By CLAUDIA CIOBANU

Denmark has welcomed a meeting with the U.S. next week to discuss President Donald Trump’s renewed call for the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island of Greenland to come under American control.

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“This is the dialogue that is needed, as requested by the government together with the Greenlandic government,” Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told Danish broadcaster DR on Thursday.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said on Wednesday a meeting about Greenland would happen next week, without giving details about timing, location or participants.

“I’m not here to talk about Denmark or military intervention. I’ll be meeting with them next week, we’ll have those conversations with them then,” Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Greenland’s government has told Danish public broadcaster DR that Greenland will participate in the meeting between Denmark and the U.S. announced by Rubio.

“Nothing about Greenland without Greenland. Of course we will be there. We are the ones who requested the meeting,” Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt told DR.

The island of Greenland, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people.

Vance criticizes Denmark

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday that Denmark “obviously” had not done a proper job in securing Greenland and that Trump “is willing to go as far as he has to” to defend American interests in the Arctic.

In an interview with Fox News, Vance repeated Trump’s claim that Greenland is crucial to both the U.S. and the world’s national security because “the entire missile defense infrastructure is partially dependent on Greenland.”

He said the fact that Denmark has been a faithful military ally of the U.S. during World War Two and the more recent “war on terrorism” did not necessarily mean they were doing enough to secure Greenland today.

“Just because you did something smart 25 years ago doesn’t mean you can’t do something dumb now,” Vance said, adding that Trump “is saying very clearly, ‘you are not doing a good job with respect to Greenland.’”

Right to self-determination

Vance’s comments came after Rubio told a select group of U.S. lawmakers that it was the Republican administration’s intention to eventually purchase Greenland, as opposed to using military force.

“Many Greenlanders feel that the remarks made are disrespectful,” Aaja Chemnitz, one of the two Greenlandic politicians in the Danish parliament, told The Associated Press. “Many also experience that these conversations are being discussed over their heads. We have a firm saying in Greenland, ‘Nothing about Greenland, without Greenland.’”

She said most Greenlanders “wish for more self-determination, including independence” but also want to “strengthen cooperation with our partners” in security and business development as long as it is based on “mutual respect and recognition of our right to self-determination.”

Chemnitz denied a claim by Trump that Greenland is “covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.”

Greenland is “a longstanding ally and partner to the U.S. and we have a shared interest in stability, security, and responsible cooperation in the Arctic,” she said. “There is an agreement with the U.S. that gives them access to have bases in Greenland if needed.”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron has denounced the “law of the strongest” that is making people “wonder if Greenland will be invaded.”

In a speech to French ambassadors at the Elysee presidential palace on Thursday, Macron said: “It’s the greatest disorder, the law of the strongest, and everyday people wonder whether Greenland will be invaded, whether Canada will be under the threat of becoming the 51th state (of the United States) or whether Taiwan is to be further circled.”

He pointed to an “increasingly dysfunctional” world where great powers, including the U.S and China, have “a real temptation to divide the world amongst themselves.”

The United States is “gradually turning away from some of its allies and freeing itself from the international rules,” Macron said.

Surveillance operations for the US

“Greenland belongs to its people,” Antonio Costa, the President of the European Council, said on Wednesday. “Nothing can be decided about Denmark and about Greenland without Denmark, or without Greenland. They have the full solid support and solidarity of the European Union.”

The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the U.K. joined Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday in defending Greenland’s sovereignty in the wake of Trump’s comments about Greenland, which is part of the NATO military alliance.

After Vance’s visit to Greenland last year, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen published a video detailing the 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the U.S.. Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations on the island, Rasmussen said, to the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest with some 200 soldiers today. The base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

The 1951 agreement “offers ample opportunity for the United States to have a much stronger military presence in Greenland,” Rasmussen said. “If that is what you wish, then let us discuss it.”

‘Military defense of Greenland’

Last year, Denmark’s parliament approved a bill to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil. The legislation widens a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where U.S. troops had broad access to Danish air bases in the Scandinavian country.

Denmark is moving to strengthen its military presence around Greenland and in the wider North Atlantic.

Last year, the government announced a 14.6 billion-kroner ($2.3 billion) agreement with parties including the governments of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, another self-governing territory of Denmark, to “improve capabilities for surveillance and maintaining sovereignty in the region.”

The plan includes three new Arctic naval vessels, two additional long-range surveillance drones and satellite capacity.

Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command, headquartered in Nuuk, is tasked with the “surveillance, assertion of sovereignty and military defense of Greenland and the Faroe Islands,” according to its website. It has smaller satellite stations across the island.

The Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, an elite Danish naval unit that conducts long-range reconnaissance and enforces Danish sovereignty in the Arctic wilderness, is also stationed in Greenland.

Seung Min Kim in Washington and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.

The Minnesota Department of Health will no longer align its vaccination guidance with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state agency announced Thursday.

The change follows the CDC’s Jan. 5 action to recategorize some childhood immunizations, including hepatitis B and influenza, as only recommended for high-risk groups or “based on shared clinical decision-making.”

“This change at the federal level does not reflect the best available science,” Dr. Brooke Cunningham, Minnesota’s health commissioner, said in a statement.

The MDH will, instead, follow immunization guidance from three professional physician groups: for children, the American Academy of Pediatrics; for adults, the American Academy of Family Physicians; and for vaccines during pregnancy, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

“Aligning our recommendations with professional medical associations helps provide clarity and stability for families and providers by using a proven set of recommendations that doctors, and other clinicians, already know and trust,” Cunningham said.

MDH broke from federal guidance in September 2025, when it recommended that anyone 6 months old and older should receive the COVID-19 vaccine “without additional barriers.” That countered a CDC committee’s endorsement of vaccination based on “individual-decision making.”

That decision also aligned with guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

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By LEAH WILLINGHAM

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — When a gunman began firing inside an academic building on the Brown University campus, students didn’t wait for official alerts warning of trouble. They got information almost instantly, in bits and bursts — through phones vibrating in pockets, messages from strangers, rumors that felt urgent because they might keep someone alive.

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On Dec. 13 as the attack at the Ivy League institution played out during finals week, students took to Sidechat, an anonymous, campus-specific message board used widely at U.S. colleges, for fast-flowing information in real time.

An Associated Press analysis of nearly 8,000 posts from the 36 hours after the shooting shows how social media has become central to how students navigate campus emergencies.

Fifteen minutes before the university’s first alert of an active shooter, students were already documenting the chaos. Their posts — raw, fragmented and sometimes panicked — formed a digital time capsule of how a college campus experienced a mass shooting.

As students sheltered in place, they posted while hiding under library tables, crouching in classrooms and hallways. Some comments even came from wounded students, like one posting a selfie from a hospital bed with the simple caption: #finalsweek.

Others asked urgent questions: Was there a lockdown? Where was the shooter? Was it safe to move?

It would be days before authorities identified the suspect and found him dead in New Hampshire of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, later linking him to the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.

Here’s a look at how the shooting unfolded.

FILE – Law enforcement officers are seen outside a storage facility where a suspect in the shooting at Brown University was found dead, Dec. 18, 2025, in Salem, N.H. (AP Photo/Reba Saldanha, File)

Stream of collective consciousness

Described by Harvard Magazine as “the College’s stream of collective consciousness,” Sidechat allows anyone with a verified university email to post to a campus feed. On most days, the Brown feed is filled with complaints about dining hall food, jokes about professors and stress about exams — fleeting posts running the gamut of student life.

On the Saturday afternoon just before the shooting, a student posted about how they wished they could “play Minecraft for 60 hours straight.” Then, the posts abruptly shifted.

Crowds began pouring out of Brown’s Barus and Holley building, and someone posted at 4:06 p.m.: “Why are people running away from B&H?”

Others quickly followed. “EVERYONE TAKE COVER,” one wrote. “STAY AWAY FROM THAYER STREET NEAR MACMILLAN 2 PEOPLE JUST GOT SHOT IM BEING DEAD SERIOUS,” another user wrote at 4:10 p.m.

Dozens of frantic messages followed as students tried to fill the information gap themselves.

“so r we on lockdown or what,” one student asked.

By the time the university alert was sent at 4:21 p.m., the shooter was no longer on campus — a fact Brown officials did not yet know.

“Where would we be without Sidechat?” one student wrote.

A university spokesperson said Brown’s alert reached 20,000 people minutes after the school’s public safety officials were notified shots had been fired. Officials deliberately didn’t use sirens to avoid sending people rushing to seek shelter into harm’s way, said the spokesperson, Brian E. Clark, who added Brown commissioned two external reviews of the response with the aim of enhancing public safety and security.

Long hours of hiding

Long after the sun had set, students sheltered in dark dorm rooms and study halls. Blinds were closed. Doors were barricaded with dressers, beds and mini fridges.

“Door is locked windows are locked I’ve balanced a metal pipe thing on the handle so if anyone even tries the handle from the outside it’ll make a loud noise,” one student wrote.

FILE – Photos of Brown University shooting victims Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, left, and Ella Cook, are seen amongst flowers at a makeshift memorial at the school’s Van Wickle Gate, Dec. 17, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

Students reacted to every sound — footsteps in hallways, distant sirens, helicopters overhead. When alerts came, the vibrations and ringtones were jarring. Some feared that names of the dead would be released — and that they would recognize someone they knew.

Law enforcement moved through campus buildings, clearing them floor by floor.

A student who fled Barus and Holley asked whether anyone could text his parents to let them know he had made it out safely. Others said they had left phones behind in classrooms when they fled, unable to reach frantic loved ones. Ironically, those closest to the shooting often had the least information.

Many American students expressed emotions hovering between numbness and heartbreak.

“Just got a text from a friend I haven’t spoken to in nearly three years,” one student wrote. “Our last messages? Me checking in on her after the shooting at Michigan State.” Multiple students replied, saying they’d had similar experiences.

International students posted about parents unable to sleep on the other side of the world.

“I just want a hug from my mom,” one student wrote.

FILE – A snowman begins to sag on the usually-bustling Main Green at Brown University, where the fall semester was canceled a week early following the campus shooting, Dec. 17, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

Anxiety sets in

As the hours dragged on, students struggled with basic needs. Some described urinating in trash cans or empty laundry detergent bottles because they were too afraid to leave their rooms. Others spoke of drinking to cope.

“I was on the street when it happened & suddenly I felt so scared,” one student wrote. “I ran and didn’t calm down for a while. I feel numb, tired, & about to throw up.”

Another wrote: “I’m locked inside! Haven’t eaten anything today! I’m so scared i don’t even know if I get out of this alive or dead.”

Some students posted into the early morning, more than 10 hours into the lockdown, saying they couldn’t sleep. Sidechat also documented acts of kindness, including a student going door to door with macaroni and cheese cups in a dark dorm.

Information, and its limits

Students repeatedly asked the same questions — news? sources? — and challenged one another to verify what they saw before reposting it.

“Frankly I’d rather hear misinformation than people not report stuff they’ve heard,” one student wrote.

FILE – A poster seeking information about the campus shooting suspect is seen on the campus of Brown University, Dec. 17, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

Others pushed back, sharing a Google Doc that would grow to 28 pages where students could find the most updated, verified information. Some posted police scanner transcriptions or warned against relying on artificial intelligence summaries of the developing situation. Professors — who rarely post on the app — joined the feed, urging caution and offering reassurance.

“If you’re talking about the active situation please add a source!!!” one student wrote.

But “reliable information,” students noted, often arrived with a delay.

Within about 30 minutes of the shooting, posts incorrectly claimed the shooter had been caught. Reports of more gunshots — later proven false — continued into the night and the next day, fueling fear and frustration. Asked one student, what are police doing “RIGHT NOW”?

Replies came quickly.

“They are trying their best,” one person responded. “Be grateful,” another added. “They are putting their lives in danger at this moment for us to be safe.”

A campus changed

Students awoke Sunday to a campus they no longer recognized. It had snowed overnight — the first snowfall of the academic year.

In post after post, students called the sight unsettling. What was usually a celebration felt instead like confirmation something had irrevocably shifted.

“It truly hurt seeing the flakes fall this morning, beautiful and tragic,” one student wrote.

Even as the lockdown lifted, many said they were unsure what to do — where they could go, whether dining halls were open, whether it was safe to move.

“What do I do rn?” one student posted. “I’m losing my mind.”

Students walked through fresh snow in a daze, heading to blood donation centers. Others noticed flowers being placed at the campus gates and outside Barus and Holley.

Many mourned not only the two students killed, but the innocence they felt had been stripped from their campus.

“Will never see the first snow of the season and not think about those two,” one student wrote.

With the lockdown ended, students returned to their dorms as Sidechat continued to fill with grief and reflection. Many said Brown no longer felt the same.

“Snow will always be bloody for me,” one person posted.

By COLLIN BINKLEY, AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration and Louisiana officials have lifted another decades-old school desegregation order, part of a campaign to end court mandates they describe as outdated.

A federal judge on Monday approved a joint motion from Louisiana and the U.S. Justice Department to dismiss a 1967 lawsuit in DeSoto Parish schools, a district of about 5,000 students in the state’s northwest. It’s the second such dismissal since the Justice Department began working to overturn desegregation cases it once championed.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill thanked President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday for “helping us to finally end some of these cases.”

“DeSoto Parish has its school system back,” Murrill said in a statement. “For the last 10 years, there have been no disputes among the parties, yet the consent decree remained.”

The case dates to 1967, when the Justice Department sued DeSoto Parish to end its racially segregated school system. The case resulted in a 1970 court order requiring the district to eliminate segregation and provide regular progress reports. The order was modified several times over the decades but there had been little activity in recent years.

In the motion for dismissal, Louisiana and Trump officials said the order was no longer needed.

“While this case has been pending for over a half-century, there has been no dispute among the parties since 2014,” they wrote in a Dec. 30 court filing. “The parties thus are no longer adverse, and there is no case or controversy.”

Their motion was approved by U.S. District Judge S. Maurice Hicks Jr., who was appointed by former President George W. Bush.

State officials say the court orders place an unfair burden on school districts. Districts under such orders usually have to get approval from the court to build new schools, change attendance boundaries or make policy changes touching on court orders.

Civil rights groups say the orders are needed to fight the enduring impact of racial discrimination.

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DeSoto went to the court for numerous changes over the years, including new attendance zones in 2014 that remain in place today. The district also files status reports showing the racial breakdown of students and teachers, along with data on student transfers. The district’s last report was filed in October.

Louisiana Republicans see the decades-old desegregation orders as a challenge to local control and have worked to get them lifted in recent years. Working alongside Trump’s justice officials, they successfully dismissed a 1966 order in the Plaquemines Parish.

In the Plaquemines case, the lawsuit had been idle for decades after the judge overseeing it died in the 1970s.

An effort to overturn a 1960s order in Concordia Parish schools has faced pushback from a federal court. A judge in that case rejected a motion to dismiss the suit, saying Concordia must first demonstrate it has fully ended segregation. State and federal officials are appealing the decision.

The Concordia case was originally brought by Black families who demanded access to the town’s all-white schools.

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.