By JEFFREY COLLINS

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina lawmakers improperly gave themselves a $1,500 monthly raise, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in a unanimous decision that will end up cutting legislators’ pay by thousands of dollars.

Related Articles

At ‘Make America Healthy Again’ summit, Vance praises RFK Jr.

These are the 37 donors helping pay for Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom

With their government contracts in limbo, small businesses await a historic shutdown’s end

UK’s Starmer refuses to say whether he will urge Trump to drop his $1 billion BBC threat

More Americans are unhappy with the way Trump is managing the government, poll shows

The justices said the “ in-district compensation ” qualifies as salary, meaning the increase can’t take effect until after the 2026 election. The General Assembly had made the raises immediate through a budget item earlier this year.

The ruling also eliminates a $1,000 monthly expense payment that all 46 senators and 124 House members receive, reducing their paychecks until legislators approve a new proposal.

The suit was brought by Republican Sen. Wes Climer, who voted against the raise, and one of his constituents.

“Public trust is earned by doing the right thing, even when it’s unpopular. I opposed this pay raise not because the job isn’t demanding, but because how we govern matters,” Climer said in a statement after the ruling.

From left to right, Republican South Carolina Sen. Wes Climer, York County resident Carol Herring, and attorney Dick Harpootlian talk about their case suing the state General Assembly over a pay raise outside the South Carolina Supreme Court building in Columbia, S.C., on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025.. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

No receipts? Court says that means extra pay is salary, not expenses

During arguments before the court last month, attorneys for the House and Senate said the raise was for expenses, not salary, and exempt from the waiting period.

The justices rejected that claim, instead siding with Climer’s attorneys who argued lawmakers themselves called it compensation and since they aren’t required to provide any receipts or documentation, it is salary.

The court acknowledged legislators’ pay hasn’t risen since 1994 and that current compensation is “paltry” compared to the demands of the job. But it noted that until this year the General Assembly had honored the constitutional ban on mid-term raises.

“Where a legislative enactment clearly contravenes our constitution, we have a duty to declare the legislative enactment unconstitutional,” the justices wrote.

Lawmakers warn the pay cut could hinder public service

When the part-time lawmakers return to the state capitol in January, they’ll get a lump sum of $10,400 for their $260-a-day pay for all of 2026. Members are also reimbursed for mileage driving to Columbia and a hotel room.

The loss of the $1,000 monthly payment, which they’ve been getting for decades, surprised many legislators. Some lawmakers said they used their own private salaries for town halls, equipment needed to help constituents or basic expenses.

The ruling ultimately hurts the public, Democratic Rep. Hamilton Grant said, because he expects lawmakers will have to cut back how they serve their constituents unless a politician is independently wealthy.

“The decision is unfortunate and rules in favor of political elitism,” Grant said in a text message. “Taking a pay cut in this economy for any job does not help working South Carolinians.”

Justices outline ways lawmakers could fix the issue

During October arguments, the justices suggested several remedies. Lawmakers could have called and treated the raise more like an expense fund, delayed paying it until 2027, or separated the new money from existing pay so it all wouldn’t have gone away, the justices said.

The in-district compensation raise was proposed late in the budget process by Republican Sen. Shane Martin. He spent about 30 seconds on the Senate floor saying the first raise in 30 years was needed because of inflation and higher costs.

South Carolina already has some of the lowest-paid legislators in the country. Comparisons are tricky because they involve salary, expenses and mileage, but the combination of $22,400 for salary and in-district expenses is well below other part-time legislatures like Alabama and Tennessee, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

It’s a lot higher than New Hampshire’s $100-a-year plus mileage but well below full-time lawmakers in California and New York, who earn more than $100,000 annually.

Head coach Niko Medved’s first recruiting class with the Gophers includes a four-star sharpshooter, a high-ceiling center and a tough, quick point guard.

The U announced Wednesday that Wayzata forward Nolen Anderson, Irvine, Calif., center Chadrack Mpoyi and East Ridge guard Cedric Tomes have signed to be three prongs in its 2026 class. Medved told the Pioneer Press on Tuesday the U’s group of high school additions will probably remain at three going into next season.

The Gophers’ incoming class is ranked 24th in the nation and sixth in the 18-team Big Ten, according to 247 Sports on Wednesday morning. Minnesota is among six schools in the conference with at least three commits apiece, which seems to boosts their standing as the early signing period opened.

The 6-foot-8 Anderson is considered a four-star prospect just outside the top 100 in the nation, while the 6-11 Mpoyi and 6-1 Tomes have been awarded three stars.

Here are Medved’s exclusive comments to the Poineer Press on each signee:

Anderson

“An elite shooter,” Medved said “… It’s been really cool to continue to watch his growth as a player. I feel like every time I see him he’s gotten taller. He’s becoming more explosive, athletic.”

Anderson helped lead Wayzata to the Class 4A state championship last March. He and Iowa State signee Christian Wiggins will lead the Trojans again this winter.

“(Anderson is) a winner,” Medved said. “He just plays the game the right way. He plays with a chip on his shoulder. I think he has a chance to be a tremendous player for us.”

Anderson averaged 17.7 points and 7.3 rebounds, while shooting 43% from 3-point range last year. His grandfather, Marlo Miller played for the Gophers (1957-60).

Mpoyi

“He is just oozing with potential,” Medved said. “He’s long. He’s athletic. He’s got good hands. … He’s just so raw.”

Gophers assistant coach Chad Warner “discovered” Mpoyi at an event in the spring, Medved said, and the U started recruiting him then. California-Santa Barbara was his only offer before Minnesota, with Utah, California, Utah State and Oregon State coming in later on.

Mpoyi moved from Likasi, Congo to California in 2024 and has only been playing basketball for five years. After playing on the Under Armour Circuit, he will play his senior season at Crean Lutheran High School.

“I think he’s going to have a great high school season and I think this guy has a chance to develop into a great player,” Medved said.

Tomes

“He has elite quickness,” Medved said. “… He can really shoot the ball.”

Tomes broke a finger on his non-shooting hand while playing quarterback for East Ridge this fall, but returned to the Raptors for the big-school playoffs.

“One of the things that I love about him is he is a multi-sport guy,” Medved said. “Cedric just loves to play. He loves to play and compete. … It would have been really easy (to) just shutdown football and get ready for basketball. But there was no way you were going to keep him off the field, to come back and have a chance to help his team. I just love that about him. He’s a competitor.”

Tomes averaged 27 points per game last season, setting East Ridge scoring records for single game (42 points) and season (735). With Tomes as the floor general last year, the Raptors went 27-1.

Related Articles

Men’s basketball: Gophers’ first stiff test awaits at Missouri

Men’s basketball: Gophers blowout Alcorn State in 95-50 win

Coach Niko Medved reflects on ‘pretty cool’ debut with Gophers

Men’s basketball: Gophers open with rout of Gardner-Webb

Frustrated by stagnation, Mark Coyle puts more money into Gophers men’s basketball

By ALI SWENSON

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday praised Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s willingness to question established science and embrace nontraditional voices in the health care space, saying that often throughout history, “all the experts were wrong.”

Related Articles

These are the 37 donors helping pay for Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom

With their government contracts in limbo, small businesses await a historic shutdown’s end

UK’s Starmer refuses to say whether he will urge Trump to drop his $1 billion BBC threat

More Americans are unhappy with the way Trump is managing the government, poll shows

Epstein email says Trump ‘knew about the girls’ as White House calls its release a Democratic smear

In remarks in a fireside chat between the two men at a “Make America Healthy Again” summit in the nation’s capital, Vance also propped up Kennedy’s MAHA movement, saying it has been “a critical part of our success in Washington.”

Vance’s words show how Kennedy, whose wrecking-ball approach to public health agencies and longstanding vaccine skepticism have made him a polarizing figure among the public and in Congress, has been embraced by the White House as a needed force for change.

“Of all the specific initiatives that you guys have worked on effectively, the most important thing is that your team is willing to ask questions that people in government haven’t been asking in a long time,” Vance told Kennedy onstage.

The Vance-Kennedy event was livestreamed, but the summit was otherwise off limits to the press.

Even as President Donald Trump and Kennedy have disagreed on issues from COVID-19 vaccines to abortion, the White House this year has largely left Kennedy alone as he has made sweeping changes to the agencies he leads, including laying off thousands of workers, firing science advisers and remaking vaccine guidelines.

The Trump administration has touted Kennedy’s efforts to phase out artificial dyes in foods, wage war on ultra-processed foods and update the national dietary guidelines. As health secretary, he has said he wants to find the root causes of chronic disease and help Americans reduce their exposure to toxins.

Critics, including some of the country’s leading medical associations, say that Kennedy’s disregard for established science is fomenting public distrust in mainstream medicine and that his views, once considered fringe, are being amplified from his perch as health secretary. Kennedy and his allies dispute that their agenda is anti-science.

Vance nodded to the fact that many in Kennedy’s network don’t come from conventional medical circles, and some have more experience in business than in health. In fact, many of the health secretary’s close allies and new hires have outright rejected medical consensus on topics including vaccines and how to heal chronic disease.

“We’ve got to be comfortable challenging some of these old orthodoxies, and part of that is welcoming people that are a little unusual,” Vance said.

Vance noted Kennedy’s interest in disrupting bureaucracy comes under a president with a similar mentality.

“That is a good summary of Donald J. Trump is that he takes a bulldozer to Overton windows every single day,” Vance said. The Overton window refers to “the range of policies considered acceptable by the majority of a population,” according to Britannica.com.

Vice President JD Vance, right, is joined by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., at the inaugural Make America Healthy Again summit at the Waldorf Astoria, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

The MAHA event at a Washington hotel came on the heels of a different meeting in Austin, Texas, that welcomed several of the same attendees — the annual conference of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group Kennedy used to lead.

That conference over the weekend, which featured Kennedy’s wife, Cheryl Hines, as a headline speaker, was more squarely focused on immunizations, with sessions such as “The Enduring Nightmare of COVID mRNA Technology” and “Understanding the Enormity of Vaccine Injury.”

Wednesday’s packed house of Trump administration officials, biotech entrepreneurs, MAHA influencers and others included sessions about topics such as how artificial intelligence is being used in health care, reversing aging, making food healthier and more.

MAHA Action, the Kennedy-supporting group hosting the event, said Trump’s embrace of the movement marks “a decisive turning point in U.S. health policy.”

“Today is an important milestone,” Tony Lyons, president of MAHA Action, said in the release. “It’s the culmination of a movement that was 40 years in the making.”

By THALIA BEATY

More than 80 organizations that provide health care for women all over the world received grants Wednesday totaling $250 million from Melinda French Gates after a year-long application process.

Related Articles

Sotheby’s says a diamond brooch lost by Napoleon as his forces fled Waterloo sells for $4.4 million

Zelenskyy seeks dismissal of justice and energy ministers in Ukrainian corruption probe

UK’s Starmer refuses to say whether he will urge Trump to drop his $1 billion BBC threat

Russia makes gains in southern Ukraine as it expands front-line attacks

Climate change is in the news during COP30. We’ve got tips to tackle your climate anxiety

French Gates said the majority of the recipients of the Action for Women’s Health challenge have not previously received funding from her organization, Pivotal, or from the Gates Foundation, which she founded with her ex-husband Bill Gates. She stepped away from the Gates Foundation last year.

“It will be instructive for the world to see what it looks like when organizations like this aren’t so chronically underfunded,” French Gates said in written responses to The Associated Press, which receives funding from Pivotal for news coverage.

The grants, which range between $1 million and $5 million, were awarded through a competition that was open to nonprofit organizations from most countries. French Gates said the point of holding such an open call is to learn about organizations that aren’t already known to major funders. The Chicago-based nonprofit Lever for Change ran the application process and said more than 4,000 organizations from 119 countries applied.

“This seems to be a topic that resonates,” said Cecilia Conrad, CEO of Lever for Change, of global women’s health. “So I’m excited about helping to uplift and elevate the profile of these organizations with other funders.” Her organization often provides donors, both large and small, with advice about what organizations to support, drawing from the list of finalists who have applied to the grant competitions they run.

This is the second largest funding competition that Lever for Change has hosted, after MacKenzie Scott gave $640 million to community-based nonprofits in the U.S. in March 2024.

For the Likhaan Center for Women’s Health based in the Philippines, the $5 million grant represents 10 years of funding at their current annual budget.

“I could not contain the joy of people in the room,” said executive director Junice Melgar when she and her staff learned they had been selected.

For 30 years, Likhaan has provided primary care to very poor communities and advocated for policy changes to reflect community needs. Beyond the money, Melgar said the recognition affirms the effectiveness and sustainability of their community-based model.

The investment in global women’s health organizations is part of a $1 billion commitment that French Gates made to support women’s rights over two years. She also gave $20 million each to 12 individuals to distribute to nonprofits of their choice and has pledged $150 million to boost gender equity in workplaces.

Lisel Lifshitz, the executive director of the small nonprofit Mujeres Aliadas, which also received a grant, said her organization makes “magic” with every dollar they receive. Located in Michoacán, Mexico, Mujeres Aliadas trains midwives and provides education to women and teens about sexual and reproductive health.

“You don’t know what it takes to be very creative in more rural and complicated contexts, talking about security, about poverty, about the many, many things that are missing here,” she said.

For 16 years, her organization has advocated for greater recognition and acceptance of midwives, who blend traditional knowledge and local beliefs with professional training. The funding comes at a critical moment. In 2025, she said two grants they were expecting did not come through because of foreign aid cuts and other policy changes.

“Having this kind of trust-based and unrestricted funding means the world to us,” Lifshitz said.

Since 2000, many gains have been made globally in reducing the number of women who die in child birth, increasing access to contraception and decreasing cases of HIV among women, according to a 2024 report about sexual and reproductive health from the United Nations Population Fund. But the report also found that profound inequalities in health outcomes for women remain within countries and between countries.

Rahel Nardos, director of Global Women’s Health at the Center for Global Health and Social Responsibility, University of Minnesota, said the historic exclusion of women from medical research and a lack of research into issues that impact women specifically, like menopause, contribute to women’s poor health.

From her own practice as a specialist in treating pelvic floor conditions, Nardos said she also sees women prioritizing family members and delaying care for themselves, despite living with extreme health problems. Additionally, violence and instability have contributed to stalling progress on maternal mortality, she said, even as it is well-known what combination of treatments and approaches work to prevent these deaths.

Some recipients of Pivotal’s funding are developing new tools to reach women who have been left behind. Sabine Bolonhini and Adriana Mallet, cofounders of SAS Brasil, use telemedicine and mobile clinics to provide specialized care to patients in Brazil, who otherwise would have to travel long distances.

For example, in partnership with a university, they have been training an artificial intelligence model to identify likely cases of cervical cancer from images. Bolonhini said that she hopes French Gates’ giving will inspire wealthy families in Brazil to also give more to organizations like hers.

“For us, it’s also using (the funding) responsibly and being a good role model for how this money can find solutions that no one else has found yet,” Bolonhini said.

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and non-profits 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. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.