By DEEPA BHARATH and HANNAH SCHOENBAUM, Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Mourners reflected on the life and legacy of Russell M. Nelson, the charismatic sentimentalist who oversaw a global temple building boom as president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, during a funeral service Tuesday in Salt Lake City.

Nelson led the faith up until his death in late September at the age of 101.

About 600 members of Nelson’s family were in attendance at faith’s Conference Center, along with 20,000 people who quickly acquired tickets the church offered online, said church spokesperson Doug Andersen. The service also was broadcast globally on the church’s website and other online platforms.

Several of Nelson’s 10 children shared stories about their father and lessons he taught them.

“When I think of our dad, I think of joy,” said his daughter, Laurie Marsh. “Daddy always chose to be happy, and that made him so fun to be around.”

Church officials described him as “the holder of hands and the healer of hearts” and “the man for whom the word ‘gentleman’ was created.”

FILE – Church President Russell M. Nelson looks on during The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ conference on April 6, 2019, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

Mourners focus on hope

Funerals in the faith known widely as the Mormon church are typically “marked by an atmosphere of hopefulness and peace,” Andersen said.

Nelson’s son, Russell M. Nelson Jr., echoed that sentiment, saying the “sting of separation is real, but we shouldn’t be too sad.”

He quoted his father’s own words about grief: “Mourning is one of the purest expressions of deep love,” and, “The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.”

Both aspects of Nelson’s legacy — as a spiritual leader for four decades and as a heart surgeon who saved lives — were celebrated. Henry B. Eyring, one of Nelson’s two top counselors, shared that his own mother underwent several operations under Nelson’s careful hand, and that he extended her life.

The funeral was closed-casket. However, in keeping with tradition, Nelson’s body was dressed in mostly white temple clothing, the ceremonial garments worn by adult members, Andersen said. The funeral occurred a day after a public viewing on Monday that was attended by an estimated 18,560 people.

Nelson’s hymn ‘Our Prayer to Thee’ was sung

The famed Tabernacle Choir performed a hymn written by Nelson titled “Our Prayer to Thee,” which was first published in the church’s official publication and performed at general conferences in October 2018 and April 2022. One musician described the song as a special, sacred representation of the relationship between God and the faithful.

Nelson’s family selected other hymns performed during the funeral, including “Let Us All Press On” and “It Is Well With My Soul.”

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Family is paramount in this life and the next

While the funeral was public and open to Latter-day Saints and non-members, the burial is private. After the service, Nelson’s family headed to Salt Lake City Cemetery, where many other pioneers of the faith are buried.

Family plays a significant role in the faith, not just in this life, but also in the afterlife, said Kathleen Flake, former professor of Mormon Studies at the University of Virginia.

Flake said once the body is escorted to the grave site, those who are not family will leave and a male family member will dedicate the grave.

In the church, temple sealings, which is the joining together of a man and a woman and their children for eternity, bind the family as a unit that crosses over from this life to the next. A sealing must be performed in a temple by a man who has the priesthood.

“The belief is that (Nelson) would be joining in the afterlife with predeceased family members,” she said. “You go from the family here on Earth to the family that is in heaven, and live together in eternity.”

New president still to be announced

A new president — considered a prophet by members — is expected to be named sometime after Nelson’s funeral.

Announcing his successor, Dallin H. Oaks, is largely a formality because the church has a well-defined leadership hierarchy that helps ensure a smooth handover and prevent lobbying internally or publicly.

Oaks led Tuesday’s funeral service and described Nelson as “my best friend and most effective teacher.”

In his first major address since Nelson’s death, the 93-year-old Oaks encouraged members Sunday during the faith’s twice-annual general conference to get married and have children.

Oaks also said Sunday that the faith will “slow down the announcement of new temples ” — the first major difference from Nelson’s presidency.

Bharath reported from Los Angeles.

Associated Press religion coverage 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.

By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press

A judge Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from requiring recipients of federal teen pregnancy prevention grants to comply with Trump’s orders aimed at curtailing “radical indoctrination” and “gender ideology.”

The ruling is a victory for three Planned Parenthood affiliates — in California, Iowa and New York — that sued to try to block enforcement of a U.S. Department of Human Services policy document issued in July that they contend contradict the requirements of the grants as established by Congress.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, blasted the administration’s policy change in her written ruling, saying it was “motivated solely by political concerns, devoid of any considered process or analysis, and ignorant of the statutory emphasis on evidence-based programming.”

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The policy requiring changes to the pregnancy prevention program was part of the fallout from a series of executive orders Trump signed starting in his first day back in the White House aimed at rolling back recognition of LGBTQ+ people and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

In the policy, the administration objected to teaching that promotes same-sex marriage and that “normalizes, or promotes sexual activity for minors.”

The Planned Parenthood affiliates argued that the new directives were at odds with requirements of the program — and that they were so vague it wasn’t clear what needed to be done to follow them.

Howell agreed.

The decision applies not only to the handful of Planned Parenthood groups among the dozens of recipients of the funding, but also nonprofit groups, city and county health departments, Native American tribes and universities that received grants.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the program, declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling. It previously said the guidance for the program “ensures that taxpayer dollars no longer support content that undermines parental rights, promotes radical gender ideology, or exposes children to sexually explicit material under the banner of public health.”

On Oct. 9, 1825, 53 Norwegians arrived in New York via a ship called the Restauration, marking the beginning of Norway emigration to the United States.

On Tuesday, almost exactly 200 years later, His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, arrived at Norway House in Minneapolis as part of a bicentennial commemoration of that turning point for our two countries.

It was a moment of goodwill that bridged countries, languages and cultures.

The prince smiled as he stepped out of a Volvo and was cheered by a Minnesota-nice crowd of people wearing Norwegian sweaters and bunads (traditional folk costumes) and waving Norwegian flags in the crisp October morning air.

“We are honored to have you!” said Mayor Minneapolis Jacob Frey to the royal.

The prince also accepted a bouquet of flowers from 4-year-old Nora White of Minneapolis, leaning down to chat with her and her cousin, 4-year-old Lachlan Meeker of Edina.

“He was really sweet with them,” said Molly White, Nora’s mom. “He got down to their eye level and asked them their names.”

Lachlan’s sister, Maisie Meeker, 7, stood next to her cousins, impressed at the royal encounter but also remembering that it was she who handed a bouquet to the crown prince’s mother, Her Majesty Queen Sonja, when she visited Norway House back in 2022.

A royal itinerary

The royal has a packed itinerary during this visit. The official schedule began on Monday in Iowa, including a visit to Luther College, and on Tuesday the agenda started with a visit to the Norway House, a nonprofit that not only celebrates Norwegian heritage, but also aims to build connections between contemporary Norway and the United States. One such connection is His Majesty, King Harald V of Norway, who is Norway House’s Royal Patron.

Crown Prince Haakon, 52, is King Harald’s son and the heir to the Norwegian throne.

The prince’s Minnesota portion of the tour also included a stop in St. Paul, where he met with Gov. Tim Walz at the State Capitol. The dignitaries in attendance included Barth Eide, the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Cecilie Myrseth, the Norwegian Minister of Trade and Industry.

The prince was also received by Major General Shawn Manke, the senior leader of the Minnesota National Guard, to honor the partnership between the Norwegian Armed Forces and the Minnesota National Guard. One example of that partnership, the prince’s press materials state, includes joint air exercises between Norwegian F-35s and American F-16s.

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In the afternoon, the royal was scheduled to visit Mindekirken, the Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church located next to Norway House, where there is to be a signing and christening of the church ship model of the Restauration.

By evening, the crown prince was to meet with Mats Zuccarello of the Minnesota Wild, one of Norway’s most prominent and successful hockey players, to hear about his work promoting youth participation in sports.

After visiting St. Olaf on Wednesday, the Crown Prince will head east, where he will be on hand Thursday to welcome a replica of the Restauration as it sails into New York on the emigration anniversary.

Saga Center

His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Haakon of Norway cuts a ceremonial ribbon opening of the Saga Center, the new interactive center at Norway House in Minneapolis on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

On Monday, the day before the royal visit, there was a flurry of activity at the Norway House.

“We are putting out the red carpet, the balloons and the flowers and getting everything ready,” said Christina Carleton, the president and chief executive officer of the Norway House. “We are so honored.”

On Tuesday morning, after speaking to those gathered at the USA-Norway Business Summit at Norway House, the Crown Prince headed downstairs to cut the ribbon for the Saga Center, a new and permanent exhibit that is located within in the Haugo Bibliotek.

He was a fitting representative to hold the ceremonial scissors.

“One in five Minnesotans claim Norwegian ancestry,” Carleton says, “so there’s a very large contingent of Norwegians who still think very fondly of their ancestors who came from Norway and settled here in Minnesota.”

(Such Norwegians include Carleton, who is originally from Oslo and stayed in Minnesota after attending college here.)

The Saga Center, which is adjacent to a special collections room for genealogy research, celebrates Minnesotans’ Nordic roots, as well as Norway in general.

“It’s very highly interactive and should be fun,” Carleton says.

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The fun includes animated walks through Norway.

“The whole idea is to spark curiosity,” says Carleton.

The Crown Prince’s curiosity seemed sparked on Tuesday as he was shown how to go on a virtual walk through a Norwegian landscape displayed on a large, interactive screen.

“He was actually really good at it, he knew exactly what to do,” said Race Fisher, Saga Center spokesperson. “I wonder if he plays video games with his children.”

(The prince and his wife, Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mette-Marit, have three children.)

“It was fun to see him use it,” Fisher said of the interactive element that returned the royal to Norway for a moment. “I hope it reminded him of home.”

By Amanda Seitz, KFF Health News

Hours into the federal government shutdown, Julio Fuentes stood steps from the U.S. Capitol to deliver an urgent message about the Hispanic voting bloc that helped the GOP sweep into power last year.

Those votes, he cautioned, are at risk if Congress doesn’t pass a law to preserve lower premiums on Affordable Care Act marketplace plans for the roughly 4.7 million people living in his home state of Florida who are enrolled in the coverage.

“Hispanic voters helped return Donald Trump to the White House,” said Fuentes, CEO of the Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, who called on Congress to reopen the government to work out a deal on the tax credits. “Republican leaders would do right by their constituents to keep coverage affordable, and they will remember that heading into the midterms.”

With less than a month to go before many Americans pick their health insurance plans for the next year, Democrats in Congress are holding up government funding to pressure Republicans into extending billions of dollars in federal tax credits that have in recent years dramatically lowered premiums and contributed to record-low rates of uninsured Americans.

Democrats see the high-stakes standoff as a chance to talk about affordable health care as millions of Americans — including those enrolled in coverage through a workplace or Medicare — brace for higher costs next year. Party leaders, hoping to win back support from some of the working-class supporters who have drifted away from them, have used the moment to remind voters of the recent cuts Republicans have approved to some health care programs.

Republicans are outwardly exuding confidence that the approach will not find traction, reminding the public that Democrats forced the shutdown. But a new KFF analysis shows that 80% of all premium tax credits benefited enrollees in states Trump won.

The shutdown coincides with open enrollment season, with insurers preparing to send notices revealing next year’s premium rates for roughly 24 million people enrolled in ACA coverage. The average enrollee is expected to pay more than double if the tax credits are left to expire. Insurers have also said they’ll have to dramatically raise the price of premiums because healthier people will opt out of coverage as it becomes more expensive, leaving a sicker pool of Americans — and less money to cover them.

“Over the next few days, what you’re going to see is more than 20 million Americans experience dramatically increased health care premiums, copays, and deductibles because of the Republican unwillingness to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Oct. 2 on the steps of the Capitol.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (L), D-NY, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (R), D-NY, speak to reporters outside the White House in Washington, DC, on September 29, 2025. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Open enrollment in most states begins on Nov. 1. Some insurers and exchanges have delayed sending notices detailing premium rates for next year, because they are waiting to see what unfolds in Washington. For example, Covered California, the state’s insurance marketplace, is planning to mail out notices to more than a million enrollees later than usual this year, on Oct. 15.

From her home in Richmond, Virginia, 31-year-old Natalie Tyer is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her notice. She checks the state’s marketplace website daily to see whether new rates for her insurance plan have been posted.

Tyer has been relying on marketplace coverage for over a year now while she works part-time for a small video production company and pursues a master’s degree to become a school counselor. The tax credits help cover $255 of her monthly premium, bringing it down to $53. Since she’s generally healthy, if the credits expire and her premiums go up significantly, she might drop coverage altogether.

“I very well might have to go without health insurance and may have to rely on hope,” Tyer said.

Democrats’ push to center the shutdown on health care affordability, though, runs up against many uncomfortable realities of the federal government’s closure, which will leave millions of federal workers without paychecks, hamper some functions of public health agencies, and threaten food assistance payments for low-income mothers, among other effects.

The ACA, meanwhile, has been a political flash point since 2010, when Republicans fought against the passage of the landmark health care legislation. A wave of Republican congressional victories soon followed that fight, spurring a government shutdown in 2013, when the GOP tried to gut the program. Party leaders again tried to repeal it in 2017 to follow through on a Trump campaign promise.

The latest clash — over the billions of dollars in tax credits that Democrats issued during the COVID-19 pandemic to boost enrollment in the ACA — has been simmering for months. Democrats, who wrote the original legislation introducing and then extending them, set the enhanced tax credits to expire at the end of this year. Even some Republicans began warning this summer that letting those tax credits lapse could be detrimental, with Republican pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Bob Ward issuing a memo cautioning that an extension of the credits could make a difference in next year’s midterm election.

Extending the ACA tax credits, which have reduced monthly premiums to as little as $0 for poorer enrollees and capped the amount middle-income Americans pay to just 8.5% of their income, also would be a popular move.

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More than three-quarters of Americans want those tax credits to continue, according to a new KFF poll conducted before the shutdown. About 3 in 4 people said they will blame Trump or the GOP if they end. KFF is a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

Although they’ve declined to address the tax credits so far this year, Republican Party leaders have signaled they are willing to extend the ACA tax credits, but with new restrictions on who qualifies for them. GOP leadership has also said they want to hash out the policy details over several weeks, not under the gun of a shutdown.

On Oct. 6, House Speaker Mike Johnson accused Democrats of manufacturing a political issue to shut down the government and urged them to pass the continuing resolution just to “keep the lights on.”

“They decided that they would pick a fight on health care,” Johnson said, adding that he believes the tax credits are “a Dec. 31 issue,” referring to when the credits are set to expire.

Since open enrollment begins next month, insurers will need to start posting premium prices for customers to window-shop in the coming days. Democrats have argued that waiting months to work out a deal, which could change those prices, might spur widespread confusion.

While more Americans appear to be faulting Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, only a quarter of people are convinced that the Democrats’ proposal to extend the ACA tax credits is worth closing the government over, according to a CBS News poll over the weekend.

Health care is typically a winning message for Democrats, who have struggled to coalesce around issues that appeal to the working class in recent years, said William Pierce, a health policy consultant who served under President George W. Bush.

“It’s all about health care. They need to make this all about health care,” Pierce said, describing it as a weak spot for Republicans. “They need to just keep talking about it, constantly.”

Republicans in the White House and Congress have countered with factually dubious claims that Democrats are seeking to expand free health care for immigrants who do not have legal status in the U.S.

In fact, such immigrants are not eligible for enrollment in the marketplace, and Democrats have not proposed opening ACA coverage to them in their proposal.

Back in Richmond, as Tyer worries about her coverage for next year, she’s bothered to see the debate focus on immigrants. Some of her classmates and colleagues are worried, too.

“The reality is, what’s happening with these tax credits is that normal people — people who want to work in the public sector, who want to educate kids — we are also going to lose health care,” Tyer said.

KFF Health News senior correspondent Bernard J. Wolfson contributed to this report.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.