WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said it killed three people Monday in a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Caribbean Sea as part of the Trump administration’s monthslong campaign against alleged traffickers.

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Monday’s attack brought the death toll to at least 151 people since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in small vessels in early September.

As with most of the military’s statements on the more than 40 known strikes, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs but posted a video on X that showed a small boat with outboard engines being destroyed.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” Southern Command stated in a post on X. “Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action.”

President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”

Critics have questioned the overall legality of the strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

The boat strikes also drew intense criticism following the revelation that the military killed survivors of the very first boat attack with a follow-up strike. The Trump administration and many Republican lawmakers said it was legal and necessary, while Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said the killings were murder, if not a war crime.

By ANNIE MA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department is handing over more of its programs and grants to other federal agencies, announcing a pair of new agreements Monday that move the Trump administration closer to its goal of shutting down the department.

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Under one interagency agreement, the Health and Human Services Department will take over grant programs that send millions of dollars to schools for safety and community engagement efforts. Another calls for the State Department to take over a portal that tracks foreign gifts to universities.

“As we continue to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states, our new partnerships with the State Department and HHS represent a practical step toward greater efficiency, stronger coordination, and meaningful improvement,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.

Republican President Donald Trump and McMahon have acknowledged only Congress has authority to close the Education Department fully, but both have suggested its core functions could be parceled out to different federal agencies.

The agreement with HHS moves a small subset of grants to the health agency without touching the Education Department’s special education work. McMahon has long suggested that special education programs should be moved to HHS too, and as recently as December she told advocates that she still intends to move those programs out of the department.

Yet the issue has proved to be politically volatile for McMahon, who has been grilled over her plans for special education even by some in her party. The latest agreements make no mention of the department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which manages billions of dollars in grants and oversees state compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Last year, the department signed seven similar agreements, transferring a sweeping slate of work to the Department of Labor and the Interior Department, in addition to the State Department and HHS. Those agreements covered billions in federal funding streams that went to programs like Title I, which supports low-income students.

The union representing department workers said the latest agreements would shift work to agencies with no educational expertise.

“This isn’t efficiency — Secretary McMahon is creating confusion for schools and colleges, eroding public trust, and harming students and families,” AFGE Local 252 President Rachel Gittleman said in a statement.

“This is an insult to the tens of millions of students who rely on the Department to safeguard access to quality education and to the taxpayers who depend on federal oversight to prevent waste.”

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state said the agreements would hurt students and families.

“These illegal agreements aren’t just creating pointless new bureaucracy that burdens our already-overworked teachers and schools; they are actively jeopardizing resources and support that students and families count on and are entitled to under the law,” Murray said.

Under the new agreements, the State Department will take an increased role in data collection, reporting and enforcement of Section 117, which requires colleges and universities to disclose gifts of $250,000 or more each year.

The agreement with HHS will send six programs to the Administration for Children and Families, which will take over grant competitions and technical assistance for these grants.

But the future of those programs is already uncertain. In its 2026 budget request, the Trump administration said it wanted to zero out the budget of five of the six programs it is transferring to HHS. And in December, some recipients of the Promise Neighborhoods and Full-Service Community Schools grants, which pay for academic and afterschool enrichment opportunities for students, were notified that their funding would not continue in 2026, bringing much of their work to a sudden halt.

Associated Press writer Collin Binkley 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.

“When unhealthy options dominate and nutrition information is limited, families face steeper barriers to making healthier choices or finding better options at all.”

(Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Dontree_M)

It’s hard to find political consensus on many issues in the United States in 2026, but there is one area where we still largely agree: junk food is bad for kids. As a millennial pediatrician, I’ve seen the consequences of our broken food system play out in real time. Growing up, the hidden dangers of junk food were already part of the conversation. Over time, that concern has expanded to include the ultraprocessed products now dominating our food supply.

But today, the problem isn’t just what’s in the food—it’s also the aggressive marketing aimed at children, who are especially vulnerable to colorful branding and animated characters. The reality is that kids are growing up in an increasingly unhealthy food environment, with the odds stacked against them.

Every day, I see families doing their best to make healthy choices, often without the information and agency to succeed. With fewer wholesome, affordable options available, junk food remains the cheapest and most accessible option for many families shopping paycheck-to-paycheck. This year, Albany has a chance to protect New York families and children by advancing two public health bills: the Sodium Warning Bill (S428)and Sweet Truth Act (S427), sponsored by Senate Health Committee Chair Gustavo Rivera and Assemblymember Karines Reyes.

Chronic disease has many causes, but Big Food’s influence—combined with a lack of transparency—continues to play a major role in driving poor health outcomes statewide. Heart disease and stroke remain leading killers nationwide, while Americans consume excessive amounts of sodium and added sugars without clear information about what’s on their plates.

New York faces the same crisis, compounded by the face that residents eat out 130 percent more than other Americans. As a result, more than 10 percent of adults statewide—around 1.7 million people—live with diabetes. Weight-related care costs New York $5.2 billion annually, while hypertension and diabetes cost more than $40 billion. I became a pediatrician to help children and families make healthier decisions early in life—before these statistics become inevitable decades later. Yet current policies fail to provide basic nutrition transparency, leaving families in the dark.

The Sodium Warning Bill and Sweet Truth Act represent an important step forward. These bills would require clear warning labels for high-sodium and high-added sugar menu items at chain restaurants statewide—a straightforward transparency measure that can help families reduce their risk of heart disease, diabetes, and even certain cancers. Over time, better health outcomes would also mean lower healthcare costs, delivering a meaningful affordability benefit for New Yorkers. 

The food environment families are navigating makes these protections especially urgent. At fast casual restaurants, meals routinely exceed the FDA’s daily recommendations of 50 grams of added sugar and 2,300 milligrams of sodium. Even single fountain drinks often contain more than a day’s worth of added sugars. Research shows that diets high in added sugar and sodium are linked to developmental delays, endocrine dysfunction, cancer, obesity, and diabetes in children, setting young people on a path toward chronic disease before they even finish high school. 

Still, these harms are not distributed equally. New York City’s 2,000-plus chain restaurants are disproportionately concentrated in Black and Latino neighborhoods—including where I live in the Bronx. Residents in these neighborhoods are twice as likely to have diabetes as white New Yorkers. When unhealthy options dominate and nutrition information is limited, families face steeper barriers to making healthier choices or finding better options at all. 

In my practice, I remind families that even small changes can lead to big health gains over time. Transparency is a simple but powerful tool in that process. It can look like a child choosing water over a sugary soda, and picking up mango slices instead of spicy tortilla crisps at their bodega; or a family opting for grilled chicken over the breaded cutlet after seeing a sodium warning.

Providing clear information gives families agency and empowers New Yorkers to make safer choices when dining out—choices that add up to fewer chronic illnesses and fewer trips to the doctor’s office. 

The public is ready. Nearly 80 percent of New Yorkers already support warning labels for menu items high in added sugars—a demand that pushed the New York City Council to pass the Sweet Truth Act in 2023. Now it’s time for the state to follow the city’s lead and extend this public health protection to all New Yorkers. 

New York has long been a national leader in public health. For the sake of our children, our communities, and our shared future, the legislature should prioritize these bills and give families the truth about what’s on their plates.

Dr. Charles Moon, MD, FAAP is the chair of the New York State Chapter 3 of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Environmental Health & Climate Change, as well as co-chair of the NYS AAP’s Public Public and Advocacy Committee. He lives in the Throggs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx. 

The post Opinion: Give New York Families The Truth About What’s On Their Plates appeared first on City Limits.

A new report examining fraud risk in Minnesota government programs describes longstanding vulnerabilities dating back to the 1970s and repeated inaction by state leaders despite nearly a half-century of warnings.

Gov. Tim Walz’s director of Program Integrity, Tim O’Malley, on Monday released what he described as a “roadmap” to address those vulnerabilities, which he said were driven in large part by a culture in state agencies “more based on compassion than compliance.”

“That’s misplaced. If state workers want to provide services, want to directly help people in need, then they should go work for a provider. They should deliver the wheelchairs. They should do the bed baths. They should take people to medical appointments,” he said at a news conference announcing the report’s findings. “The state has a responsibility to make sure those things happen by protecting state (taxpayer) money.”

Every governor and Legislature had been made aware of problems in programs for the last 50 years, according to the review, but plans to strengthen protections against fraud in state welfare programs were never executed effectively.

The review can be read at https://tinyurl.com/4z3ufffv.

‘Inadequate accountability’ in agencies

O’Malley’s report comes after allegations of hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud at the Department of Human Services and Department of Education, and speculation that the fraud could reach the billions. Overall, he found that “inadequate accountability” in agencies was largely to blame.

“Recent events have revealed longstanding vulnerabilities in multiple facets of state administration and leadership and priority setting to specific elements such as enrollment, oversight, data sharing and investigative capacity,” the report said. “These weaknesses have been exploited repeatedly over decades by organized networks of providers, intermediaries and recipients, resulting in significant financial losses, erosion of public trust and inadequate delivery of essential services to vulnerable Minnesotans.”

Questions remain about who exactly has been held responsible for fraud in state agencies — if anyone. Past reports from the nonpartisan Office of the Legislative Auditor have pointed to issues with “inadequate oversight” and “pervasive noncompliance” in how the state handles payments and grants.

In December, Walz said there were state employees who should have “done more” and that they were “no longer working in the state.”

Former Human Services Commissioner Jodi Harpstead resigned in January this year, before federal prosecutors brought charges in connection with significant fraud in children’s autism programs and housing stabilization services supported by the agency.

In late 2022, Education Commissioner Heather Mueller announced she would not seek reappointment in Walz’s second term, months after the first charges in the $250 million Feeding Our Future case.

And days before federal prosecutors announced charges tied to housing stabilization in September, it emerged that the assistant commissioner with the program was no longer working with the agency.

Neither DHS nor Walz has said whether Eric Grumdahl, assistant commissioner of Homelessness and Housing Supports, lost his job due to fraud in the program, which was expected to cost $2.6 million a year when it launched but ballooned to over $105 million in 2024.

Fraud czar

Walz, a Democrat, appointed O’Malley in December as scrutiny mounted on his administration’s handling of widespread fraud in state government programs. As program integrity director, O’Malley was tasked with creating fraud prevention measures across agencies and working with the outside financial audit firm WayPoint.

O’Malley was superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension under Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty. He’s a former FBI agent and interim chief judge for the state Court of Administrative hearings, and for a decade handled allegations of sexual misconduct by clergy in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

When Walz announced his appointment of O’Malley as state fraud czar on Dec. 12, federal investigators estimated Minnesota had lost hundreds of millions of dollars to fraud in recent years, with former assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson speculating total theft could top more than $1 billion.

That estimate ballooned to at least $9 billion just a week later when Thompson announced another round of criminal charges in Medicaid fraud cases. Thompson told reporters he believed more than half of the $18 billion in federal money the state distributed through “high-risk” Medicaid programs since 2018 could have been lost to fraud.

Officials with the Minnesota Department of Human Services have disputed that estimate. Walz, who suspended his campaign for a third term in office just weeks after Thompson’s remarks, described the $9 billion figure as speculative and defamatory.

The report recommends changing agency culture, boosting accountability measures, modernizing technology and oversight.

It also recommends that state lawmakers, who returned to the state Capitol last Tuesday for the 2026 legislative session, pass several bills to support a “modern fraud‑prevention infrastructure.”

They include ending direct appropriations — which present a high risk of fraud — as well as ending grants without dedicated fraud prevention funding and requiring bills that create or modify programs to have a fraud prevention component.

O’Malley told reporters Monday that he had “independence and autonomy” to go where the facts took him and that the governor had not tried to influence his work.

Senate GOP leader calls report ‘lip service’

Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, called the report an example of Walz “lip service” on fraud, saying it was little more than a compendium of existing public issues in state programs.

“They don’t have to wait for the Legislature. They have the tools to really get started if they need help,” he said. “We’re happy to figure out a bipartisan way forward. But the response has been so lackluster. We need to get going on this.”

O’Malley’s hiring was the latest in a series of moves Walz has made to address fraud allegations in state agencies.

In January 2025, the governor directed the creation of a fraud investigation unit at the BCA. The Department of Human Services moved to shut down a Medicaid-funded housing stabilization program beset by fraud after news emerged in July of a federal investigation into several providers.

Earlier this month, a Walz-ordered third-party audit assessing the 14 Minnesota Medicaid programs at high risk for fraud found the state could safeguard $1 billion in the next four years by changing its policies on payment reviews.

State officials described the report as the “first phase” of developing a payment review process for the high-risk programs.

Gandhi permanent appointment

Before O’Malley shared the findings of his report on Monday, Walz announced the permanent appointment of Shireen Gandhi as commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, which has been the subject of significant fraud allegations recently.

Shireen Gandhi. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Human Services)

The post had been vacant for more than a year. Gandhi had served as interim commissioner since the resignation of former Human Services Commissioner Jodi Harpstead in January 2025, before federal prosecutors brought charges in connection with significant fraud in children’s autism programs and housing stabilization services supported by the agency.

Walz praised Gandhi for her leadership during troubled times at the agency.

“Over the past year, she has demonstrated steady, decisive leadership at the Minnesota Department of Human Services, strengthening program integrity, rooting out fraud, and ensuring taxpayer dollars reach the Minnesotans who rely on these services,” he said in a news release.

Gandhi will serve in the remaining months of the Walz administration. The governor, who is no longer seeking a third term, leaves office next January.

Republicans welcomed the appointment, calling it “long overdue,” though they expressed skepticism about the governor’s choice.

“Commissioner Gandhi has worked at DHS for years, including in compliance and oversight, while billions of taxpayer dollars were lost to fraud. For the past 13 months, she has served as interim commissioner as Minnesota’s fraud epidemic has made international news,” House Republican Floor Leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, said in a statement. “That’s not accountability. That’s failure rewarded.”

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