward with that.”

Thune and Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee are meeting with Trump before the expected public release of their budget blueprint by the committee chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, as soon as the afternoon.

While big differences remain, Republicans face increasing political pressure to deliver on what is expected to be Trump’s signature domestic policy package: extending the tax cuts, which were initially approved in 2017, during his first term at the White House. Those tax breaks expire at the end of the year, and Trump wants to expand them to include new no taxes on tipped wages, overtime pay and other earnings, as he promised during the 2024 campaign.

Democrats are preparing to oppose the GOP tax plans as giveaways to the wealthy, coming as billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is taking a “chain saw” to the federal government. They warn Republicans plan to cut government programs and services that millions of Americans depend on nationwide.

“We are standing together against the GOP tax scam and in defense of the American people,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said alongside others on the Capitol steps late Tuesday.

One main sticking point between the House and Senate GOP plans has been over whether the existing tax cuts, which are estimated to cost the federal government $4.5 trillion over the decade in lost revenue, need to be paid for by spending reductions elsewhere. Adding Trump’s new tax breaks to the package would balloon the price tag.

To offset the costs, House Republicans are demanding some $2 trillion in cuts to health care and other accounts to stem federal deficits and prevent the nation’s $36 trillion debt load from skyrocketing.

But GOP senators have a different approach. They take the view that because the tax cuts are already the current policy, they would not be new and would not need to be paid for. They want to use this current policy baseline moving forward, meaning only Trump’s other proposed tax breaks would come with a new cost. They are expected to set much lower spending cuts as a floor that can be raised, if needed, to compromise with the House’s $2 trillion in cuts.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and top Democrats call the Senate GOP’s approach a gimmick at best, if not an outright “lie.”

“It is an obscene fraud and the American people won’t stand for it,” said Schumer, Sen. Jeff Merkley of the Budget Committee and Sen. Ron Wyden of the Finance Committee in a letter to GOP leadership.

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey argued against the GOP baseline as “a gimmick” that would cut important federal services while growing deficits.

“What they’re investing in is bigger tax cuts for the wealthiest,” Booker said during a landmark overnight speech.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and congressional GOP leaders have been meeting privately as Trump’s priority package churns on Capitol Hill. At a meeting with other Senate Republicans late Monday at the Capitol, Bessent urged them to get it done.

From left, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick follow President Donald Trump to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House en route to Florida, Friday, March 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Typically, the current policy baseline proposal would need to pass the muster of the Senate’s nonpartisan parliamentarian to make sure it abides by the strict rules of the budget process. Senators from both parties have been arguing in closed-door sessions with the parliamentarian staff — for and against the idea.

But GOP leaders say they don’t necessarily need the Senate parliamentarian, at this point, to resolve the issue, and they believe Graham, as the Senate Budget Committee chairman, has the authority to allow their current policy baseline approach.

What is more certain is that they want to move quickly this week to pass the framework. That will entail a lengthy all-night vote that could drag into the weekend. Then, they will sort out the details later as the Republicans, facing Democratic opposition, build the actual package for consideration in the weeks, if not months, ahead.