By LISA MASCARO, AP Congressional Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump arrives this week on Capitol Hill to deliver a speech to Congress, a coequal branch of government he has bulldozed past this first month in office, wielding unimaginable executive power to get what he wants, at home and abroad.

The Tuesday night address will unfold in the chamber where lawmakers crouched in fear four years ago while a mob of his supporters roamed the halls, and where Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney and others vowed to prevent him from ever holding office again. It’s the same House chamber where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy received a hero’s welcome for fighting off Russia’s invasion, in the first year of that war.

Since his reelection, Trump has blazed across the federal government, dismantling not just norms and traditions but the very government itself. With billionaire aide Elon Musk by his side, he is firing thousands of federal workers, closing agencies established by law and publicly badgering Zelenskyy while positioning the U.S. closer to Russia.

As legal cases mount, more than 100 so far challenging the legality of the Trump administration’s actions, the Republican president is daring the other branches of government — Congress and the courts — to try to stop him.

“This whole thing about approaching a constitutional crisis is not quite true,” said Rep. James Clyburn, of South Carolina, a senior Democrat in the House. “We’re already there.”

Trump revels in going it alone, but there are limits

Reveling in the might of going it alone, Trump is about to test the limits of his executive branch authority as he turns to Congress to deliver tax cuts and other key aspects of his agenda. Only Congress, by law, can allocate funds — or pull them back — but the Trump administration’s actions have been testing that foundational rule, enshrined in the Constitution.

Trump also needs lawmakers to fund the government and ensure federal operations don’t shut down when money runs out March 14. And he will need Congress to pass legislation to prevent an economically damaging debt default, something he has pushed lawmakers to resolve.

While Trump enjoys the rare sweep of power in Washington, with the Republicans controlling the White House, the House and the Senate, he relies on political fear as well as favor to motivate lawmakers. With Musk having poured $200 million into electing Trump, the president has a ready patron whose vast political funds can influence any resisters.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has positioned himself as a partner to the president, has said he’s excited about what Trump is accomplishing in rooting out waste, fraud and abuse to downsize government.

“Fireworks,” is what Johnson, R-La., said he expects from Trump’s speech, dismissing as “nonsense” concerns that Congress is ceding too much power to the White House.

“The president is doing what he said on the campaign trail he would do,” Johnson said Sunday on Fox News Channel.

Democrats, after their stunning rejection by voters, are slowly beginning to mount a resistance. They are fighting Trump in court, with amicus briefs to protect federal workers, and filing legislation to serve as a check on what House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York calls the “parade of horribles.”

But as the minority party, they are limited in their power. Jeffries brushed off calls for Democrats to boycott Trump’s address. “It’s the people’s House. It’s the House of Representatives,” he said on CNN.

Instead, Democrats are inviting fired federal workers as their guests.

Tax cuts and mass deportation funds all at stake

One of Trump’s top campaign promises, extending the tax breaks approved during his first term in 2017, is posing one of his party’s biggest challenges.

Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota are marshalling the GOP majority to deliver what Trump calls a “big, beautiful bill” extending those tax breaks — and providing new ones. But Republicans also want some $2 trillion in budget cuts with changes to Medicaid and other services that millions of Americans count on, which Trump could decide is too much to bear.

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Trump’s other big campaign promise — the biggest deportation operation in U.S. history — is running short of cash, and border czar Tom Homan has implored Republicans on Capitol Hill to loosen the purse strings to give the Homeland Security and Defense departments the money needed.

Those budget debates all come as the Trump administration is ripping the federal government apart and freezing federal funds. It’s challenging the Nixon-era Impoundment Control Act, which prevents the executive branch from halting allocations Congress has already approved, setting up a showdown that could wind up at the Supreme Court.

“Testing the boundaries a little, I would expect that,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., who said he supports much of what the Trump administration is doing, to a point.

“We’ve got separate but equal branches of government,” said Womack, whose committee controls vast funding. “What we don’t want is, we don’t want a constitutional crisis.”

Lives, livelihoods and the echoes of Jan. 6

It’s not just constitutional issues at stake but the lives and livelihoods of Americans. Communities depend on federal dollars — for health care clinics, school programs and countless contracts for companies large and small that provide goods and services to the federal government. Many are watching that money evaporate overnight.

Republican Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia, a former governor, said voters back home have concerns even as they support the idea of downsizing government.

“People are always afraid of the dark,” he said, citing potential changes to Medicaid and preschool programs in particular. “Let’s give it time to see really what materializes before we run through the streets with our hair on fire.”

And the threat of Jan. 6, 2021, hangs over the building.

Trump will stand on the dais where Pelosi, then the House speaker, was whisked to safety as the mob ransacked the Capitol. He will look out over the rows of lawmakers, some of whom blocked the back door to the chamber as Capitol Police were fending off rioters, steps away from where Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed. Visitors will be watching from the galleries where representatives crouched on the floor in gas masks before being evacuated.

The Supreme Court granted Trump’s presidential actions wide immunity from prosecution, and the four-count criminal indictment against him over Jan. 6 was withdrawn once he was reelected, in line with Justice Department policy.

In one of his first acts on Inauguration Day, Trump issued a sweeping pardon of all the rioters, including extremist leaders Stuart Rhodes and Enrique Tarrio, who were convicted of sedition. They have both returned to make appearances at the Capitol since their release from prison.

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., was in the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“I acknowledge that he won and he’s got the right to use all the executive authority to pursue his policies. He doesn’t have a right to exceed constitutional authority,” Welch said. “So how he does this should be of great concern to all of us.”

By ALBERT STUMM, Associated Press

Mealtimes by the Caspian Sea were always displays of abundance. Omid Roustaei’s extended family would gather every summer, swimming at the beach in the morning and returning to mounds of food at the family villa.

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Pomegranate, bitter orange, dried lime, walnut and olive appeared on repeat. The earthy scents of cumin and coriander blended with sweeter cinnamon and cardamom — maybe even pulverized rose petals.

Plus, there were herbs. Handfuls of parsley, cilantro and dill tossed into stewing pots and served by the bunch for munching at the table.

“To us in Persian food, herbs are not treated as little, cute things you put on the side of the plate, but rather herbs to us are vegetables,” said Roustaei, author of the new cookbook “Bitter and Sweet: Global Flavors from an Iranian-American Kitchen.” “When we cook a dish, we use mounds of herbs.”

The tranquility of a childhood mixing cosmopolitan Tehran with summers in the north would be shattered when he was about 10 years old. The Iranian Revolution was brewing, and several years later he left the country, first going to the Netherlands and then Arizona.

It took decades for Roustaei to return to his Iranian roots and explore the cuisine of his youth. Eventually, he made his way to Seattle, began giving cooking classes, and started a blog called The Caspian Chef.

Besides making tasty meals, Roustaei hopes that making Iran’s culinary traditions more visible serves as a type of diplomacy. He sheds light on universal traditions, like caring for your family and bringing people together.

“Through the food, which always feels like this safe gateway, it allows people to get to know Iran and who Iranians truly are,” said Roustaei, who is also a psychotherapist.

He attempts to demystify what is a fairly complex cuisine. What Iranians consider “plain rice,” for instance, is actually more of an art form. The rice is scented by saffron and maybe mixed with yogurt, which produces light and fluffy grains with a crispy layer of golden tahdig, meaning “bottom of the pot.”

The book is filled with dishes that would have been familiar on that long-ago family table, but many include personal twists that reflect a modern lifestyle.

One, khoresh fesenjun, reminds Roustaei of his mother. Bone-in chicken is braised in a dark sauce made from sauteed onions and ground walnuts. Reflecting Iranians’ penchant for sour flavors, the sauce is brightened by sweet-tart pomegranate paste, which is made by patiently simmering the vibrant juice until most of the liquid evaporates.

Since she didn’t have a food processor, his mother crushed one walnut at a time on a wooden tray, mashing each piece with a river rock. Making it took hours.

For the average American home cook, a food processor or blender gets close enough, and pomegranate molasses is easier to find than the paste. It will still be delicious, evoking the pleasures of the Caspian Sea.

“I find it to be really easy to prepare, accessible and yet profoundly unique in its taste,” he said.

The recipe:

Chicken in Pomegranate and Walnut Sauce

From “Bitter and Sweet: Global Flavors from an Iranian-American Kitchen,” by Omid Roustaei

Ingredients:

2 cups walnuts
2 tablespoons neutral oil
4 chicken thighs (about 1½ pounds), bone in and skin on
1 onion, diced
½ cup pomegranate molasses
½ cup water
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
2–4 tablespoons sugar (optional)
½ teaspoon saffron threads, ground and bloomed in 1 tablespoon hot water

Directions:

In a food processor, chop the walnuts and process until finely ground. Set aside.

In a Dutch oven over medium-high, heat the oil and cook the chicken, skin side down until golden, about 5 minutes on each side. Place the chicken on a plate, and set aside. Lower to medium, cook the onion until aromatic and lightly golden, about 10 minutes.

Add the walnuts to the onion. Reduce to medium-low and stir continuously for 2–3 minutes. The walnuts should appear slightly dense and sticky. Add the pomegranate molasses, water, salt, and pepper and stir to combine.

Return the chicken to the pot and immerse in the sauce. Partially cover the pot with the lid and raise the heat to simmer gently. When it bubbles, reduce to low and cover. Stir occasionally and scrape the bottom with a flat-edge spatula to inhibit crusting. After 40 minutes, taste the sauce and add more pomegranate molasses or sugar if needed. You’re aiming for a robust pomegranate flavor with a balanced sweet and tart profile.

Simmer until the sauce becomes deep maroon and the chicken falls off the bone, up to another hour. Stir in the bloomed saffron.

Turn off the heat and let stand covered for 10 minutes. The natural oil from the walnuts and chicken will rise to the top. That’s a sign of a khoresh that is jā-oftādeh, a Persian culinary term for a well-prepared stew.

Serve with steamed basmati rice.

Albert Stumm lives in Barcelona and writes about food, travel and wellness. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com

I’ll never forget the water-filled light bulbs.

Weeks after Hurricane Floyd flooded the North Carolina towns of Princeville and Tarboro in 1999, I made a reporting trip there to find out how residents were coping. A man escorted me inside his single-story house, which had been submerged for days under water the height of a basketball hoop. As we stood under the kitchen chandelier (his table had floated into the living room), he reached up to tap the light fixture’s flame-shaped bulbs. Water had displaced the gas inside.

The man was happy to salvage his framed, water-stained army discharge certificate. But as for the ruined house, he doubted his insurance would pay the full cost of rebuilding.

Being underinsured still happens more often than you think. In fact, there’s a good chance you have insufficient homeowners insurance coverage. You can fix that, and protect yourself financially, by shopping for home insurance carefully and making a few phone calls. Here’s how.

Beware undercoverage

The core of your home insurance policy is dwelling coverage: the part of the policy that will pay to repair or rebuild your home. The policy specifies the maximum amount it will pay. Watch out, because your dwelling coverage limit could be too low.

“One of the biggest mistakes we see, when reviewing policies, is that the dwelling coverage is not enough to rebuild the home in the event of a disaster,” said Celia Santana, CEO of Personal Risk Management Solutions, an insurance brokerage in New York City. “We see this on 65% of the prospects we meet with.”

Undercoverage appears to be widespread. Take the Marshall Fire, a 2021 wildfire that destroyed almost 1,000 buildings in Boulder County, Colorado. Almost three-quarters of the homeowners were underinsured, according to a research paper, “Coverage Neglect in Homeowners Insurance,” published in December 2024 by scholars from the University of Colorado and the University of Wisconsin.

After the Marshall Fire, “we find that underinsurance significantly delays rebuilding and makes fire survivors more likely to sell their homes,” the paper concludes.

Here’s what that could look like in your life: Your house burns down and you have $300,000 in dwelling coverage — but you discover that it will cost $400,000 to rebuild. The mortgage lender expects you to build a house of similar value. So you spend months or years scraping up the $100,000 difference before you can rebuild. Or, if you can pay off the mortgage, you sell the property and move away.

Besides having a too-low dwelling coverage limit, there’s another type of undercoverage: not having all the insurance policies you need. Standard home insurance doesn’t pay to fix damage resulting from earthquakes or floods. To get coverage for those disasters, you have to buy separate insurance policies.

Get the coverage you need

Whether you’re buying a home or renewing your policy, the best way to shop is by asking probing questions of insurance agents and finding out how much it would cost to rebuild the house. First, ask if you should buy earthquake or flood insurance. You might think you already know the answer, but you could be wrong.

Just as important, make sure you have enough dwelling coverage to replace the home if it’s destroyed. That amount isn’t the same as the value of the house. “Do not confuse market value with replacement value,” Santana said.

When providing a rate quote, an insurance agent likely plugs the home’s square footage and other information into a calculator that spits out a dollar amount representing the cost to rebuild. You shouldn’t take that calculation as the final word.

Instead, call general contractors to ask if the insurer’s recommended coverage limit is adequate, advises Kevin Daley, president of the private client group for EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants. He says to ask: Could you rebuild my house within this coverage limit?

Daley says that oftentimes, the contractor will respond with something like: “Look, your insurance company thinks this house can be built for 400 grand. I’m telling you right now it’s 455 minimum.”

If a contractor comes out to take a look at your house, expect to pay a fee.

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Consider extended replacement cost coverage

Even after you talk with a contractor to learn the true cost of rebuilding, that dollar amount might be insufficient after a natural disaster. Here’s why: If your house burns but the neighboring houses are untouched, you’ll navigate a market in which building supplies and construction workers are typically available, and prices and wages are predictable. But if your whole neighborhood burns in a wildfire, those markets break down.

After a disaster, hundreds of nearby homeowners might need building materials and construction workers at the same time. Demand exceeds supply, so prices and wages go up. A house that would normally cost $455,000 to rebuild could suddenly cost more than half a million dollars to construct.

That’s where extended replacement cost coverage comes in. It pays up to a certain percentage above your dwelling coverage limit if costs are higher than expected. For example, if you have $400,000 in dwelling coverage, plus an endorsement adding 25% in extended replacement cost coverage, the insurer will add 25% (or $100,000) to your limit, raising it to $500,000.

“You want to get your dwelling coverage to an amount where you’d be able to rebuild if it’s just your house” that’s destroyed, says Emily Rogan, senior program officer for United Policyholders, a nonprofit information resource for policyholders. Beyond that, she says, you’d rely on extended replacement cost coverage for a worst-case scenario, community-level disaster.

Shopping for insurance

Ideally, you have full coverage the day you buy a home. If not, you can beef up your insurance when you’re better informed and have the money to pay for it. Sooner is better, because you can’t know when disaster will strike.

As you talk to agents, bring up the type of scenarios that drift into your head as you try to fall asleep. If a tree crashes through my roof, will insurance pay for a whole new roof, or just the damaged section? Will insurance pay my rent if I’m displaced, and if so, how much or for how long? The insurer might soothe your fears by adding endorsements (for additional charges) that add oomph to your basic coverage.

Buying adequate home insurance might cost more, but you’ll sleep better.

Holden Lewis writes for NerdWallet. Email: hlewis@nerdwallet.com.

The article Check Your Home Insurance Now, Avoid Regret Later originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By Robbie Sequeira, Stateline.org

Across the country, state lawmakers are finding rare bipartisan ground on an increasingly urgent issue for educators and parents: banning cellphone use in schools.

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Fueling these bans is growing research on the harmful effects of smartphone and social media use on the mental health and academic achievement of grade to high school students.

In 2024, at least eight states — California, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia — either expanded or adopted policies or laws to curtail cellphone use in schools.

This year, lawmakers in Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin have proposed bans moving in their state legislatures.

Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently signed a law requiring schools to ban students’ access to cellphones and other personal electronic devices during the school day.

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds introduced a broader electronics device ban this year.

Last month, New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul unveiled her plans to ban smartphones at schools.

And Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has proposed a statewide ban on cellphones in classrooms.

Some experts warn, however, that these bans might be difficult to enforce — or may simply be outdated before they even take effect.

“The genie is out of the bottle, and squeezing it back in is going to be nearly impossible,” said Ken Trump, a longtime school safety expert and president of National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm. “Phones and social media have fundamentally changed society, and by extension, schooling. Outright bans may be unrealistic or difficult to enforce effectively.”

Trump thinks governors, in particular, are responding to a trend rather than conducting thorough research. “Our elected officials are running to say, ‘he [introduced a bill] so I’m going to do it too.’ … Once Florida passed their bill, it’s been an explosion.”

Florida in 2023 became the first state to enact an outright ban on cellphone use during instructional time, followed by Louisiana and South Carolina last year. Other states, including Alaska and Connecticut, issued recommendations rather than mandates, encouraging local districts to develop their own policies.

In Minnesota, districts are required to implement their own policies under the law passed last year. But a bill sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Alice Mann would ban cellphones and smartwatches in elementary and middle schools, and restrict the use of those devices in high school classrooms beginning in the 2026-2027 school year.

Mann began considering the measure after hearing directly from students last year.

“We had a committee hearing where kids told us how distracting cellphones were. That really caught our attention,” she said. “We talked to school districts across the state — some had no policy, some had bans for one or two years, and some had bans for longer. The ones with bans all said the same thing: ‘It’s been wonderful.’”

Enforcement

Even where bans exist, enforcement varies widely. Some schools use Yondr pouches, lockable sleeves that prevent phone access during the school day. Others require students to store their phones in lockers or classroom pouches, while some schools rely on simple classroom rules prohibiting phone use.

According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of U.S. high school teachers say that cellphone distraction is a major issue in their classrooms. While many teachers and administrators report positive changes after bans, students have quickly adapted, finding ways to bypass rules by slipping calculators or dummy phones into pouches, or switching to smartwatches to check social media and send texts.

“Students are more tech-savvy than lawmakers,” said Trump, the school safety expert. “They find workarounds — whether it’s through smartwatches, Chromebooks or school Wi-Fi.”

States such as Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho and Pennsylvania allocated funding for programs that provide schools with lockable phone storage pouches, or financial rewards for districts that create their own restrictive policies.

A proposed bill in Texas would go so far as to charge students up to $30 to retrieve a phone that was confiscated for violating a cellphone ban.

Schools have wrestled with how to regulate mobile devices for decades — with bans on devices such as pagers dating back to the late 1980s. In 2024, 76% of U.S. public schools prohibited cellphones for nonacademic use, notes the National Center for Education Statistics.

Total bans?

The Girls Athletic Leadership School Los Angeles has enforced strict no-phone policies since its founding in 2016. The charter school’s no-phone policy means no usage on campus, during off-campus experiences, or even on school buses — a step beyond most phone bans.

“Cellphones present a major distraction and temptation for students,” Vanessa Garza, Girls Athletic Leadership School Los Angeles executive director and founding principal, wrote in a statement to Stateline. “This long-standing policy has allowed our students to foster deep friendships, experience enhanced learning, and regulate healthy emotions.”

Instead of top-down state mandates, Trump, the school security expert, thinks that schools should focus on reasonable restrictions and consensus-based policies that work for individual communities.

“If you try to ban phones entirely, enforcement becomes a nightmare,” he said. “What happens when kids don’t comply? Are schools going to dedicate staff just to cellphone discipline? If policies aren’t enforced consistently, they become meaningless.”

Trump said in school emergencies, students flooding 911 with calls can overwhelm emergency responders.

Mann, the Minnesota lawmaker, dismissed the idea that the pushback on phone bans is coming from students. Instead, she thinks parents are the ones most resistant to restrictions.

“Some parents are worried they won’t be able to reach their kids, but they absolutely can. If a parent needs to get in touch with their child, they can call the school, just like they always could before cellphones were in every pocket,” said Mann.

“What we’re hearing from students is that their phones are pinging in class all day long — and a lot of it is from parents. Parents texting, ‘What should we have for dinner?’ or ‘I’ll be home late.’ These are not emergencies.”

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.