By TAMMY WEBBER and MICHAEL PHILLIS, Associated Press

A once-every-four-years report card on the upkeep of America’s infrastructure gave it a “C” grade on Tuesday, up slightly from previous reports, largely due to investments made during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

The report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which examined everything from roads and dams to drinking water and railroads, warns that federal funding must be sustained or increased to avoid further deterioration and escalating costs.

“We have seen the investments start to pay off, but we still have a lot of work to do out there,” said Darren Olson, chair of this year’s report. He said decrepit infrastructure – from poor roads that damage cars to delayed flights to power outages that spoil groceries — hurts people and the economy.

“By investing in our infrastructure, we’re making our economy more efficient, we’re making it stronger (and) we’re making ourselves globally more competitive,” he said.

It’s especially critical that infrastructure can handle more extreme weather due to climate change, said Olson, noting hurricanes that devastated the East Coast and parts of Appalachia last year. The U.S. saw 27 weather disasters last year that cost at least $1 billion, second-most since 1980.

The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided $550 billion in new infrastructure investments, but is set to expire in 2026. Another $30 billion came from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, including for projects focused on clean energy and climate change, the engineering group said.

FILE – President Joe Biden speaks about his infrastructure agenda under the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, Jan. 4, 2023, in Covington, Ky. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

President Donald Trump’s administration has targeted some of Biden’s green policies. Public parks improved to a C-minus from a D-plus, for example, thanks in part to significant investments over several years. Recently, however, the Trump administration moved to slash National Park Service staffing.

In 2021, the U.S. earned a C-minus overall. The investments made since then are just a fraction of the $9.1 trillion that the civil engineers group estimates is needed to bring all of the nation’s current infrastructure into a state of good repair.

Even if current federal infrastructure funding were maintained, there still would be a $3.7 trillion gap over a decade, according to the report.

The bill to upgrade and maintain the nation’s roughly 50,000 water utilities, for example, is $625 billion over the next two decades, according to the federal government. The grade for drinking water was C-minus, unchanged from four years ago.

Many communities already struggling to maintain old, outdated drinking water systems also face new requirements to replace lead service line s and reduce per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively known as PFAS.

The bipartisan infrastructure bill helped complete or start “a lot of really important projects,” said Scott Berry, director of policy and governmental affairs at the US Water Alliance. “But the gap has widened so much over the last couple of decades that a lot, lot more investment is going to be needed.”

The bill also provided billions to help the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers upgrade inland waterways, which move roughly $150 billion in commerce every year, improving the grade from a D-plus to a C-minus.

FILE – A bridge along Interstate 26 is destroyed in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Oct. 4, 2024, in Erwin, Tenn. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

Barges on the Mississippi River, for example, carry enormous amounts of coal, soybeans, corn and other raw materials to international markets. But critical infrastructure like locks and dams — many built more than a half-century ago and requiring regular maintenance and repair — is often invisible to the public, making it easy to neglect, said Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition.

And when big projects are funded, it too often comes in stages, he said. That forces projects to pause until more money is appropriated, driving up costs for materials and labor.

“If we really want to make the taxpayer dollars stretch further, you have got to be able to bring a greater degree of predictability and reliability in how you fund these projects,” he said.

The report’s focus on engineering and money misses the importance of adopting policies that could improve how people use and pay for infrastructure, according to Clifford Winston, a microeconomist in the Brookings Institution’s economic studies program.

“You fail to make the most efficient use of what you have,” said Winston. For example, he noted that congestion pricing like that recently adopted by New York City — charging people to drive in crowded areas — places the burden on frequent users and can pressure people to drive less, reducing the need for new bridges, tunnels and repairs.

Roads remain in chronically poor shape, receiving a D-plus compared to a D in the last report, despite $591 billion in investments since 2021.

Two categories, rail and energy, received lower grades. Disasters like the derailment of a train carrying dangerous chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio, in 2023 lowered rail’s previous B mark to a B-minus.

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The energy sector, stressed by surging demand from data centers and electric vehicles, got a D-plus, down from C-minus.

Engineers say problems in many sectors have festered for so long that the nation must figure out how to address the shortcomings now or pay for them when systems fail.

On Wednesday, a delegation of engineers will visit Washington to talk to lawmakers about the funding impacts and “the importance of continuing that investment,” said Olson, who said the needs are a bipartisan issue.

“When we talk about it in ways of how better infrastructure saves the American family money, how better infrastructure supports economic growth, we’re really confident that … there is strong support,” he said.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

New Gophers men’s basketball coach coach Niko Medved will earn $1 million more than what previous U coach Ben Johnson made last season, according to the U’s memorandum of understanding shared Tuesday.

Medved, who was hired Monday, will receive an annual base salary of $400,000, plus $2.6 million in annual supplemental pay for a total compensation of $3 million, with an annual escalator in supplemental pay of $100,000, according to the U memo shared with the Pioneer Press via a data request. Medved’s full contract will needs Board of Regent approval.

Johnson received $2 million last season, per his contract. Johnson was the lowest-paid coach in the Big Ten Conference last season.

Medved was earning $1.7 million at Colorado State before taking the Minnesota job.

This story will be updated.

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By KELVIN CHAN, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — A magazine journalist’s account of being added to a group chat of U.S. national security officials coordinating plans for airstrikes has raised questions about how highly sensitive information is supposed to be handled.

Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg detailed a discussion that happened over the Signal messaging app hours before strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen order by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The National Security Council has since said the text chain “appears to be authentic” and that it is looking into how a journalist’s number was added to the chain.

Here’s a look at the app in question.

What is Signal?

It’s an app that can be used for direct messaging and group chats as well as phone and video calls.

Signal uses end-to-end encryption for its messaging and calling services that prevents any third-party from viewing conversation content or listening in on calls.

In other words, messages and calls sent on Signal are scrambled and only the sender and recipient at each end will have the key to decipher them.

Signal’s encryption protocol is open source, meaning that it’s freely available for anyone to inspect, use or modify. The encryption protocol is also used by another popular chat service, social media company Meta’s WhatsApp platform.

Encryption on Signal is turned on by default, unlike another popular messaging app, Telegram, which requires users to turn it on and does not make it available for group chats.

Signal has features that are found on other messaging apps. It allows users to host group chats with up to 1,000 people and messages can be set to automatically disappear after a certain time.

Is it secure?

Signal touts the privacy of its service — and experts agree it is more secure than conventional texting.

But it could be hacked.

Government officials have used Signal for organizational correspondence, such as scheduling sensitive meetings, but in the Biden administration, people who had permission to download it on their White House-issued phones were instructed to use the app sparingly, according to a former national security official who served in the administration.

The official, who requested anonymity to speak about methods used to share sensitive information, said Signal was most commonly used to notify someone that they should check for a classified message sent through other means.

Beyond concerns about security, Signal and other similar apps may allow users to skirt open records laws. Without special archiving software, the messages frequently aren’t returned under public information requests.

In the Atlantic article, Goldberg wrote that some messages were set to disappear after one week and some after four.

Do other government officials use Signal?

Encrypted messaging apps are increasingly popular with government officials, according to a recent Associated Press review.

State, local and federal officials in nearly every state have accounts on encrypted messaging apps, according to the review, which found many of those accounts registered to government cellphone numbers. Some were also registered to personal numbers.

Who’s behind Signal?

The app’s origins date back more than a decade, when it was set up by an entrepreneur who goes by the name Moxie Marlinspike, who was briefly head of product security at Twitter after he sold his mobile security startup to the social media company. Marlinspike merged two existing open source apps, one for texting and one for voice calls, to create Signal.

The nonprofit Signal Foundation was set up in 2018 to support the app’s operations as well as “investigate the future of private communication,” according to the foundation’s website. The foundation says it is a 501c3 nonprofit “with no advertisers or investors, sustained only by the people who use and value it.”

The foundation’s board has five members, including Brian Acton, who cofounded WhatsApp and donated $50 million to set up the foundation.

Associated Press writers Tara Copp, Aamer Madhani and Eric Tucker contributed to this report from Washington.

By SYLVIE CORBET and JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — French actor Gérard Depardieu acknowledged Tuesday that he used crude and heated language around a woman who accuses him of sexual assault and grabbed her hips but denied assaulting her, as he testified for the first time at his landmark trial in Paris.

She told the court that he’d behaved “like a madman” who took “pleasure in frightening me.”

Day 2 of the Paris trial centered on the Oscar-nominated actor’s behavior during the filming in 2021 of “Les Volets Verts” (“The Green Shutters”), where two co-workers allege that he groped them on the set.

Actor Gerard Depardieu, left, arrives at his trial for the alleged sexual assaults of two women on a film set in 2021, with his lawyer Jeremie Assous ,Tuesday, March 25, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

The 76-year-old has denied assaulting the women. But during more than an hour of testimony Tuesday in a packed Paris court, Depardieu acknowledged that he had used vulgar and sexualized language with one of the plaintiffs, a 54-year-old set dresser, and grabbed her hips during an on-set argument about the artistic merits of a painting.

Depardieu said he’d been in a “bad mood” because the set was hot, which was hard for him because he is overweight.

“I understand perfectly if she’s a bit upset,” he said in his gruff, deep voice so familiar to cinemagoers. “I don’t have to talk like that, get angry like that, voilà.”

But he insisted that he isn’t a sexual predator. “I’m not touching the butts of women,” Depardieu said.

The actor faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $81,000 if convicted. The verdict isn’t expected immediately after the trial.

Plaintiff details alleged assault

The set dresser testified after Depardieu. She described the alleged assault in detail, saying the actor pincered her between his legs as she squeezed past him in a narrow corridor.

She said he grabbed her hips then started “palpating” her behind and “in front, around.” She ran her hands near her buttocks, hips and pubic area to show what she allegedly experienced. She said he then reached for and grabbed her chest.

A plaintiff arrives as actor Gerard Depardieu face his trial for the alleged sexual assaults of two women on a film set in 2021, with his lawyer Jeremie Assous ,Tuesday, March 25, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

“That’s when I had a reflex of ‘My God.’ I tried to free myself, I tried to take his hands away, I couldn’t do it,” she testified. “He terrified me, he laughed, he looked like a madman.”

“It was very brief, there was no shouting,” she said, adding that she’d been too “petrified” to speak and that he was too strong for her to break free. She said someone came and removed Depardieu’s hands from her.

“I saw in his eyes a pleasure in frightening me, that’s what I felt, it’s savagery,” she said. “He terrified me, and that amused him.”

She said Depardieu’s calm and cooperative attitude in court bore no resemblance to his behavior at work.

“Here, he’s exemplary, he doesn’t move, he’s quiet, he doesn’t make any noise,” she said. “He’s not like that on the film set: He gesticulates, he grunts, he makes remarks to women.”

On the movie set, “he started saying sexual things, talking about his sexual capabilities,” she said.

The second plaintiff, a 34-year-old who worked as an assistant on the film, is yet to testify.

Depardieu acknowledges boorish behavior

Because of Depardieu’s fame and impact on the French movie industry, his trial is seen as an important test of French willingness to confront sexual violence and hold influential men accountable.

His long and storied career — he told that court that he’s made more than 250 movies — has turned him into a giant of the French movie industry. French President Emmanuel Macron has included himself among Depardieu’s many admirers, calling him a “great actor” who “makes France proud.” That was in 2023, when the star was already facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

In his testimony, Depardieu said he’d noticed that the set dresser had been taken aback by his behavior and language. He acknowledged that he sometimes has a potty mouth and that his behavior can be boorish.

“I’ve always been told I have a Russian nature, I don’t know if it’s because of the drinking or the vulgarity,” he said. “I have said in black and white that I am a disgusting slob.”

But he said he “never, ever” would have pincered a woman between his legs against her will.

“I’m not like that,” he said.