By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press

President Donald Trump’s administration this week told 40 states to eliminate parts of lessons that focus on LGBTQ+ issues from federally funded sexual education materials or that they will lose funding.

The move is the latest in a line of efforts since Trump returned to the White House in January to recognize people as only male or female and to eliminate what he calls “gender ideology.”

“Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or advance dangerous ideological agendas,” Acting Assistant Health and Human Service Secretary Andrew Gradison said in a statement.

That position contradicts what the American Medical Association and other mainstream medical groups say: that extensive scientific research suggests sex and gender are better understood as a spectrum than as an either-or definition.

The funds in question in the Personal Responsibility Education Program total over $81 million for the 40 states plus the District of Columbia and five territories where officials were also sent the letter. The officials were told they have 60 days to change the lessons or could lose their grants.

California was warned previously, and the $12 million grant for that state was stripped on Aug. 21.

Now, other states will have until late October to decide whether to comply or give up the funding.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong also suggested there could be legal challenges to the administration’s effort. “Threatening to defund our schools over this is completely unhinged and we’re not going to let Trump steal money from our kids,” he said in a statement.

The grants are used to teach adolescents about abstinence and contraception. They target education for those who are homeless, in foster care, living in rural areas or places with high teen birth rates — and minority groups, including LGBTQ+ populations.

Alison Macklin, spokesperson for SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, said the grant money is used for things like training sex education instructors and for groups that present lessons in schools or after-school groups.

“This money is essential to states and territories to support sex education,” she said. “They build critical life skills for young people.”

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She noted that some states have laws requiring education about lesbian, gay and transgender people.

In the letters, the federal Administration for Children and Families pointed to specific examples in textbooks and curricula that they find objectionable.

For instance, a curriculum used in Alabama encourages the instructor to ask participants to share the pronouns they use.

It also tells the instructor to tell the class that people “may identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or straight. Some may identify as male, female or transgender. All of these differences make us unique. Regardless of how you see yourself, your background, previous relationships or experience, each of you has a place in this group.”

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster applauded the warnings during a question-and-answer period with reporters this week.

“The things they describe there really have got no business being in there,” he said. “Somebody has gone crazy somewhere trying to put all this stuff” in lessons.

Associated Press reporters Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this article.

The Adams administration wants to expand the Health Department’s capacity to inspect cooling towers atop buildings after an outbreak in Harlem—stemming from bacteria found in towers at two city-run properties—killed seven people.

A woman holds up a city flier notifying Harlem residents about the Legionnaires’ Disease outbreak in their neighborhoods. (William Alatriste/NYC Council Media Unit)

Mayor Eric Adams wants to expand the city’s capacity to inspect buildings for Legionnaires’ disease, and strengthen penalties for property owners who fail to comply with cooling tower regulations, after an outbreak in Harlem killed seven people this summer and sickened more than a hundred others.

The Health Department on Friday said it had concluded its investigation into the cluster of Harlem cases, which officials said stemmed from cooling towers contaminated with Legionella bacteria at two city-run properties in the neighborhood (as the Daily News first reported): Harlem Hospital at 506 Lenox Ave., and a nearby construction site overseen by the NYC Economic Development Corporation at 40 West 137th St. Both sites have since been cleaned and remediated, officials said.

“We must ensure that we learn from this and implement new steps to improve our detection and response to future clusters,” Adams said in a statement Friday, calling the outbreak “an unfortunate tragedy.”

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, among the candidates running against Adams in November’s general election for mayor, has called for an independent probe of the incident, saying it “raises troubling questions about whether City agencies complied with their own inspection and enforcement standards.”

Legionnaires’ disease is a type of pneumonia caused by the bacteria Legionella, which can grow in stagnant water and sicken people who breathe contaminated water vapors (it cannot spread from person to person).

New York City building owners are currently required to register their properties’ cooling towers and monitor their water quality three times a week, according to the Health Department, which called the city’s regulations “among the most rigorous and protective laws” in the country.

But Health Department inspections of cooling towers dropped to a near-record low in the months before the Harlem outbreak, which the agency blamed on staff shortages, according to reporting by the news site Gothamist.

Mayor Adams on Friday proposed several measures to strengthen the city’s testing and enforcement mechanisms, including expanding the number of inspectors, requiring building owners to test for Legionella every 30 days during cooling tower operating periods instead of the current 90 days, and increasing fines for related violations.

Here’s what else happened this week—

ICYMI, from City Limits:

Struggling to pay rent, or facing eviction from your apartment? City Limits spoke to experts about what tenants can do if they’ve fallen behind on their payments.

More migrant youth—many of whom are or were recently living in city shelters—are seeking guidance on how to navigate their immigration hearings as the Trump administration continues to pursue courthouse arrests.

Both the city and federal governments want to make it easier to involuntarily hospitalize people experiencing homelessness and mental health issues, but such policies “just push suffering out of view—until it resurfaces again, often worse,” writes op-ed author Josiah Haken, CEO of the homeless outreach group City Relief.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

About 3,100 families who get CityFHEPS housing vouchers will soon have to pay a higher portion of their income on rent, one of several reforms the city is making to rein in spending on the assistance program, The City reports.

The Trump administration is moving ahead with the redevelopment of Penn Station, but no longer plans to tear down an entire Midtown block as part of the process, according to Gothamist.

The City Council is demanding the NYPD stop surveilling public housing campuses via Big Apple Connect, the mayor’s free internet program, according to New York Focus. The newsroom’s reporting previously revealed how police have used the initiative to tap into video cameras at NYCHA buildings.

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org. Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post City Proposes Inspection Reforms After Legionnaires’ Outbreak, And What Else Happened This Week In Housing appeared first on City Limits.

By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Since sending the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, President Donald Trump has openly mused about sending troops to some of the nation’s most Democratic cities — including Chicago and Baltimore — claiming they are needed to crack down on crime.

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The threats to expand a federal intervention have legal experts and some military officials raising concerns that Trump is considering novel ways to use National Guard troops in American cities that could set up conflicts not seen since the civil rights era.

Though most violent crime has fallen in recent years in the cities Trump has called out, the Republican president said Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker “should be calling me, and he should be saying, ‘Can you send over the troops please?’ It’s out of control.”

Whether Trump can repeat what he’s done in LA and the nation’s capital — call up the National Guard and have it assist a surge of federal law enforcement and immigration officers — is an open question and likely to become a point of contention should he press forward.

Here’s a look at how Trump has used troops in U.S. cities, what the law allows and what could come next:

How Trump already has used the National Guard

Trump first deployed troops to Los Angeles in early June over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections by putting the California National Guard under federal jurisdiction, known as Title 10, to protect federal property from protests over immigration raids.

Besides 4,000 Guard members, Trump later sent 700 active duty Marines, and California sued over the intervention. The Guard went on to help protect officers during immigration arrests.

While Trump pushed the limits of the law, the lawsuit centers on whether the president was allowed to use the Guard to closely shadow federal law enforcement and whether that runs afoul of the prohibition on using the military as law enforcement, known as the Posse Comitatus Act, said Todd Huntley, director of the National Security Law Program at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Meanwhile, the unique status of the District of Columbia National Guard — Trump is their commander in chief — means he has been able to use it for everything from armed patrols to trash cleanup without any legal issues. Because it is on state and not federal orders, legal restrictions on law enforcement don’t come into effect.

“Where we have a big question mark” is whether “the governor of a state has to consent to the sending of troops to his state,” said Huntley, a retired Navy captain and judge advocate.

How this could play out in Chicago and other cities

The Trump administration is planning to surge officers to the nation’s third-largest city for an immigration crackdown, two U.S. officials said.

The Department of Homeland Security asked Naval Station Great Lakes outside Chicago for support on immigration operations, including with facilities and logistics, the base said this week. The Illinois National Guard and the base said they had not received requests regarding a mobilization of troops to Chicago.

If Trump wants the freedom to use the National Guard as he pleases in Chicago, the easiest legal path is to invoke the Insurrection Act — a vaguely worded 1792 law that allows the president to deploy federal troops inside the U.S. to conduct law enforcement, an exception to the restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act.

The law offers sweeping powers to the president, envisioning armed conflict within the United States.

“The orders would be given by him … and the governor of the receiving state would not have a say in whether he allows them into the state or not or allows them to conduct a mission in the state,” Huntley said.

However, Huntley calls this “the nuclear option.”

A D.C. National Guard official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said invoking the Insurrection Act over a broad topic like crime could allow the Guard to be deployed indefinitely.

Another possibility is Trump deploying the D.C. Guard, which he commands, to another state, the official said.

If the D.C. Guard is put on federal orders — something Trump has the power to do — it could lead to some rare situations, including federalized D.C. Guardsmen sent to another state that in turn could activate its own Guard as a counter, Huntley said.

The possibility is not without precedent.

“The resolution of that could be basically what we saw in Alabama during the civil rights era. To take the ability of that state governor of using state National Guard forces away, the president could simply federalize them,” Huntley said.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard as part of the now-famous standoff with Gov. George Wallace, who refused to step aside and allow Black students to integrate the University of Alabama. Wallace eventually relented.

Members of the Louisiana National Guard patrol Union Station, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

How Trump’s new executive order on the National Guard affects what happens next

In an executive order signed Monday, Trump ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to create “a specialized unit” within the D.C. Guard “dedicated to ensuring public safety and order.”

He also directed Hegseth to ensure every state’s Guard is ready to assist federal and local law enforcement in “quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order” when needed. It also calls for each to have units “reasonably available for rapid mobilization.”

The Pentagon has not given more details of what Trump’s order will mean for the National Guard. A defense official confirmed that Hegseth’s office was aware of the order and that they were reviewing it and its specific requirements.

All state Guards already have a “reaction force” that is aimed at responding to a wide variety of incidents with an initial force of 75-125 personnel within eight hours and a follow-on force of up to 375 personnel within 24 hours, according to a National Guard fact sheet.

And the D.C. National Guard already has a unit that is made up entirely of soldiers trained as military police.

By AMY TAXIN, Associated Press

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California bookmaker who took thousands of sports bets from the former interpreter for baseball star Shohei Ohtani was sentenced to just over a year in prison Friday.

Mathew Bowyer, now 50, had pleaded guilty a year ago to running an illegal gambling business, money laundering and filing a false tax return. He was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison.

He will later be subjected to two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service, which his lawyer said he’s already paid.

“The bottom line is, I am remorseful. I have made many poor choices in my life,” Bowyer told the court before sentencing, his voice trembling.

Federal prosecutors wanted Bowyer sentenced to 15 months in prison for running the scheme that placed hundreds of millions of dollars in bets and netted thousands of dollars each day. They said Bowyer could have faced a longer sentence but shouldn’t thanks to his significant assistance in their investigations.

The prosecutor declined to comment after Friday’s hearing.

U.S. District Judge John W. Holcomb said the sentence could have been longer, but both the government and Bowyer’s lawyer sought reductions.

Holcomb said he was impressed by Bowyer’s recent efforts to assist gambling addicts and the overwhelming support shown by Bowyer’s family and friends, more than a dozen who were in the courtroom Friday, but said he felt some prison time was necessary due to the tax crime.

“Despite the significant mitigation, there are consequences for committing these crimes,” Holcomb said.

Diane Bass, Bowyer’s attorney, wanted her client to be spared prison time entirely because of his “extraordinary acceptance of responsibility.” In a letter to the court, the father of five from San Juan Capistrano, California, said he began gambling as a teen by playing poker and betting on video games, and it later spiraled out of control.

“It is so easy to gamble everything away and fall into despair,” Bowyer wrote. “I am very sorry and embarrassed that I facilitated such dangerous risk-taking.”

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The case against Bowyer is part of a broader federal probe into illegal sports gambling that led to the arrest of Ohtani’s former Japanese language interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, who is currently serving a nearly five-year sentence for bank and tax fraud after stealing nearly $17 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers player.

Authorities said Bowyer ran an illegal gambling business for at least five years in Southern California and Las Vegas and took wagers from more than 700 bettors including Mizuhara, who had long worked with Ohtani and was regularly seen by his side.

While Mizuhara’s winnings totaled over $142 million, which he deposited in his own bank account and not Ohtani’s, his losing bets were around $183 million — a net loss of nearly $41 million. Investigators said Mizhuara wagered on sports other than baseball. Authorities said Ohtani was a victim in the case.

Bowyer cooperated with investigators in their prosecution of Mizuhara and in a case against the head of a large sports gambling business, federal prosecutors wrote in court filings. They said his “significant, timely, and credible” assistance helped authorities obtain two separate convictions.

Since then, Bowyer has been addressing his own gambling addiction and helping others overcome theirs, Bass wrote in court filings. He has also repaid $1.6 million in taxes, she said.

Operating an unlicensed betting business is a federal crime. Sports gambling is illegal in California, while most states and the District of Columbia allow some form of it.

Sports-betting scandals have made headlines in recent years, including one that led Major League Baseball to ban a player for life last year for the first time since Pete Rose was barred in 1989.

The league’s gambling policy prohibits players and team employees from wagering on baseball, even legally. MLB also bans betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookmakers.

The league last year banned San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano and suspended four other players for betting on baseball legally. Marcano became the first active player in a century banned for life because of gambling.

Rose, whose playing days were already over, agreed to his ban in 1989 after an investigation found that he had placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985 to 1987 while playing for and managing the team.

In Nevada, the case against Bowyer led gaming regulators to issue a $10.5 million fine against the Resorts World Casino on the Las Vegas strip. It was the second-largest fine handed down by the state’s gaming commission and settled a complaint accusing the casino of welcoming people with ties to illegal bookmaking.