By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump heads to Texas on Friday for a firsthand look at the devastation caused by catastrophic flooding, he has remained conspicuously quiet about his previous promises to do away with the federal agency in charge of disaster relief.

The Trump administration isn’t backing away from its pledges to shutter the Federal Emergency Management Agency and return disaster response to the states. But since the July 4 disaster, which has killed at least 120 people, the president and his top aides have focused on the once-in-a-lifetime nature of what occurred and the human tragedy involved rather than the government-slashing crusade that’s been popular with Trump’s core supporters.

Nancy Epperson, right, and Brooklyn Pucek, 6, visit a memorial for flood victims along the Guadalupe River on Thursday, July 10, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

“Nobody ever saw a thing like this coming,” Trump told NBC News on Thursday, adding, ”This is a once-in-every-200-year deal.” He’s also suggested he’d have been ready to visit Texas within hours but didn’t want to burden authorities still searching for the more than 170 people who are still missing.

Trump’s shift in focus underscores how tragedy can complicate political calculations, even though Trump has made slashing the federal workforce and charging ally-turned-antagonist Elon Musk with dramatically shrinking the size of government centerpieces of his administration’s opening months.

The president is expected to do an aerial tour of some of the hard-hit areas.

The White House also says he’ll visit the state emergency operations center to meet with first responders and relatives of flood victims. Trump will also get a briefing from officials. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Ted Cruz are joining the visit, with the GOP senators expected to fly to their state with Trump aboard Air Force One.

It’s relatively common for presidents visiting disaster sites to tour the damage by air, a move that can ease the logistical burdens on authorities on the ground.

Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, observed the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina and Hurricane Milton in Florida last fall by air before meeting with disaster response officials and victims on the ground.

Trump, though, has also used past disaster response efforts to launch political attacks. While still a candidate trying to win back the presidency, Trump made his own visit to North Carolina after Helene last year and accused the Biden administration of blocking disaster aid to victims in Republican-heavy areas.

Kerrville residents Edgar Rojas, second from left, and his wife Perla, alongside daughters Emily, left, and Olivia, visit a memorial for flood victims along the Guadalupe River on Thursday, July 10, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

First lady Melania Trump will accompany the president Friday, marking the second time this term that she has joined her husband to tour a natural disaster site.

During his first weekend back in the White House, Trump again visited North Carolina to scope out Helene damage and toured the aftermath of devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. But he also used those trips to sharply criticize the Biden administration and California officials.

Trump has promised repeatedly — and as recently as last month — to begin “phasing out” FEMA and bring disaster response management “down to the state level.”

During Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump didn’t mention those plans and instead praised the federal flooding response. Turning to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, he said, “You had people there as fast as anybody’s ever seen.”

Pressed this week on whether the White House will continue to work to shutter FEMA, press secretary Karoline Leavitt wouldn’t say.

“The president wants to ensure American citizens always have what they need during times of need,” Leavitt said. “Whether that assistance comes from states or the federal government, that is a policy discussion that will continue.”

While the focus is on FEMA at the federal level, local officials have come under mounting scrutiny over how much they were prepared and how quickly they acted. But not everyone affected has been quick to point fingers.

Darrin Potter, a Kerr County, Texas, resident for 25 years who saw ankle-high flooding in his home and said he knew people killed, said, “As far as early warnings, I’m sure they can improve on that.”

But he said all the talk about evacuating was missing something important. The area where a wall of water ripped through was a two-lane road, he said.

“If you would have evacuated at 5 in the morning, all of those people would have been washed away on this road,” he said.

During the Cabinet meeting, Noem described traveling to Texas and seeing heartbreaking scenes, including around Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 people were killed.

Related Articles

State Department is firing over 1,300 employees under Trump administration plan

The newest way to influence Trump: Nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize

Head Start will be cut off for immigrants without legal status, Trump administration says

Years later, Trump administration targets key figures in Russia investigation

George Mason University faces investigation in Trump administration’s anti-DEI crackdown

“The parents that were looking for their children and picking up their daughter’s stuffed animals out of the mud and finding their daughter’s shoe that might be laying in the cabin,” she said.

Noem said that “just hugging and comforting people matters a lot” and “this is a time for all of us in this country to remember that we were created to serve each other.”

But the secretary is also co-chairing a FEMA review council charged with submitting suggestions for how to overhaul the agency in coming months.

“We as a federal government don’t manage these disasters. The state does,” Noem told Trump on Tuesday.

She also referenced the administration’s government-reducing efforts, saying: ”We’re cutting through the paperwork of the old FEMA. Streamlining it, much like your vision of how FEMA should operate.”

Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Washington and Nadia Lathan in Ingram, Texas, contributed to this report.

Today is Friday, July 11, the 192nd day of 2024. There are 173 days left in the year.

Today in History:

On July 11, 1995, the U.N.-designated “safe haven” of Srebrenica (sreh-breh-NEET’-sah) in Bosnia-Herzegovina fell to Bosnian Serb forces, who subsequently carried out the killings of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

Also on this date:

In 1798, the U.S. Marine Corps was formally re-established by a congressional act that also created the U.S. Marine Band.

Related Articles

AI device startup that sued OpenAI and Jony Ive is now suing its own ex-employee over trade secrets

A small Texas community where everyone survived flooding has sirens that warned them

Breaking down the force of water in the Texas floods

Gun makers lose appeal of New York law that could make them liable for shootings

US has reclosed its southern border after a flesh-eating parasite is seen further north in Mexico

In 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a pistol duel in Weehawken, New Jersey. (Hamilton died the next day.)

In 1859, Big Ben, the great bell inside the famous London clock tower, chimed for the first time.

In 1864, Confederate forces led by Gen. Jubal Early began an abortive invasion of Washington, D.C., and his raid was turned back the next day.

In 1914, Babe Ruth made his Major League baseball debut, pitching the Boston Red Sox to a 4-3 victory over Cleveland.

In 1921, fighting in the Irish War of Independence ended with a truce.

In 1960, Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” was published.

In 1972, the World Chess Championship opened as grandmasters Bobby Fischer of the United States and defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union began play in Reykjavik, Iceland. (Fischer won after 21 games.)

In 1979, the abandoned U.S. space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia.

In 1991, a Nigeria Airways DC-8 carrying Muslim pilgrims crashed at the Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, international airport, killing all 261 people on board.

In 2006, eight bombs hit a commuter rail network during evening rush hour in Mumbai, India, killing more than 200 people.

In 2022, President Joe Biden revealed the first image from NASA’s new space telescope, the farthest humanity had ever seen in both time and distance, closer to the dawn of the universe and the edge of the cosmos.

Today’s Birthdays:

Fashion designer Giorgio Armani is 91.
Actor Susan Seaforth Hayes is 82.
Actor Bruce McGill is 75.
Actor Stephen Lang is 73.
Actor Mindy Sterling is 72.
Actor Sela Ward is 69.
Reggae singer Michael Rose (Black Uhuru) is 68.
Singer Peter Murphy (Bauhaus) is 68.
Actor Mark Lester is 67.
Saxophonist Kirk Whalum is 67.
Singer Suzanne Vega is 66.
Rock guitarist Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi) is 66.
Actor Lisa Rinna is 62.
Author Jhumpa Lahiri is 58.
Wildlife expert Jeff Corwin is 58.
Actor Justin Chambers (TV: “Grey’s Anatomy”) is 55.
Actor Michael Rosenbaum (TV: “Smallville”) is 53.
Rapper Lil’ Kim is 51.
Pro Football Hall of Famer Andre Johnson is 44.
Pop-jazz singer-musician Peter Cincotti is 42.
Actor Serinda Swan is 41.
Actor David Henrie is 36.
Actor Connor Paolo is 35.
R&B/pop singer Alessia Cara is 29.

When deputies responded to a call about a teenager in distress in a Mahtomedi parking lot, evidence at the scene and their “gut feelings” led them to call the sergeant in charge of the East Metro Human Trafficking Task Force.

The resident of the apartment building who made the call to law enforcement and the Washington County sheriff’s deputies’ quick actions helped get a 14-year-old out of a “terrible situation,” Washington County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Danelle Erickson said Thursday.

Two men were charged Thursday with sexual assault and one is also accused of sex trafficking.

“It’s heartbreaking to know these men brought a 14-year-old girl into our community and sexually assaulted her,” Washington County Attorney Kevin Magnuson said in a statement.

Investigators obtained surveillance video showing other incidents of the suspect bringing females “in various intoxicated states” to the Mahtomedi apartment over the prior weeks, the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

The trafficking task force is aware of two teenage victims and three adults victims, Erickson said. The suspects have been charged in connection with the 14-year-old and Erickson said additional charges are possible.

Teen found in apartment lot screaming ‘no’

Officers were called to the Piccadilly Square Apartments, a 62+ housing community near Wildwood and Stillwater roads, on June 30 on a report of a teenager dancing in the parking lot and screaming, “no no no,” said the criminal complaints. The person who called said an unknown man dropped her off about four hours earlier.

A man identified as 69-year-old Michael Lewis stepped out the front door of the apartment. The teen, later identified as the 14-year-old, pointed to him and said she was with Lewis and one of his friends.

Michael Lewis (Courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

Lewis said his veteran’s affairs counselor had just gone to his apartment to give him cigarettes and he believed the teen was with the counselor.

EMS took the teen to the hospital. East Metro Human Trafficking Task Force investigators met with her and asked how she knew the man who brought her to the apartment. She said he was a “friend,” who she referred to as “Billy,” and she said he often drove around her neighborhood.

“When asked what happened inside the Mahtomedi apartment, (the teen) said that ‘Billy’ walked her to the apartment where another man was inside,” the complaints said. She identified Lewis as the man inside the apartment after looking at a photo.

The teen said “Billy” gave her crack cocaine. She “nodded her head yes when asked if anything sexual happened in the apartment,” the complaints said.

Officers identified “Billy” as Billy Ray Wiley, 52, of Minneapolis. Surveillance footage showed he arrived at the apartment, where Lewis lives, with the teen. When she ran out of the building later, the surveillance video showed the girl’s “actions and movements were drastically different from when she arrived at the apartment.”

Billy Ray Wiley (Courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

Law enforcement spoke again with the teen on Monday, “who was noticeably in better condition than on June 30.” She said Wiley would find her walking around a grocery store by her house and “just pick her up. There was no time or location planned, Wiley would just find her,” the complaints said.

She “stated that when Wiley picked her up, she knew she would be expected to engage in sexual acts in exchange for money and drugs,” which is also what happened the day he brought her to Lewis’ apartment, the complaints said.

Another teen found in car with suspect

When Wiley drove by the Piccadilly apartments, officers pulled him over and arrested him.

“In a spontaneous statement, Wiley asked an officer if it was illegal to ‘pay for (expletive),’” the complaints said.

A 17-year-old girl was in the car with Wiley. She said that earlier in the day, in the area of Dale Street and University Avenue in St. Paul, Wiley “pulled up right next to her and asked her what she needed. He then gave her a cigarette and asked if she wanted to go for a ride,” the complaints said.

She said they drove around for several hours, and he “told her that she was pretty and had a nice body,” the complaints said. She said she told Wiley several times to drop her off, but he kept driving.

The teen also told officers “that many girls who are struggling with addiction hang around Dale and University” and “said that Wiley is known to pick up a lot of girls in the area,” the complaints said.

Officers searched Wiley’s car and found 13 unopened condoms and a white crystalline substance that is pending testing.

Law enforcement also arrested Lewis.

The Washington County Attorney’s Office charged Wiley with engaging in the sex trafficking of an individual under age 18 and first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Lewis is charged with two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Both men remained in the Washington County jail Thursday night. Attorneys for them weren’t listed in their court files.

Related Articles

Fight with girlfriend preceded stabbing death in Apple Valley, charges say

Blood evidence in Columbia Heights man’s apartment leads to murder charge in teen son’s death

St. Paul, Ramsey County officers seize nearly 900 pounds of meth in Minneapolis

Apple Valley police ask for help in finding suspect in fatal stabbing

Second defendant admits to role in fatal shooting of South St. Paul father during marijuana robbery

‘Old-school trafficking’

At the East Metro Human Trafficking Task Force, Erickson said usually they see people posting advertisements online for sex. “That’s how traffickers usually do this,” she said.

This case was more “old-school trafficking” because the suspect was “pulling girls who are vulnerable off the street” to traffic them, Erickson said.

For anyone in immediate danger of being trafficked, call 911, said the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. Suspected trafficking situations can be reported to the East Metro Human Trafficking Task Force at 651-430-7825.

DULUTH, Minn. — Brittany Blue’s journey to graduation from Lake Superior College looks a little different from the average student.

Her first step in the world of higher education started in 2017, but as a single parent working two jobs, she soon found the load of full-time classes too much.

“I ended up passing two classes, but then withdrawing from two, and then I fell back into my addiction,” Blue said.

Blue’s substance use kept her out of education and instead led her to a “criminal lifestyle” for a few years. She was eventually arrested in 2021 for drug possession and sentenced to 92 months. Little did she know at the time that the arrest would start her down the path to graduation in May.

At the Minnesota Women’s Correctional Facility in Shakopee, Blue heard about the opportunity to earn college credits while she served her time.

“In prison, you have to have a job. So I looked into it and found out that education could be considered my job,” she said. “I was nervous and scared because I thought all these other women are so much smarter than me, because I haven’t been in school for so long. But I continued to persevere.”

By taking a few classes at a time, Blue was able to earn more than half of the credits needed for an associate’s degree.

Because of the nature of her crime, Blue was accepted into the Challenge Incarceration Program after she’d served 18 months. CIP is a structured program that treats substance use disorders and helps people develop personal discipline and improve physical and mental well-being. Successful participants also see a reduction in their incarceration time.

The only downside for Blue was that she couldn’t continue her studies while participating in CIP. But it led to her release in 2023, when she decided to return to Lake Superior College in Duluth.

“I was a little worried at first about judgment,” Blue said. “But I faced that fear and instead used my past as a strength. I was always upfront with my professors about being a woman in recovery. And by then, I’d learned to love myself enough to talk about it. And the professors there would meet you where you’re at.”

This time around, Blue took two classes a semester so she could continue to balance the demands of her life outside the classroom. She’d take one class in person on campus and one online. She said she got a lot of guidance from her adviser, Sherry Dalager, which helped her figure out her options.

“If you have a good adviser, that makes a really big difference, just the genuineness of her,” Blue said. “Every time I had an issue, I would talk to her and she would direct me through some options in different categories, and I would think it through and make that decision on my own. But Sherry showed me what options were there.”

Blue also credits the support she received from her husband, Brandon Blue, for helping her along the way. Brandon was also incarcerated for drug possession around the same time she was, and said the two made a game plan to come out on the other side better than when they went in.

Related Articles

George Mason University faces investigation in Trump administration’s anti-DEI crackdown

A century after a man was convicted of teaching evolution, the debate on religion in schools rages

Layoffs hit UMN Extension food educators as MN grapples with Trump’s budget

What Trump’s big tax law could mean for the youngest Americans

Federal trial starts over Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activists

“We were able to execute the game plan and make ourselves better,” Brandon said. “We learned to take care of ourselves and go after what we want. Brittany has her degree now, and nobody can take that away. That’s something she accomplished when she learned to invest in herself.”

What’s next for Brittany? She has a day job at a nonprofit organization and plans to attend Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet this fall to pursue a degree in chemical dependency counseling. She said she wants to help other people achieve their goals.

“If you’re someone struggling in addiction, there is hope in education. Don’t give up on yourself,” Blue said. “There were plenty of times where I wanted to just quit and be on red tag, where you don’t have a job and you just serve your time. But it’s worth it if you keep pushing through.”