By DARLENE SUPERVILLE

WASHINGTON (AP) — World leaders, lawmakers and even one Native American tribe are deploying a novel strategy for remaining on good terms with Presidential Donald Trump: Praise his peacemaking efforts and nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

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The announcements of nominations are piling up for the mercurial Republican president, who has long coveted the prestigious award. The honor, according to Albert Nobel’s wishes, is given to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Peace prize nominations for Trump date to his first term, but he’s talking more in his second about how he’s helping to end conflicts, how he wants to be known as a peacemaker and how much he wants to be awarded a prize.

Fellow leaders, politicians and others have taken notice. Critics say Trump policies that have sown division in the U.S. and around the world make him unfit for a peace prize and he’s being manipulated with the nominations.

On Monday, as Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington to talk to Trump about Iran and the war in Gaza, the Israeli leader had something else to share with the president as they sat across from each other at a table set for their dinner meeting in the White House Blue Room.

“I want to present to you, Mr. President, the letter I sent to the Nobel Prize committee. It’s nominating you for the peace prize, which is well deserved, and you should get it,” Netanyahu told Trump as he rose from his seat to hand over a copy of the letter.

Trump thanked him. “Coming from you in particular, this is very meaningful,” the president said.

A group of African leaders had their turn with Trump a few days after Netanyahu.

The leaders referenced the U.S. role in mediating a recent agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to bring peace after decades of bloody conflict that has killed millions. Representatives from both countries signed the deal in the Oval Office in front of Trump.

“And so he is now bringing peace back to a region where that was never possible so I believe that he does deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. That is my opinion,” said Gabonese President Brice Oligui Nguema.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Thursday, “President Trump was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize due to his proven record of securing peace around the world.” She added, “Thanks to this President’s leadership, America is respected again, making the entire world safer and more prosperous.”

The Nobel prizes are determined in secret. Nominations can come from a select group of people and organizations, including heads of state or politicians serving at a national level, university professors, directors of foreign policy institutes, past Nobel Prize recipients and members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee itself.

Past recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize include former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, both Democrats.

Last month, as Trump announced the Rwanda-Congo deal, he complained that he’d never get a Nobel Peace Prize despite everything he’s done, ranging from the Abraham Accords of his first term, in which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel, to recently easing renewed tensions between India and Pakistan, among others.

Pakistan nominated Trump for the peace prize last month but then turned around and condemned him a day later after he bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Trump later worked with Israel and Iran to end their short war.

As a candidate, Trump promised he would end the Russia-Ukraine war on his first day in office before saying later as president that he was joking. But solving that conflict, as well as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, has so far eluded Trump.

His supporters, including lawmakers in Congress, are trying to help make Trump’s dream come true.

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, has called on the Senate to nominate Trump, while Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., asked her social media followers to share her post if they agree with her that he deserves it.

Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., recently wrote on X that she has now nominated Trump twice and will continue to do so until he is awarded the prize.

“He has done more for world peace than any modern leader,” she wrote.

At least one Native American tribe said it intends to nominate Trump, too.

“No world leader has dedicated more time and effort to promoting global peace than President Donald Trump,” Marshall Pierite, chairman of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana, said in a statement.

BY ANNIE MA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration will restrict immigrants in the country illegally from enrolling in Head Start, a federally funded preschool program, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday. The move is part of a broad effort to limit access to federal benefits for immigrants who lack legal status.

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People in the country illegally are largely ineligible for federal public benefits such as food stamps, student loans and financial aid for higher education. But for decades they have been able to access some community-level programs such as Head Start and community health centers.

HHS said it will reclassify those programs as federal public benefits, excluding immigrants in the country illegally from accessing them. Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the changes were part of a larger effort to protect American citizens’ interests.

“For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration,” Kennedy said in a statement. “Today’s action changes that — it restores integrity to federal social programs, enforces the rule of law, and protects vital resources for the American people.”

A spokesperson for the Administration for Children and Families, which administers Head Start, said that eligibility will be determined based on the child’s immigration status.

Requiring proof of immigration status would likely create fear and confusion among families seeking to enroll their children, said Yasmina Vinci, executive director of the National Head Start Association.

“This decision undermines the fundamental commitment that the country has made to children and disregards decades of evidence that Head Start is essential to our collective future,” Vinci said.

The changes are part of a multi-agency announcement rescinding a Clinton-era interpretation of federal law, which had allowed immigrants in the country illegally to access some programs. The Education Department, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Labor announced similar changes affecting a range of workforce and adult education programs.

The changes will affect community health centers that immigrants rely on for a wide range of services, said Shelby Gonzales, vice president of immigration policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“People depend on those services to get cancer treatment, to get ongoing maintenance for a variety of different health needs,” she said.

Students in the country illegally will no longer be eligible to participate in post-secondary career and technical education programs or adult education programs, the Education Department announced. The department also issued a notice to grant recipients to ensure that programs receiving federal funding do not provide services to immigrants without legal status.

Education advocates said the decision would harm young people who have grown up in this country. EdTrust Vice President Augustus Mays said the intention appears to be creating fear among immigrant communities.

“Policies like this don’t exist in a vacuum,” Mays said. “They are rooted in a political agenda that scapegoats immigrants and uses fear to strip rights and resources from the most vulnerable among us.”

Head Start was started six decades ago as part of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. It operates in all 50 states, helping families who are homeless or are in poverty.

Associated Press writer Cheyanne Mumphrey in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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.

Down 11 points in the first quarter, Natisha Hiedeman and the Lynx bench provided a much-needed spark.

The starters kept the mojo going in the third quarter, and Minnesota got back in the win column on the second game of a back-to-back set.

Hiedeman tied a season-high with 18 points off the bench — 16 in the first half — to lead four players with double figures in a 91-82 win over the Sparks in Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon.

“We have a few players that aren’t playing as well as they want to play or at their best. T’s timing of this game is what our starters needed,” said coach Cheryl Reeve. “If T wasn’t in our locker room today, this game might have turned out differently. She willed our team to shake off that early start and really gave us a bounce in our step.”

Victory came 24 hours after the Lynx were out-toughed and outscored 19-4 down the stretch in a 79-71 loss Wednesday at Phoenix.

“We knew that we just had to come in here and be focused,” said Hiedeman, whose team was playing its sixth game in 10 days.

Hiedeman scored 10 points in less than four minutes of action in the opening frame.

“She’s just a such a spark on the bench,” said Napheesa Collier, who had 17 points and eight rebounds. “She was a plus-14, highest of the game. We feel that when we’re on. T is so quick the way that she’s able to push the pace, especially in transition, getting in the lane, spreading it out, when she’s open taking threes, knocking those down She’s such a dynamic player. … She is what makes the team go, especially when we need that extra spark coming off the bench.”

The seventh-year player finished 7 of 12 from the field after going 6 for 19 and scoring 15 points in her first four July games.

“If the shots are there, I’m going to take them. Today they were there, and we were busting out in transition,” she said. “I don’t think my game is based off points, it’s more so running the offense and finding players.”

The Minnesota bench had 30 of its 34 points in the first half as the Lynx took a 50-40 lead into the break after outscoring Los Angeles 28-14 in the second quarter.

“I’m really, really happy the bench gave the support that it did, because our starters absolutely needed it to kind of help get us going again,” Reeve said.

Up by 27 late in a third quarter where the Lynx outscored Los Angeles 30-19, Minnesota saw the lead dwindle to 80-70 less than three minutes into the fourth quarter before an Alanna Smith basket off a feed from Courtney Williams and a Williams jumper pushed the lead back to 14.

The Lynx lead remained in double digits until the final minute of play.

“Our team does a great job of staying together and keeping winning games the main thing,” said Collier.

Williams finished with 16 points and seven assists, and Smith finished with 15 points. Bridget Carleton had a season-best six assists.

Minnesota won all four games against the Sparks (6-14) this season and has won 17 of the past 19 meetings since August 2020.

By LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York state law holding gun manufacturers potentially liable when their weapons are used in deadly shootings was upheld Thursday by a federal appeals court.

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The ruling Thursday by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan affirmed a decision by an Albany judge.

A three-judge appeals panel said the 2021 New York state law was not unconstitutional or vague. The opinion written by Circuit Judge Eunice C. Lee said a lawsuit seeking to stop the law’s implementation did not show that the law was “unenforceable in all its applications.”

The law requires the gun industry to create reasonable controls to prevent unlawful possession, use, marketing or sale of their products in New York and allows them to be sued for unlawful acts that create or contribute to threats to public health or safety.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association of firearms manufacturers that ships firearms into New York, had sued over the law, saying it was pre-empted by the federal 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which blocks litigation that could destroy the firearms industry.

In May 2022, Judge Mae A. D’Agostino threw out the lawsuit, rejecting arguments that the law’s language did not adequately explain what was prohibited. She said the law closely tracked the language of New York’s general public nuisance law, which has been “good law since 1965.”

Lawyers for the gun manufacturers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a release that the decision was a “massive victory for public safety and the rule of law and will help us continue to fight the scourge of gun violence to keep our communities safe.”

Eric Tirschwell, executive director of the nonprofit Everytown Law, praised the ruling. He said the law creates “a new pathway for victims and their families to hold bad actors in the gun industry accountable for their role in fueling the epidemic of gun violence that is ravaging communities across the Empire State.”

Everytown Law and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence were among gun violence protection groups that filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing that the new law “simply does not create the free-for-all” that gun makers predicted.

Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs concurred in the ruling, despite some reservations. He wrote that New York had “contrived a broad public nuisance statute that applies solely to ‘gun industry members’ and is enforceable by a mob of public and private actors.”

And he added: “The intent of Congress when it closes a door is not for States to thus jimmy a window.”

Jacobs, citing a recent Supreme Court ruling, said he agrees with the other two judges on the panel that the law could be applied consistent with the federal law and the U.S. Constitution.

But he also wrote that the New York gun law is “nothing short of an attempt to end-run” the federal law, noting that then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo said when he signed it that it would “right the wrong” done by the federal law.

“There is some legitimate reach to the law, which suffices for us to affirm the dismissal of this facial challenge. Just how limited that reach is must await future cases,” Jacobs said.