By DAVID A. LIEB

In New Mexico, police and prosecutors backed an effort to outlaw devices that convert pistols into machine guns. In Alabama, the governor made it a priority.

Lawmakers in both states — one led by Democrats, the other by Republicans — responded this year with new laws making so-called Glock switches illegal.

At least half of U.S. states now have similar laws prohibiting the possession of such devices, a list that has grown over the past decade as law enforcement officers have found more of the tiny yet powerful devices attached to guns.

States are mimicking federal law, which for decades has generally prohibited machine guns and any parts that can transform semiautomatic weapons into automatic ones.

What does federal law say?

U.S. law defines a machine gun as a weapon that automatically fires more than one shot with a single pull of a trigger. The definition also includes any parts designed to convert a weapon into a machine gun.

Federal law prohibits possessing machine guns made after 1986, with some exceptions for law enforcement, the military and certain licensed dealers. Nearly all conversion devices are illegal because they were made more recently.

People convicted of possessing machine guns and conversion devices can face up to 10 years in prison.

What is a Glock switch?

A Glock switch is one type of a machine gun conversion device. It’s a metal or plastic piece, about the size of a coin, that attaches to the back of Glock pistol, a brand that is popular with both police and criminals. The switch interferes with a gun’s internal trigger components so that it fires continuously when the trigger is pulled back and held.

A gun outfitted with a switch can fire dozens of bullets in mere seconds, similar to a factory-made machine gun.

FILE – Two semi-automatic pistols are displayed for a photograph, one with a conversion device installed making it fully automatic, at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), National Services Center, Thursday, March 2, 2023, in Martinsburg, W.Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Other brands of pistols that mimic Glocks also can be converted to machine guns. So can some semiautomatic rifles. Such conversion devices also are referred to as auto sears, selector switches or chips.

What does the data indicate?

The use of auto sears spiked in the past decade, partly because they can be made inexpensively with 3D printers.

From 2012 to 2016, just 814 machine gun conversion parts were taken into custody by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That swelled to 5,454 from 2017-2021.

In January, former President Joe Biden’s administration said 12,360 suspected machine gun conversion devices had been recovered in the U.S. and submitted to the ATF during a roughly 34-month period ending in October 2024.

Five states including Florida, Illinois, Texas, Montana and North Dakota accounted for nearly half that total.

What have states been doing?

Alabama is the latest state to outlaw Glock switches. A law signed this month by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey makes possessing parts designed to convert pistols into machine guns a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The bipartisan push in Alabama came after police said they believed conversion devices had been used in fatal shootings, including one in September that killed four and injured 17 people outside a Birmingham lounge.

Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a law in February making possession of a weapon conversion device a felony punishable by up to three years in prison.

Similar legislation passed the New Jersey General Assembly last week and now heads to the Senate. Bills also are pending in other states.

Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a law last year making auto sears illegal. But Youngkin vetoed legislation this past week that would have broadened an existing ban on “trigger activators” to cover additional devices that increase firing rates of semiautomatic weapons.

What do gun control advocates want?

Groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety say state laws provide a sometimes easier alternative to federal prosecution for possessing Glock switches. But they want to go further.

Everytown for Gun Safety is backing legislation in California, Maryland and New York that would make it illegal to sell pistols that could be transformed into machine guns.

FILE – A semi-automatic Glock pistol is fired at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), National Services Center, March 2, 2023, in Martinsburg, W.Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

“That really puts the pressure where it belongs — on the manufactures that are making money off of guns that they know can be readily turned into machine guns,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety.

Several cities and states including Baltimore, Chicago, Minnesota and New Jersey have sued Glock for making pistols that can be converted by others to automatic weapons.

What do gun-rights groups say?

The National Rifle Association notes U.S. attorneys already can prosecute people for misusing gun conversion devices without the need for state laws.

Gun Owners of America, another gun-rights group, contends people should have a Second Amendment right to own machine guns. State laws against machine gun conversation devices are “duplicative” and “pure virtue signaling,” said Aidan Johnston, federal affairs director for Gun Owners of America.

He said guns converted to fire automatically can have practical uses like eliminating large groups of feral hogs that are destroying land.

“Just because you put that on your firearm doesn’t mean that you are a violent criminal or that you necessarily are a dangerous person,” Johnston said.

By AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX and LINLEY SANDERS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigration remains a strength for President Donald Trump, but his handling of tariffs is getting more negative feedback, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

About half of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s approach to immigration, the survey shows, but only about 4 in 10 have a positive view of the way he’s handling the economy and trade negotiations.

The poll indicates that many Americans are still on board with Trump’s efforts to ramp up deportations and restrict immigration. But it also suggests that the Republican president’s threats to impose tariffs — which have been accompanied by tumbling consumer confidence and wild stock market swings — might be erasing his advantage on another issue that he made central to his winning 2024 campaign.

The economy was a drag on then-President Joe Biden, who saw the share of Americans who approved of his handling of the economy fall to a low of roughly 3 in 10 in 2023. Trump drew considerable strength in November from voters who prioritized the economy, but just before he took office in January, an AP-NORC poll found that few Americans had high confidence that he’d make progress on lowering prices in his first year.

Views of Trump’s job performance overall are more negative than positive, the survey found. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, and more than half disapprove. Negative opinions are also stronger than positive opinions — about 4 in 10 U.S. adults strongly disapprove of Trump’s job performance, while about 2 in 10 strongly approve.

Trump’s job approval is highest on immigration

More U.S. adults say they approve of Trump’s handling of immigration than his approach to the presidency as a whole.

That trend even extends to Democrats. Relatively few, about 2 in 10, say they’re on board with how Trump is approaching immigration, but that’s higher than the roughly 1 in 10 who approve of his handling of the economy and his job as a whole.

The durability of Trump’s appeal on immigration underscores that many U.S. adults support his tough approach, which he has prioritized in the first few months of his second term.

In the past few weeks, Trump’s administration has been locked in a court struggle over the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law, made moves to deport foreign students who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at colleges, and attempted to suspend the nation’s refugee admissions system.

Voters who said immigration was their most important issue last November overwhelmingly favored more restrictive policies, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters. The issue was also a higher priority for Americans heading into 2025 than it had been the previous year.

FILE – Wall Street sign is seen outside the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, March. 21, 2024. Reddit shares will begin trading Thursday. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)

Signs of potential weakness on trade and the economy

There are warning signs for Trump in the poll, too, particularly in Americans’ assessment of his work on tariffs and the economy.

Trade negotiations with other countries is the issue on which he’s rated especially negatively, with about 6 in 10 U.S. adults saying they disapprove of his job performance. It’s a relative low point, even among Republicans. About 7 in 10 Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of trade — still relatively high, but lower than the roughly 9 in 10 who approve of his approach on immigration.

Trump’s approach on other issues — including managing the federal government, his handling of foreign conflicts, Social Security and the economy — roughly track with his overall job approval.

But even though the economy doesn’t stand out quite as starkly as trade negotiations, Trump’s relatively low rating on that issue could be a problem for him going forward.

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During his first term, the economy was an issue on which Americans frequently gave Trump good marks. In October 2020, just before he lost reelection, an AP-NORC poll found that about half of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, putting the rating far above his performance on race relations and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prices and economic growth were also a major motivator for the voters who sent Trump back to the White House for a second term. Trump won overwhelmingly among voters who said the economy was the most important issue facing the country, AP VoteCast found, and he was also the choice of most voters who said that inflation was the most important issue for their vote.

Now, Trump’s stewardship of the economy is being put to the test again — and the AP-NORC poll isn’t the only sign that his threats of tariffs are making everyday Americans nervous. Consumer confidence has been falling over the past few months. Trump has argued that tariffs would bring more jobs in the auto industry to the U.S. and narrow the budget deficit, but prices on imported cars could also rise steeply if some of the costs of the taxes are passed along to consumers.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,229 adults was conducted March 20-24, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

By LIUDAS DAPKUS and LOLITA C. BALDOR

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Three of the U.S. Army soldiers who went missing in Lithuania have been found dead in their armored vehicle that was pulled from a swampy area early Monday, according to U.S. Army Europe and Africa Command. Another soldier is still missing.

The bodies of the three soldiers were recovered after a massive six-day effort by U.S., Polish and Lithuanian armed forces and authorities to dig the M88 Hercules vehicle out of a peat bog at the expansive General Silvestras Žukauskas training ground in the town of Pabradė.

The soldiers were on a tactical training exercise when they and their vehicle were reported missing early Tuesday, the Army said.

The command in a statement said the identities of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division soldiers are being withheld pending family notifications.

“We stand in grief with the families and loved ones of these extraordinary ‘Dogface Soldiers’ during this unimaginable time,” said Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, 3rd Infantry Division commander. “But the search isn’t finished until everyone is home. Words cannot express our gratitude to those still working around the clock during these extensive search and recovery efforts and your unwavering commitment not to rest until all are found.”

Hundreds of Lithuanian and U.S. soldiers and rescuers took part in the search through the thick forests and swampy terrain around Pabradė, just 10 kilometers (6 miles) west of the border with Belarus. The armored vehicle was discovered on Wednesday submerged in 4.5 meters (15 feet) of water.

Lithuanian armed forces provided military helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, unmanned aerial systems and search and rescue personnel. They brought in additional excavators, sluice and slurry pumps, other heavy construction equipment, technical experts and several hundred tons of gravel and earth to help the recovery.

U.S. Navy divers were able to maneuver through thick layers of mud, clay and sediment “with zero visibility” to reach the 63-ton vehicle Sunday evening and find two points to attach steel cables, according to the command.

The command said that during the effort to pull out the vehicle, it began to lose traction, so additional heavy dozers were brought in and attached to provide additional grip. The vehicle was pulled free after about two hours, the command said.

“The armored vehicle was pulled ashore at 4:40 a.m., the towing operation is complete, Lithuanian Military Police and US investigators continue their work,” Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė said Monday morning in a post on Facebook.

The Navy dive team is now searching the area using radar for the fourth soldier who is still missing.

Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor, commander of Task Force Iron and the 1st Armored Division, thanked the “heroic efforts” of those involved in the search and recovery. The U.S. Army and Lithuanian authorities are investigating what caused the incident.

Baldor reported from Washington.

24 b-boys and b-girls rhythmically contorted their bodies, spun on their heads, backs, and hands, and jived to funky beats under red and blue lights as the crowd hollered Saturday night during what the competitors call “the Super Bowl of breaking.”

“This event has been around for over 20 years and it’s the most prestigious one-versus-one breaking competition in the world,” judge b-boy Ronnie said. “It’s important for any practitioner that is a part of this culture.”

The 2025 Red Bull BC One breaking competition was held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday at Royalston Square, 501 Royalston Ave., Minneapolis. The event is Red Bull’s fifth time hosting the prestigious breaking competition in Minnesota, according to host Jake Riley. Its competitors hail from all over the globe, including Guam, Hawaii, Ukraine, Chicago and yes, Minnesota. They each battled to compete in this year’s National Cypher in Denver, and eventually the World Final in Tokyo.

“Basically, you win this event, and then you head to nationals and get recognition from breakers around U.S., and once you go to the world finals, that’s when you have the world looking at you,” judge b-boy Victor said.

How they were judged

The dancers competed in a bracket-style battle until two were crowned the 2025 Minneapolis Red Bull BC One champions.

Judges said breakers would be judged on character, originality, musicality, execution and style.

To break it down, they’d be judged on the fundamentals of breaking: toprock, the starting moves; “go down,” how the dancers move their bodies to the ground; “footwork,” self explanatory, but not your classic two-step; and what got the crowd cheering the loudest, “power moves,” the kind of movement that makes a person question if dancers are actually human.

There really should be a “don’t try this at home” disclaimer for these moves. One breaker who exemplified power moves was 16-year-old b-boy Denver, from Ukraine — a competitor judge Victor said he was excited to watch.

B-boy Ronnie, who was born in Gwan, now lives in Las Vegas and runs the dance studio District Arts in his home state, judged the b-girl battles on Saturday. He is a legend in the breaking community, according to Red Bull and breakers worldwide.

“Every year, we look forward to seeing the new faces that will hopefully represent our country,” Ronnie said.

The 2024 Paris Olympic bronze medalist, b-boy Victor, judged the men’s competition throughout the night and said that not only does watching new dancers inspire him to improve his skills and try new moves, but it also makes him want to battle.

“Nowadays, most breakers look the same, so I’m trying to look for someone that has a different flavor, different style and originality,” Victor said.

The vibe of the night

Throughout the night, heads bobbed and people couldn’t help but dance to the beats played by DJ Los Boogie. Host Riley of House of Dance Twin Cities, hyped the crowd by telling them when to clap with the music and shouting out when the dancers pulled a wild move, saying things like “fresh” or his favorite phrase of the night, “check the details.”

“If you’ll notice, everyone has their own style and approach, so check the details,” Riley said while hosting.

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The spirit of competition was ripe throughout the battles as breakers would call out other people’s repetitive moves by holding two fingers up in the air or showing that their moves were boring by yawing and pretending to fall asleep.

Even non-breakers noticed these inside jokes and specific forms of communication throughout the battles, causing the room to erupt in laughter and cheering.

Despite the banter, almost every battle would end with the competitors hugging in support and respect for their opponent.

“I think people take the competition too seriously,” Ronnie said. “When we started, the Olympics didn’t exist. There was a time where Red Bull BC One didn’t exist, so I think people got caught up in the idea of always winning and I try to tell them that it’s not always about winning — it’s about  being in the moment and enjoying the experience.”

Red Bull BC One Minneapolis winners

After three battles each, b-boy Bowzee, 26, born in Mexico, now living in Denver, of Rock Force Crew and b-girl India, 17, from Chicago, of Phaze II, won the 2025 Minneapolis Red Bull BC One regional competition and will make their way to the national competition in Denver, May 16.

“I feel really blessed and I’m just thankful, thankful for all of this,” Bowzee said.

What set three-time Red Bull BC One competitor Bowzee apart from the competitors was his musicality. While battling, he would land moves to the beat and could be seen pointing to his ears as if to say, “I listen.”

“I describe my style as very musical,” Bowze said. “I try to let the music take me and I create around it.”

B-girl India’s inspiration for breaking was her dad, who used to break when he was younger, she said. This event was her second time battling in a Red Bull BC One regional competition, which she called “a huge opportunity.”

India describes her style as fresh, funky, loose and charismatic. She said she enjoyed the competition and especially battling against her final opponent, b-girl Lily Breeze. India said Lily Breeze, like her is a dancer who loves moving to the music.

“I feel like each round it just gets easier because I start having more fun with it,” India said.

Minnesota’s breaking community

Other competitors included Minnesotan breakers like b-boy Alloz from St. Louis Park, b-girl AZ from Minneapolis and b-girl Hannah from Plymouth.

“Everyone deserved what they got today,” Alloz said. “Even the people who lost in the first rounds deserved to be here, and they should be proud of themselves win or lose. I’m proud of myself and the winners did their thing.”

Alloz, who competed in a previous Red Bull BC One cypher in Minneapolis, got his start breaking while at what was then Patrick Henry High School, now Camden High School, in Minneapolis. He said he started breaking because it seemed supernatural.

While breakers dance all over the state, Alloz said they’re mainly found at House of Dance Twin Cities or Cypher Side Dance School in North St. Paul, but they all come together for events like Red Bull BC One, he said.

AZ, of BRKFST Dance Company, who’s competed in past competitions, said this event was her re-entry into the battle scene.

“It’s growing, it’s youthful and it’s community based,” AZ said of Minnesota’s breaking community. “A lot of us love to help each other grow and be the people that we want to be in our dance.”

Hannah started breaking at 13 years old at House of Dance. She said she was nervous for her first Red Bull BC One competition, but it was an opportunity to get her name out and get comfortable with performing on a large stage.

“I want to see everyone grow and see the Minnesota scene and make a name for itself on the U.S. stage and on the world stage,” Hannah said.

Ronnie and Victor, who’ve both visited Minnesota on multiple occasions for battles, said Minnesota’s breaking community is active and noticed.

“The scene here is thriving,” Ronnie said. “I think they [Minnesota] have a healthy scene that I’m hoping we’ll get to see some future talent come out of.”

The Red Bull BC One USA National Cypher will be available to watch live on the Red Bull BC One YouTube and Facebook channels. For more information, visit redbull.com/bcone.