Ellen Mueller and Sarah Evenson are 2025 McKnight Book Artist Fellows, announced Saturday by the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. Each will receive $25,000 in unrestricted funds to explore and deepen their art practices.

Mueller is an interdisciplinary artist who examines how capitalist systems affect everyday life, with a focus on environmental issues, according to a release from MCBA. Evenson is a gay, transgender artist whose work highlights themes of resistance, queer joy and the strength and creative potential of the transgender body.

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MILAN (AP) — Sicily’s Mount Etna put on a fiery show Monday, sending a cloud of smoke and ash several kilometers (miles) into the air, but officials said the activity posed no danger to the population.

The level of alert due to the volcanic activity was raised at the Catania airport, but no immediate interruptions were reported. An official update declared the ash cloud emission had ended by the afternoon.

Italy’s INGV National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said the spectacle on Europe’s most active volcano was caused when part of the southeast crater collapsed, resulting in hot lava flows. It was the 14th eruptive phase in recent months.

The area of danger was confined to the summit of Etna, which was closed to tourists as a precaution, according to Stefano Branca, an INGV official in Catania.

Sicily’s president, Renato Schifani, said lava flows emitted in the eruption had not passed the natural containment area, “and posed no danger to the population.”

The event was captured in video and photos that went viral on social media. Tremors from the eruption were widely felt in the towns and villages on Mount Etna’s flanks, Italian media reported.

Video showed tourists running along a path on the flank of the vast volcano with smoke billowing some distance in the background. Excursions are popular on Etna, which is some 11,000 feet high, with a surface area of about 460 square miles.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A widely anticipated list of “ sanctuary jurisdictions” no longer appears on the Department of Homeland Security’s website after receiving widespread criticism for including localities that have actively supported the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies.

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The department last week published the list of the jurisdictions. It said each one would receive formal notification the government deemed them uncooperative with federal immigration enforcement and whether they’re believed to be in violation of any federal criminal statutes.

The list was published Thursday on the department’s website but on Sunday there was a “Page Not Found” error message in its place.

The list was part of the Trump administration’s efforts to target communities, states and jurisdictions that it says aren’t doing enough to help its immigration enforcement agenda and the promises the president made to deport more than 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal authorization.

The list is being constantly reviewed and can be changed at any time and will be updated regularly, a DHS senior official said.

“Designation of a sanctuary jurisdiction is based on the evaluation of numerous factors, including self-identification as a Sanctuary Jurisdiction, noncompliance with Federal law enforcement in enforcing immigration laws, restrictions on information sharing, and legal protections for illegal aliens,” the official said in a statement.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that there had been anger from some officials about the list. However, she didn’t address why it was removed.

FILE – Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is recognized as President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House, April 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

“Some of the cities have pushed back,” Noem said. “They think because they don’t have one law or another on the books that they don’t qualify, but they do qualify. They are giving sanctuary to criminals.”

The list, which was riddled with misspellings, received pushback from officials in communities spanning from urban to rural and blue to red who said the list doesn’t appear to make sense.

In California, the city of Huntington Beach made the list even though it had filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s immigration sanctuary law and passed a resolution this year declaring the community a “non-sanctuary city.”

Jim Davel, administrator for Shawano County, Wisconsin, said the inclusion of his community must have been a clerical error. Davel voted for Trump as did 67% of Shawano County.

Davel thinks the administration may have confused the county’s vote in 2021 to become a “Second Amendment Sanctuary County” that prohibits gun control measures with it being a safe haven for immigrants. He said the county has approved no immigration sanctuary policies.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A split Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge to a state ban on assault weapons, semiautomatic rifles that are popular among gun owners and that have also been used in multiple mass shootings.

The majority did not explain its reasoning in turning down the case, as is typical. But three conservative justices on the nine-member court publicly noted their disagreement, and a fourth said he is skeptical that such bans are constitutional.

Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have taken the case, and Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to say the law likely runs afoul of the Second Amendment.

“I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America,” Thomas wrote. “That question is of critical importance to tens of millions of law-abiding AR–15 owners throughout the country.”

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Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the decision to pass on the case now, but he said that he is skeptical that such bans are constitutional and that he expects the court will address the issue “in the next term or two.”

The Maryland law was passed after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that killed 20 children and six adults. The shooter was armed with an AR-15, one of the firearms commonly referred to as an assault weapon.

Several states have similar measures, and congressional Democrats have also supported the concept. The challengers had argued that people have a constitutional right to own the firearms like the AR-15.

The case comes three years after the high court handed down a landmark ruling that expanded Second Amendment rights and spawned challenges to firearm laws around the country.

Ten states and the District of Columbia have similar laws, covering major cities like New York and Los Angeles. Congress allowed a national assault weapons ban to expire in 2004.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.