By HOLLY RAMER and AMANDA SWINHART

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A Palestinian student arrested during an interview about finalizing his U.S. citizenship helped launch a $1 million fundraising campaign to strengthen the legal safety net for immigrants in Vermont on Thursday, a week after a federal judge freed him from custody.

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Mohsen Mahdawi, 34, who led protests against Israel’s war in Gaza at Columbia University, spent 16 days in a state prison before a judge ordered him released on April 30. The Trump administration has said Mahdawi should be deported because his activism threatens its foreign policy goals, but the judge ruled that he has raised a “substantial claim” that the government arrested him to stifle speech with which it disagrees.

Immigration authorities have detained college students from around the country since the first days of the Trump administration. Many of them participated in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Mahdawi was among the first to win his freedom after challenging his arrest.

“This is a message of hope and light, that our humanity is much larger than what divides us. Our humanity is much larger than unjust laws,” he said at a Statehouse news conference. “And this is also a message to the rest of the world. It starts from Vermont.”

Mahdawi joined Vermont State Treasurer Mike Pieciak, Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale and community advocates to announce the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund. The group, which also includes lawyers and philanthropists, says the fund will be used to expand the legal team at the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, train pro bono attorneys and partner with community groups to support those facing deportation, detention and family separation.

“I am here with a large and diverse group of Vermonters to say: We protect and take care of our people, regardless of their national origin, regardless of their immigration status, regardless of the language they speak,” Ram Hinsdale said. “We take care of our own against any and all threats.”

Members of Vermont’s congressional delegation have spoken up on Mahdawi’s behalf, as have state politicians. Vermont’s House and Senate passed resolutions condemning the circumstances of his detention and advocating for his release and due process rights.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott has said there is no justification for the manner in which Mahdawi was arrested, at an immigration office in Colchester.

“Law enforcement officers in this country should not operate in the shadows or hide behind masks,” the governor said the next day. “The power of the executive branch of the federal government is immense, but it is not infinite, and it is not absolute.”

Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident, was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and moved to the United States in 2014. At Columbia, he organized campus protests and co-founded the Palestinian Student Union with Mahmoud Khalil, another Palestinian permanent resident of the U.S. and graduate student who was arrested in March.

His release, which is being challenged by the government, allows him to travel outside of his home state of Vermont and attend his graduation from Columbia in New York later this month.

On Thursday, he described sharing a prison cell with a farmer from Mexico who prayed every night.

“I think his prayers have been answered today by this initiative,” he said. “This is what I call love and care. This is what I call humanity and justice. This is what I call the teachings of Jesus, who would feed the hungry, who would shelter the homeless and who would provide support to illegal immigrants.”

By ISABELLA O’MALLEY

Human-caused climate change intensified deadly rainfall in Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and other states in early April and made those storms more likely to occur, according to an analysis released Thursday by the World Weather Attribution group of scientists.

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The series of storms unleashed tornadoes, strong winds and extreme rainfall in the central Mississippi Valley region from April 3-6 and caused at least 24 deaths. Homes, roads and vehicles were inundated and 15 deaths were likely caused by catastrophic floods.

The WWA analysis found that climate change increased rainfall intensity in the storms by 9% and made them 40% more likely compared to probability of such events in the pre-industrial age climate.

Some of the moisture that fueled the storms came from the Gulf of Mexico, where water temperatures were abnormally warm by 1.2°C (2.2°F) compared to pre-industrial temperatures. That warming was made 14 times more likely due to climate change, according to the researchers from universities and meteorological agencies in the United States and Europe.

Rapid analyses from the WWA use peer-reviewed methods to study an extreme weather event and distill it down to the factors that caused it. This approach lets scientists analyze which contributing factors had the biggest influence and how the event could have played out in a world without climate change.

FILE – A mobile home park floods where rising waters of the Little Sugar Creek meet the Ohio River, Monday, April 7, 2025, in Napoleon, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

The analysis found a rainfall event of April’s intensity could occur in the central Mississippi Valley region about once every 100 years. Even heavier downpours are expected to hit the region in the future unless the world rapidly slashes emissions of polluting gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that causes temperatures to rise, the study said.

“That one in 100 years … is likely to go down to once every few decades,” said Ben Clarke, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London and the study’s lead author. “If we continue to burn fossil fuels, events like this will not only continue to occur, but they’ll keep getting more dangerous.”

Heavier and more persistent rainfall is expected with climate change because the atmosphere holds more moisture as it warms. Warming ocean temperatures result in higher evaporation rates, which means more moisture is available to fuel storms.

Forecast information and weather alerts from the National Weather Service communicated the risks of the April heavy rain days in advance, which the WWA says likely reduced the death toll. But workforce and budget cuts made by the Trump administration have left nearly half of NWS offices with 20% vacancy rates or higher, raising concerns for public safety during future extreme weather events and the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season that officially begins June 1.

FILE – A home is flooded by the Kentucky River, Lockport, Ky., Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

“If we start cutting back on these offices or reducing the staff … the unfortunate result is going to be more death. We’re going to have more people dying because the warnings are not going to get out, the warnings are not going to be as fine-tuned as they are today,” said Randall Cerveny, a climate professor at Arizona State University who was not involved in the study.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental 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.

By ADRIAN SAINZ, JONATHAN MATTISE and GRAHAM LEE BREWER

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — After three former Memphis police officers were acquitted Wednesday in the beating death of Tyre Nichols, community and civil rights leaders expressed outrage over another disappointment in the long push for police reform.

Nichols’ death at a traffic stop more than two years ago sparked nationwide protests and renewed calls for systemic change as the first post-George Floyd case that revealed the limits of an unprecedented reckoning over racial injustice in Black America.

Now, Wednesday’s acquittals again show the need for reforms at the federal level, civil rights leaders said.

“Tyre and his family deserve true justice — not only in the courtroom, but in Congress, by passing police reform legislation once and for all,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson posted on social media. “Traffic stops should never be a death sentence, and a badge should never— ever — be a shield to accountability.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who spoke Wednesday to Nichols’ mother and stepfather, said they were outraged.

“Justice can still be delivered,” Sharpton added in a statement, referring to the officers’ upcoming sentencing in a federal civil rights case. “Tyre’s death was preventable, inexcusable, and tragic.”

Nichols, 29, was on his way home on Jan. 7, 2023, when he was stopped for an alleged traffic violation. He was pulled out of his car by officers, one of whom shot at him with a Taser. Nichols ran away, according to video footage that showed him brutally beaten by five officers. An autopsy found he died from blows to the head.

Three officers were acquitted Wednesday of all state charges, including second-degree murder, in the fatal beating. All five officers, the city of Memphis and the police chief are being sued by Nichols’ family for $550 million. A trial has been scheduled for next year.

“Let this be a rally and cry: We must confront the broken systems that empowered this injustice and demand the change our nation — and Tyre’s legacy — deserves,” said civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing the family in the lawsuit.

FILE – This combination of images provided by the Memphis, Tenn., Police Department shows, from top row from left, Police Officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, bottom row from left, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith. (Memphis Police Department via AP, File)

After Floyd’s 2020 murder by a former Minneapolis police officer, states adopted hundreds of police reform proposals, creating civilian oversight of police, more anti-bias training and stricter use-of-force limits, among other measures. But federal reforms in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act have been stuck in Congress without enough bipartisan support to get enacted during the Biden administration.

The Nichols case sparked a 17-month federal investigation into the Memphis Police Department, which found a host of civil rights violations, including using excessive force, making illegal traffic stops and disproportionately targeting Black people.

Last year, police traffic-stop reforms put in place in Memphis after Nichols’ death were repealed by GOP Gov. Bill Lee, despite pleas from civil rights advocates.

One of the ordinances had outlawed traffic stops for reasons unrelated to a motorist’s driving, such as a broken taillight and other minor violations. Lee echoed arguments from Republican lawmakers who said Nichols’ death needed to result in accountability for officers who abuse power, not new limits on traffic stops.

Speaking after Wednesday’s acquittal, Shelby County District Attorney Steven Mulroy said: “Our office will continue to push for accountability for everybody who violates the law, including if not especially, those who are sworn to uphold it.”

“If we’re going to have any silver lining from this dark cloud of both the event itself and in my view today’s verdict, it has to be that we need to reaffirm our commitment to police reform,” he said.

Thaddeus Johnson, a former Memphis police commander and a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice, said Nichols’ beating and Wednesday’s acquittal compound wounds from generations of policing problems in the majority-Black city.

“I do believe that reform is local, but I do believe this has kind of put a black eye on things,” Johnson told the AP. “People feel like police cannot be held accountable. Or they won’t be held accountable.”

Andre Johnson, a pastor at Gifts of Life Ministries in Memphis and a community activist, said he was disappointed but not surprised at the verdict.

“It is extremely difficult to convict officers even when they are on camera,” he said, calling the acquittal ”a loud and clarion acknowledgement that certain groups of people do not matter.”

“For a lot of people who have had engagement with police officers, the message is loud and clear: that even if we get you on camera, doing what you did to Tyre, that you cannot face justice.”

Brewer reported from Norman, Oklahoma. Mattise reported from Nashville. AP writer Travis Loller in Nashville contributed.

By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to Medicaid, Rep. Juan Ciscomani is telling fellow Republicans he won’t support steep cuts that could hit thousands of residents in his Arizona district — “my neighbors, people my kids go to school with” — who depend on it.

Republican Rep. Don Bacon, who represents the liberal-leaning “blue dot” of Omaha, Nebraska, is trying to protect several Biden-era green energy tax breaks. He’s warning colleagues that “you can’t pull the rug out from under” businesses that have already sunk millions of dollars into renewable developments in Nebraska and beyond.

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And for Republican Rep. Nick LaLota of New York, it’s simple: “No Salt. No Deal. For Real.” He wants to revive — and bump up — what’s known as the SALT deduction, which allows taxpayers to write off a portion of their state and local taxes. Capping the deduction at $10,000 hurt many of his Long Island constituents.

“Governing is a negotiation, right?” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, another Republican who is also involved in the talks. “I think everybody is going to have to give a little.”

As GOP leaders draft President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” of some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $1.5 trillion in spending cuts by Memorial Day, dozens of Republicans from contested congressional districts have positioned themselves at the center of the negotiating table.

While it’s often the most conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus driving the legislative agenda — and they are demanding as much as $2 trillion in cuts — it’s the more centrist-leaning conservatives who could sink the bill. They have been hauled into meetings with Trump at the White House, some have journeyed to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and many are huddling almost daily with House Speaker Mike Johnson.

And they are not satisfied, yet.

“To get everybody politically and policy-wise on the same page is going to require more conversations,” said LaLota, who is among five Republicans pledging to withhold their support unless changes to the SALT deduction are included.

Republicans wrestle with what to put in — and what to leave out

Diving into the gritty details of the massive package, the GOP leaders are running into the stubborn reality that not all the ideas from their menu of potential tax breaks and spending cuts are popular with voters back home.

Moreover, their work of compiling the big package is not happening in a vacuum. It comes amid growing economic unease rippling across the country as Trump has fired thousands of federal workers, including some of their own constituents, and as his trade war sparks concerns of empty store shelves and higher prices.

Brendan Buck, a former adviser to an earlier House speaker, Paul Ryan, warned in an op-ed Wednesday that all the party’s energy is being poured into one bill, with questionable returns.

“Many Republicans are hoping that the tax bill can blunt the economic damage caused by the Trump tariffs,” Buck wrote in The New York Times, “but that is highly unlikely.”

Democrats are ready for the fight, warning that Trump and his fellow Republicans are ripping away health care and driving the economy into the ditch — all to retain tax breaks approved during Trump’s first term that are expiring at year’s end.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, of N.Y., speaks during an event with House and Senate Democrats to mark 100 days of President Donald Trump’s term on the steps of the Senate on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

“What we see from Donald Trump and the Republicans is they are actually crashing the economy in real time,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

“Why,” the Democratic leader asked, “are Republicans jumping through hoops” to try to reduce Medicaid and food stamps used by millions of Americans?

“It’s all in service of enacting massive tax breaks for their millionaire donors like Elon Musk,” he said.

GOP leaders search for consensus

Johnson has projected a calm confidence, insisting that House Republicans are on track to deliver on Trump’s agenda.

The speaker’s office has become a waystation with a revolving door of Republicans privately laboring to piece together the massive package.

So far, GOP leaders have signaled they are walking away from some, but not all, of the steep Medicaid cuts. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the proposals could result in millions of people losing their coverage.

Instead, what appears to still be on the table are tougher work requirements for those receiving Medicaid and food stamp assistance and more frequent eligibility tests for beneficiaries.

That’s not enough for the conservatives, who also number in the dozens and are insisting on deeper reductions.

Centrists drawing red lines

Ciscomani, in his second term, signed onto a letter with Bacon and others warning House Republican leadership he cannot support a bill that includes “any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations.”

“Our point is that we understand the need for reform,” Ciscomani said. “But anything that goes beyond that and starts jeopardizing rural hospitals in my district and their existence overall, then we’re running into an area where it will be very difficult to move forward. I think it’s very important they know that.”

Bacon, Ciscomani and others joined on a separate letter raising concerns about eliminating clean-energy tax credits, including those passed under President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

“Go with a scalpel. Go pick out some things,” Bacon told The Associated Press. He and the others warned that companies are already investing millions of dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act’s incentives to green energy.

“You just can’t do a wholesale throw it out,” Bacon said.

Democrats track the vote with an eye on next year’s midterms

Democrats are also applying political pressure in Ciscomani’s district and beyond.

As Republicans decline to hold town halls on the advice of their leaders, Democrats are stepping in to warn constituents about what could happen to programs they rely on for health coverage and to put food on the table.

Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Cory Booker of New Jersey visited Ciscomani’s Tucson-based district last month to offer harsh condemnations.

Kelly asked how many in the room were represented by Ciscomani, and then he warned about how scores of residents in the district could lose their health care coverage.

“And for what? It is so Donald Trump could give a big, giant tax cut to the wealthiest Americans. It is not fair,” Kelly said.

Booker, fresh off his 25-hour speech on the Senate floor, was even more pointed, saying just three House Republicans have to change their mind to upend the GOP’s effort in the House, with its narrow majority.

“I believe one of them has to be in this district right here,” Booker said. “Either he changes his mind or this district changes congresspeople. It’s as simple as that.”

Associated Press writer Leah Askarinam contributed to this report.