By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican plan to expand private school vouchers nationwide was dealt a major setback Friday when the Senate parliamentarian said the proposal would run afoul of procedural rules.

The years-in-the-making plan would have created a federal tax credit supporting scholarships to help families send their children to private schools or other options beyond their local public schools. But in an overnight announcement, the Senate parliamentarian advised against including the proposal in President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending bill.

It added to mounting problems for Republicans as key proposals were deemed ineligible for the filibuster-proof reconciliation package. The parliamentarian’s rulings are advisory but are rarely, if ever, ignored. It’s unclear if Republicans will try to rewrite the provisions or simply drop them from the bill.

Another education plan deemed ineligible for reconciliation would have exempted religious colleges from a federal endowment tax. The proposal sought to raise the tax rate on wealthier colleges’ endowments while carving out religious institutions like Hillsdale College, a conservative, Christian school in Michigan and an ally of the Trump administration.

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said, “We have been successful in removing parts of this bill that hurt families and workers, but the process is not over, and Democrats are continuing to make the case against every provision in this Big, Beautiful Betrayal of a bill that violates Senate rules.”

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School voucher provision had been seen as a win for supporters

The school voucher provision was seen as a breakthrough victory for proponents who have been pushing the idea for years. A similar plan failed to gain support from Congress in 2019 when it was championed by Betsy DeVos, the education secretary during Trump’s first term. Campaigning for his second term, Trump again promised to deliver some form of “universal school choice.”

Under the reconciliation plan, donors who gave money or stock to K-12 scholarship programs would receive 100% of the contribution back in the form of a discount on their tax bills. It would allow stock holders to avoid paying taxes they would usually face if they donated or transferred their stock.

Nearly all families would qualify to receive scholarships except those making more than three times their area’s median income.

A House version of the bill allowed up to $5 billion in tax credits a year, running through 2029. The Senate version reduced it to $4 billion but included no end date.

Supporters said the proposal would expand education options for families across the country, offering alternatives to students in areas with lower-performing public schools. Opponents said it would siphon money from public schools and open the door for fraud and abuse.

Republican-led states have similar programs

Similar scholarship and voucher programs have proliferated in Republican-led states such as Texas, which recently passed a $1 billion program. States have increasingly offered vouchers to families beyond only the neediest ones, contributing to budget concerns as expenses rapidly pile up.

The Senate’s college endowment proposal sought to raise a tax on schools’ investment income, from 1.4% now to 4% or 8% depending on their wealth. It would apply only to colleges with endowments of at least $500,000 per student, and it excluded all religious institutions. It would have exempted a small number of colleges, including Hillsdale, which lobbied against it.

Some small colleges that would have been hit hard by the proposal are now hopeful that Republicans will carve out an exemption for all smaller schools.

“The religious schools exemption showed senators were concerned about the endowment tax hike’s impact on small colleges,” said Lori White, president of DePauw University, a private liberal arts school in Indiana. “After the parliamentarian’s rulings, the best way to protect those and other small institutions from that impact is now to exempt all colleges with fewer than 5,000 undergraduate students.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By ALEXA ST. JOHN, Associated Press

Weather experts are warning that hurricane forecasts will be severely hampered by the upcoming cutoff of key data from U.S. Department of Defense satellites, the latest Trump administration move with potential consequences for the quality of forecasting.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it would discontinue the “ingest, processing and distribution” of data collected by three weather satellites that the agency jointly runs with the Defense Department. The data is used by scientists, researchers and forecasters, including at the National Hurricane Center.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the government planned to cut off the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s microwave data by Monday. The Defense Department referred questions to the Air Force, which referred them to the Navy, which did not immediately provide comment. NOAA did not immediately respond to a message.

Unlike traditional weather satellites, the microwave data helps peer under a regular image of a hurricane or a tropical cyclone to see what is going on inside the storm, and it is especially helpful at night.

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The news is especially noteworthy during the ongoing hurricane season and as lesser storms have become more frequent, deadly and costly as climate change is worsened by the burning of fossil fuels.

Microwave imagery allows researchers and forecasters to see the center of the storm. Experts say that can help in detecting the rapid intensification of storms and in more accurately plotting the likely path of dangerous weather.

“If a hurricane, let’s say, is approaching the Gulf Coast, it’s a day away from making landfall, it’s nighttime,” said Union of Concerned Scientists science fellow Marc Alessi. “We will no longer be able to say, OK, this storm is definitely undergoing rapid intensification, we need to update our forecasts to reflect that.”

Other microwave data will be available but only roughly half as much, hurricane specialist Michael Lowry said in a blog post. He said that greatly increases the odds that forecasters will miss rapid intensification, underestimate intensity or misplace the storm.

That “will severely impede and degrade hurricane forecasts for this season and beyond, affecting tens of millions of Americans who live along its hurricane-prone shorelines,” he said.

University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy called the loss of data “alarmingly bad news” in a post on Bluesky.

“Microwave data are already relatively sparse, so any loss — even gradual as satellites or instruments fail — is a big deal; but to abruptly end three active functioning satellites is insanity.”

NOAA and its National Weather Service office have been the target of several cuts and changes in President Donald Trump’s second term. The Department of Government Efficiency gutted the agency’s workforce, local field offices and funding.

Already, hurricane forecasts were anticipated to be less accurate this year because weather balloons launches have been curtailed because of the lack of staffing.

“What happened this week is another attempt by the Trump administration to sabotage our weather and climate infrastructure,” Alessi said.

Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

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.

The Forest Lake Police Department has seen an increase in calls about bear sightings in the city’s residential areas. Black bears are most common in northern and central Minnesota, but they can live throughout the state and occasionally wander into cities and residential areas.

“If you live in Minnesota, you live in bear country, ” the police department said in a Facebook post about the sightings.

Minnesota’s black bear range has been gradually expanding southward and westward, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Preventing bear encounters

The Forest Lake Police Department said bears are attracted to things that seem like food to them, including birdseed, dog food, fruits, grease on grills, trash and fish. Cleaning these things up, moving them inside and securing garbage cans can help prevent bears from approaching a home.

What to do if a bear approaches

Wild Minnesota black bears are usually shy and wary of people, and attacks by black bears are rare, according to the DNR. However, if a bear approaches someone’s home, the DNR recommends taking these precautions:

Watch from inside the house or from a safe distance and and see if the bear leaves on its own.
If the bear approaches the house, such as climbing on the deck or putting its paws on the windows or doors, try to scare it away by shouting, slamming a door or banging pots.
If bear spray is available, remove the safety and be ready to use it if the bear approaches you.

If people spot a black bear outside its usual range, they can report it to the DNR at dnr.state.mn.us/hunting/bear/bear-sightings.html.

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By DAVID BAUDER, AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The idea that Bruce Springsteen wrote, recorded and ultimately shelved entire albums of music may seem odd to the casual listener. Why put yourself through all that work for nothing?

Yet “lost albums” are embedded in music industry lore. Some were literally lost. Some remained unfinished or unreleased because of tragedy, shortsighted executives or creators who were perfectionist — or had short attention spans.

Often, the music is eventually made public, like Springsteen is doing now, although out of context from the times in which it was originally made.

So in honor of Springsteen’s 83-song “Tracks II: The Lost Albums” box set being released Friday, The Associated Press has collected 10 examples of albums that were meant to be but weren’t.

FILE – The Beach Boys, from left, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson and Mike Love, hold their trophies after being inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in New York, Jan. 21, 1988. (AP Photo/Ron Frehm, File)

“Smile,” The Beach Boys

Back in the news with the death of Brian Wilson, this album “invented the category of the lost masterpiece in popular music,” says Anthony DeCurtis, contributing editor at Rolling Stone. Some of the material that surfaced suggested Wilson, the Beach Boys’ chief writer, was well on his way: the majestic single “Good Vibrations,” the centerpiece “Heroes and Villains” and the reflective “Surf’s Up.” Wilson succumbed to internal competitive pressure worsened by mental illness and drug abuse while making it in 1966 and 1967, eventually aborting the project. He later finished it as a solo album backed by the Wondermints in 2004. The better-known songs were joined with some psychedelic-era curios that displayed Wilson’s melodic sense and matchless ability as a vocal arranger, along with lyrics that some fellow Beach Boys worried were too “out there.”

FILE – Prince performs at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on Feb. 18, 1985. (AP Photo/Liu Heung Shing, File)

“The Black Album,” Prince

The mercurial Prince pulled back this disc, set for release in December 1987, at the last minute. Some promo copies had already slipped out, and it was so widely bootlegged that when Warner Bros. officially put it out in limited release in 1994, the company billed it as “The Legendary Black Album.” Encased in an all-black sleeve, the project was said to be Prince’s nod to Black fans who may have felt they had lost him to a pop audience. It’s almost nonstop funk, including a lascivious Cindy Crawford tribute and the workout “Superfunkycalifragisexy.” The maestro’s instincts were well-placed, though. Coming after “Sign O’ the Times” — arguably his peak — this would have felt like a minor project.

FILE – Members of Green Day, from left, Billie Joe Armstrong,, Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt pose in their hotel room in Toronto on Sept. 23, 2004. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

“Cigarettes and Valentines,” Green Day

Written and recorded in 2003, Green Day’s “Cigarettes and Valentines” was actually lost; someone apparently stole the master tapes. Feeling on a creative roll, the rock trio decided against recreating what they’d done and pressed on with new material. Smart move. The result was “American Idiot,” the band’s best work. Perhaps the robbery was “just a sign that we made a crappy record and we should make a better one,” songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong told MTV. The title cut later surfaced on a 2010 live album. The rest was lost to time.

FILE – Dr. Dre poses for a photo at Le Meridien Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Nov. 12, 2001. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

“Detox,” Dr. Dre

To say anticipation was high for Dr. Dre’s third album when he started recording in 2002 puts it mildly. The theme disc about a hitman, which Dre described as a “hip-hop musical,” had an all-star squad of contributors including Eminem, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Busta Rhymes and Kendrick Lamar. “I’d describe it as the most advanced rap album musically and lyrically we’ll probably ever have a chance to listen to,” co-producer Scott Storch told MTV. But we never have. When he announced a different third album in 2015, Dre explained on his radio show what happened to “Detox”: “I didn’t like it. It wasn’t good. … I worked my ass off on it, and I don’t think I did a good enough job.”

FILE – Jimi Hendrix performs on tour at the Rheinhalle in Dusseldorf, Germany on Jan. 14, 1969. (AP Photo/Hinninger, File)

“Black Gold,” Jimi Hendrix

A series of unfinished demos, “Black Gold” was a taste of where guitar god Jimi Hendrix might have gone creatively if he hadn’t died at 27 in 1970. He was composing a song suite about an animated Black superhero, says Tom Maxwell, whose podcast “Shelved” unearths stories behind lost music. Hendrix sent a tape of his work to longtime drummer Mitch Mitchell for advice on fleshing it out. That music was set aside at Mitchell’s home and forgotten for two decades after Hendrix died. To date, Hendrix’s estate has made only one of these recordings public, a song called “Suddenly November Morning.” Hendrix, after clearing his throat, slips in and out of falsetto while accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar.

FILE – Yoko Ono performs during a charity concert at Madison Square Garden in New York on Aug. 30, 1972. (AP Photo/Dave Pickoff, File

“A Story,” Yoko Ono

Written while Yoko Ono was separated from John Lennon during his infamous “lost weekend” in 1973-74, “A Story” had the potential of changing the musical narrative around her. It was a strong album — without the avant-garde stylings that made Ono a challenge for mainstream listeners — recorded with musicians who worked on Lennon’s “Walls & Bridges.” Maxwell calls it “an emancipation manifesto” that was set aside when Ono reconciled with Lennon. She’s never publicly explained why, Maxwell says, although one song seems clearly about an affair she had while Lennon was away. Some of the material from “A Story” was included as part of the “Onobox” project that came out in 1992, and the album was released separately in 1997. Ono also re-recorded some of its songs in 1980, and Lennon was holding a tape of her composition “It Happened” when he was shot and killed. In it, she sings about an unspecified, seemingly traumatic event: “It happened at a time of my life when I least expected.” That wasn’t even the most chilling premonition. Her song “O’Oh” ended with firecrackers that sound like gunshots. It was left off the 1997 release.

FILE – Guns N’ Roses, from left, Michael “Duff” McKagan, Dizzy Reed, Axl Rose, Saul “Slash” Hudson and Matt Sorum, accept the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles on Sept. 9, 1992. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)

“Chinese Democracy,” Guns N’ Roses

Guns N’ Roses was at the top of the hard rock world when they began recording a new album in 1994. It didn’t go well. Inconclusive sessions slogged on for years, and all but singer Axl Rose left the group. Recording costs exceeded a staggering $13 million, by some accounts the most expensive rock album ever. One witness told The New York Times in 2005: “What Axl wanted to do was to make the best record that had ever been made. It’s an impossible task. You could go on indefinitely, which is what they’ve done.” When “Chinese Democracy” was finally released in 2008, the world yawned.

FILE – Marvin Gaye, winner of Favorite Soul/R&B Single, “Sexual Healing,” attends the American Music Awards in Los Angeles on Jan. 17, 1983. (AP Photo/Doug Pizac, File)

“Love Man,” Marvin Gaye

Not even a decade after the triumph of “What’s Going On,” Marvin Gaye was floundering. His “Here, My Dear” divorce album flopped, he struggled with drugs and searched for relevance in the disco era. The single “Ego Tripping Out,” meant to herald a new album, laid bare the problems: Over a melody cribbed from Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff,” the famously cool “Love Man” boasted like an insecure rapper. He scrapped the album, repurposing some its material for the 1981 disc “In Our Lifetime,” a process so fraught he bitterly left his longtime label Motown. Gaye went to CBS, made a huge comeback with “Sexual Healing,” then was shot dead by his father in 1984.

FILE – Neil Young performs during the Live Aid concert for famine relief at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia on July 13, 1985. (AP Photo/George Widman, File)

“Homegrown,” Neil Young

Neil Young rivals Prince in the volume of material left in his vault, and he’s been systematically releasing much of it. The mostly acoustic “Homegrown” was recorded as 1974 bled into 1975, during Young’s breakup with actor Carrie Snodgress. Instead of releasing it in 1975, he put out another heartbreak album, the well-regarded “Tonight’s the Night,” about losing friends to drug abuse. When Young finally dropped “Homegrown” in 2020, he wrote in his blog, “Sometimes life hurts. This is the one that got away.”

FILE – Bruce Springsteen speaks to the audience during a concert with the E Street Band at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany, on June 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

“Streets of Philadelphia Sessions,” Bruce Springsteen

Of the discs included in Springsteen’s “Tracks II” set, this was reportedly the closest to being released, in the spring of 1995. After the success of the Oscar-winning song “Streets of Philadelphia,” Springsteen recorded an album in the same vein, with a synthesizer and West Coast rap-inspired drum loops setting the musical motif. Strikingly contemporary for its time, Springsteen ultimately felt it was too similar to previous releases dominated by dark stories about relationships. “I always put them away,” he said of his lost albums. “But I don’t throw them away.”

This image released by Sony Music shows cover art for “Tracks II: The Lost Albums” by Bruce Springsteen. (Sony Music via AP)

David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.