By JESSE BEDAYN, Associated Press

President Donald Trump’s administration has begun terminating grants to organizations that enforce the Fair Housing Act by taking complaints, investigating and litigating housing discrimination cases for Americans across the country, according to a document and information obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.

The grants are disbursed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to private nonprofits, which act as the frontline enforcement of the federal anti-discrimination law. They educate communities on their rights, test whether a landlord is racially discriminating, investigate complaints, resolve disputes and can fund legal counsel.

Of some 34,000 fair housing complaints lodged in the U.S. in 2023, these private nonprofits processed 75%, according to a report from the National Fair Housing Alliance. The rest were fielded by state and local governments, with HUD and the U.S. Department of Justice working on less than 6% combined.

Related Articles

Iowa’s governor signs a bill removing gender identity protections from the state’s civil rights code

Trump administration approves major nearly $3 billion arms sale to Israel

What Trump’s order making English the official language in the US could mean

What they said: Trump, Zelenskyy and Vance’s heated argument in the Oval Office

What US lawmakers are saying about the White House clash between Trump and Zelenskyy

It’s the highest number of complaints since the first report in the 1990s, and over half were lodged for discrimination based on a disability.

Of the 162 active grants going to the private nonprofits to do that work, nearly half are slated for cancellation, said Nikitra Bailey, executive vice president at the National Fair Housing Alliance. Bailey added that some organizations rely entirely on the grants and may have to shutter, others will have to lay off staff.

“It’s doing it at a time when Americans want to see an end to the barrage of rising housing costs and a lack of housing supply,” said Bailey. “They need increased support and intervention from our federal government, not a withdrawal from basic civil rights.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for HUD said: “The Department is responsible for ensuring our grantees and contractors are in compliance with the President’s Executive Orders. If we determine they are not in compliance, then we are required to take action. The Department will continue to serve the American people, including those are facing housing discrimination or eviction.”

In a termination letter, a copy of which was obtained by the AP, HUD said that the cancellations were at the direction of Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, called DOGE, run partly by billionaire Elon Musk.

The grants intended for fair housing enforcement are largely worth $425,000, an amount which is typically issued annually to organizations.

The letters caused widespread confusion across the country late Thursday night, as fair housing organizations started communicating through listservs, assessing the potential impacts and trying to find answers.

One of the organizations slated to lose funding, Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit, fields about 200 to 300 fair housing complaints a year and works broadly to resolve housing related problems, such as disputes with landlords, with a coverage area of some 4 million people.

“It’s a significant threat to the viability of our organization at a minimum,” said Steve Tomkowiak, the group’s executive director. “It can threaten the survival of any of the fair housing enforcement organizations.”

For Kimberly Merchant, CEO of Mississippi Center for Justice, the kneecapping of fair housing groups, or their disappearance altogether, would be “open season to discriminate indiscriminately without having to worry about being checked.”

Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

By HANNAH FINGERHUT, Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa became the first U.S. state to remove gender identity protections from its civil rights code on Friday when Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law a bill that opponents say will expose transgender people and other Iowans to discrimination in all aspects of daily life.

The new law, which goes into effect July 1, follows several years of action from Reynolds and Iowa Republicans to restrict transgender students’ use of such spaces as bathrooms and locker rooms, and their participation on sports teams, in an effort to protect people assigned female at birth. Republicans say those policies cannot co-exist with a civil rights code that includes gender identity protections.

The law passed quickly after first being introduced last week. It also creates explicit legal definitions of female and male based on their reproductive organs at birth, rejecting the idea that a person can transition to another gender. Reynolds proposed a similar bill last year, but it didn’t make it to a vote of the full House or Senate.

Reynolds posted a video on social media explaining her signature on the bill and acknowledging that it was a “sensitive issue for some.”

“It’s common sense to acknowledge the obvious biological differences between men and women. In fact, it’s necessary to secure genuine equal protection for women and girls,” she said, adding that the previous civil rights code “blurred the biological line between the sexes.”

Related Articles

Trump administration approves major nearly $3 billion arms sale to Israel

What Trump’s order making English the official language in the US could mean

What they said: Trump, Zelenskyy and Vance’s heated argument in the Oval Office

What US lawmakers are saying about the White House clash between Trump and Zelenskyy

Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, acknowledges the pope’s criticism of US immigration crackdown

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office to formalize a definition of the two sexes at the federal level, leading several Republican-led legislatures to push for laws defining male and female. Trump posted in support of the Iowa bill on his Truth Social platform Thursday after it got final approval from the Iowa House and Senate.

Five House Republicans joined all Democrats in the House and Senate in voting against the bill. Iowa state Rep. Aime Wichtendahl was the final Democrat to speak before the vote, wiping away tears as she offered her personal story as a transgender woman, saying: “I transitioned to save my life.”

“The purpose of this bill and the purpose of every anti-trans bill is to further erase us from public life and to stigmatize our existence,” Wichtendahl said. “The sum total of every anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bill is to make our existence illegal.”

Hundreds of LGBTQ+ advocates streamed into the Capitol rotunda on Thursday waving signs reading “Trans rights are human rights” and chanting slogans including, “No hate in our state!” There was a heavy police presence, with state troopers stationed around the rotunda. The few protesters who lingered for final passage of the bill were emotional.

Not every state includes gender identity in their civil rights code, but Iowa is now the first in the U.S. to remove nondiscrimination protections based on gender identity, said Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights think tank.

Sexual orientation and gender identity were not originally included in the state’s Civil Rights Act of 1965. They were added by the Democratic-controlled Legislature in 2007, also with the support of about a dozen Republicans across the two chambers.

The House Republican moving the bill Thursday, Rep. Steven Holt, said that if the Legislature can add protections, it can remove them.

As of July 1, Iowa’s civil rights law will protect against discrimination based on race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin or disability status.

Iowa’s Supreme Court has expressly rejected the argument that discrimination based on sex includes discrimination based on gender identity.

Advocacy groups promise to defend transgender rights, which may lead them to court.

Keenan Crow, director of policy and advocacy for LGBTQ+ advocacy group One Iowa, said the organization is still analyzing the text of the bill and that its vagueness makes it “hard to determine where the enforcement is going to come from.”

“We will pursue any legal options available to us,” Crow said.

The fact that Max Brosmer was standing there answering questions at the 2025 NFL Combine in Indianapolis wasn’t lost on him.

“You grow up watching this stuff,” Brosmer said. “I get to stand up here at this podium and do it myself so it’s been an incredible experience so far.”

This setting didn’t always seem like it was going to be in the cards. A lightly recruited quarterback out of Centennial High School in Roswell, Georgia, Brosmer played collegiately at the FCS level, starring for New Hampshire before ultimately transferring to the Gophers.

That decision changed his life as Brosmer put together a campaign that will go down among the best in program history.

The stats speak for themselves as he completed 66.5 percent of his passes for 2,828 yards and 18 touchdowns, showing off a feathery touch on short, intermediate, and deep routes, not to mention a swagger that made everybody around him better.

In the end, the Gophers finished with an 8-5 record, capping it off with a 24-10 win over Virginia Tech in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.

“It took us a few games to get going,” Brosmer said. “We had a really good stretch in the middle of the season this year and did some cool things.”

That helped Brosmer earn an invite to the NFL Combine, where he has spent this week trying to put his best foot forward throughout the interview process, while also making sure to soak in the moment.

“My goal is to be as vulnerable as possible,” Brosmer said. “Just let teams know exactly what they’re getting in me.”

Related Articles

If the Vikings franchise tag Sam Darnold, who are their potential trade partners?

Will the Vikings finally take a defensive tackle in the first round?

Trey Smith is off the market. Which guards will the Vikings target in free agency?

Will Vikings hand keys over to J.J. McCarthy? Intel from the NFL Combine

Here’s how the Vikings compared to their peers in annual NFLPA report cards

Some prognosticators have predicted that Brosmer could be selected on Day 3 of the 2025 NFL Draft. If that ends up happening, Brosmer would be the first Gophers quarterback drafted since 1972 when Craig Curry was selected by the Miami Dolphins.

Though he won’t compete in any of the drills on Saturday afternoon at Lucas Oil Stadium, Brosmer intends to participate in the throwing portion. That will give him a chance to showcase his skill set in front if scouts from every team across the NFL.

“I had my own adventure and my own journey as everybody else does to get here,” Brosmer said. “Just taking that with a grain of salt a little bit and understanding I’m very grateful to be where I’m at now.”

Police are investigating an attempted carjacking that led to gunfire on Thursday night in the Hamline-Midway area of St. Paul.

Shortly after 8:30 p.m., officers were called to an attempted carjacking in the 1400 block of Blair Avenue, according to Nikki Muehlhausen, a St. Paul police spokesperson.

Shots were fired in an attempted carjacking in St. Paul on Thursday night. (Courtesy of Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

When officers arrived on scene, the driver reported that three people, two of them armed, had attempted to steal their vehicle. One of the suspects reportedly fired two shots into the vehicle as they fled the scene. Nobody was injured.

The incident was detailed in Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher’s “Live on Patrol” Facebook page in a post called, “Lucky to be alive!”:

“A young man was dropping his college friends off in the 1400 block of Blair last night when three suspects approached him and demanded his vehicle. He refused and drove away only to hear two shots strike his car. One narrowly missed him. You can see the entrance hole on the back window and the exit hole in the center of the windshield. Too close. The three suspects fled west on foot.”

Related Articles

St. Paul man charged in fatal stabbing of wife in city’s first homicide of 2025

Skywatch: Absolute perfection

Petitioners seek first-degree murder charges in killing of Minnesota transgender man

Woodbury teen killed in Friday crash ‘so beloved’ by all who knew her

No evidence NY killing of transgender MN man was hate crime, authorities say