By JOCELYN GECKER and LINLEY SANDERS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A majority of U.S. adults disapprove of President Donald Trump’s handling of issues related to colleges and universities, according to a new poll, as his administration ramps up threats to cut federal funding unless schools comply with his political agenda.

More than half of Americans, 56%, disapprove of the Republican president’s approach on higher education, the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds, while about 4 in 10 approve, in line with his overall job approval.

Since taking office in January, Trump has tried to force change at universities he says have become hotbeds of liberalism and antisemitism. The spotlight most recently has been on Harvard University, where Trump’s administration has frozen more than $2.2 billion in federal grants, threatened to strip the school’s tax-exempt status, and demanded broad policy changes.

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in front of the West Wing of the White House, Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Trump administration also has cut off money to other elite colleges, including Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University, over issues including the handling of pro-Palestinian activism and transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports. Harvard has framed the government’s demands as a threat to the autonomy that the Supreme Court has long granted American universities.

The poll shows a disconnect between the Trump administration’s targeting of universities and an American public that sees them as key to scientific research, new ideas and innovative technology. About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say colleges and universities make more of a positive contribution to medical and scientific research than a negative one, and a similar share favors maintaining federal funding for scientific research.

“Let’s talk about Harvard for a minute,” said Freddy Ortega, 66, a Democrat and a retired military veteran in Columbus, Georgia. “The way he took away all that money in funding, impacting things that Harvard has been working on for the betterment of the world.”

“One man should not have that much power,” Ortega continued. “This is something for Congress to deal with.”

Ortega, who’s Hispanic, also said he’s concerned about Trump’s attempts to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs across U.S. society. “I came up in the military. I know the good that those programs do,” he said. “It changes the direction that people’s lives are going to take.”

Republicans are divided on cuts to colleges’ federal funding

Trump’s stance on higher education resonates more strongly with Republicans, most of whom see college campuses as places where conservatives are silenced and liberal ideas run unchecked. About 8 in 10 Republicans approve of how Trump is handling issues related to colleges and universities — which, notably, is higher than the share of Republicans, 70%, who approve of his handling of the economy — and about 6 in 10 say they’re “extremely” or “very” concerned about liberal bias on campus.

Republicans are more divided, however, on withholding federal funding from schools unless they bow to Trump’s demands. About half are in favor, while about one-quarter are opposed and a similar share are neutral.

“I’m all for it,” said Republican voter Hengameh Abraham, 38, a mother of two in Roseville, California. She supports cutting federal funds and opposes DEI programs, saying she emigrated to America from Iran as a teenager and worked hard to get ahead in school without the help of affirmative action programs.

“Your racial identity, nationality and background should not be a factor in getting accepted to college or getting a job,” said Abraham. She supports Trump’s focus on campus antisemitism. When pro-Palestinian protests swept U.S. colleges last year, some of the demonstrators’ messaging was anti-U.S., she said.

“I do not think if you have any kind of anti-American agenda or slogan that you should be allowed on a university campus in the United States,” she said.

Students, faculty and members of the Harvard University community rally, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo)

In Harvard’s case, Trump has threatened to remove its tax-exempt status, and his administration has implemented funding cuts. Those measures are divisive among the general public: Nearly half oppose withholding federal funding as a punitive action, while about one-quarter favor it. About one-quarter are neutral.

Charles Jolivette, 43, a college career counselor who lives in New Orleans, sees Trump’s education policies as an attack on free speech and people of color.

“Not only is the president going after anyone he feels is an opponent and anyone who is not compliant, but he’s attacking some of the most important elements of our society,” said Jolivette, a Democrat. “It’s rampant bullying from the president of the United States, who is supposed to be crossing the aisle.”

The cost of tuition far outweighs other concerns

A top concern of most Americans is the cost of a college degree. About 6 in 10 U.S. adults are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the cost of tuition. That concern is shared by majorities of Democrats and Republicans and far outweighs concerns about antisemitism and liberal bias on campuses among the general public.

“College costs a lot more than it needs to. To get an education, you should not have to break your pocketbook,” said Eunice Cortez, 68, a Republican near Houston.

Cortez, who’s originally from Mexico, did not go to college, but she made sure her U.S.-born children did and is proud that her grandchildren are getting college degrees. She supports Trump but is concerned that some of his policies, including funding cuts, will make it harder for people who need tuition aid to get an education. She sees it as the government “getting in the way” of an educated society.

The poll shows a divide between college-educated Americans and those without college degrees, highlighting a possible cultural rift that Trump has seized on in the past.

Most Americans with a college degree, 62%, are opposed to withholding funding from universities that don’t comply with the president’s requirements, while those without a college degree are split, with about 3 in 10 in favor, a similar share opposed, and about 4 in 10 saying they don’t have an opinion.

Kara Hansen, 40, a registered independent in Seminole, Oklahoma, is a few credits shy of a college degree. She supports the idea of dismantling the Education Department to shake things up. But she said she’s concerned by what she calls Trump’s “authoritarian tendencies” and a growing fear on college campuses to speak up and voice opinions.

“It feels like everybody has a muzzle on,” Hansen said. “They can’t fully express themselves because they’re afraid of getting in trouble, and afraid of Trump.”

About 3 in 10 U.S. adults say students or professors can freely speak their minds “a lot” on college and university campuses. About 4 in 10 say they can do this to “some” extent. Republicans feel their views are stifled: About 8 in 10 say liberals can speak their minds “a lot” or “some” on campus, but fewer than half say the same about conservatives.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,175 adults was conducted May 1-5, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Gecker reported from San Francisco.

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.

Minnesota United vs. Inter Miami

When: 3:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Allianz Field
Stream: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV
Radio: KSTP-AM, 1500
Weather: 76 degrees, sunny, 8 mph east wind
Betting line: MNUFC plus-125; draw plus-270; Miami plus-195

Form: MNUFC (5-2-4, 19 points) ended a three-match unbeaten skid with a 3-0 win at Austin FC last weekend. Miami (6-1-3, 21 points) bounced back from being ousted from CONCACAF Champions Cup to throttle New York Red Bulls 4-1 in MLS action last Saturday.

Recent matchups: Minnesota has played Miami only once since the Herons joined MLS in 2020; Inter won that match 2-1 in Fort Lauderdale in 2022.

Look-ahead: With MNUFC advancing to play St. Louis City in U.S. Open Cup’s round of 16 on May 21, the Loons will now play four consecutive Wednesdays — on top of MLS games each weekend through June 1. The busy stretch continues with a road trip to Houston on Wednesday.

Context: Messi-mania has arrived. One of the greatest players in soccer history, Lionel Messi, is expected to play in what might be the 37-year-old Argentine’s only match in Minnesota. He played 90 minutes and scored against RBNY last weekend.

RELATED FEATURE: Before Lionel Messi, Pele’s ‘aura’ captured Minnesota soccer fans in 1976

Check-in: Ticket prices for Saturday range from $230 in the supporters sections in the south end of the stadium to $1,100 for the premium areas at midfield and between the team’s dugouts, according to SeatGeek on Friday morning.

Absences: Hassani Dotson (knee), Owen Gene (ankle), Kipp Keller (hamstring) are out. Kelvin Yeboah (ankle) is questionable.

Big picture: Dotson has been moved to the season-ending injury list and without a contract beyond this year, the 2019 MLS draft pick might have played his final match for United.

Projected XI: In a 5-3-2 formation, FW Tani Oluwaseyi, FW Robin; MF Joaquin Pereyra, MF Wil Trapp, Carlos Harvey; LWB Joseph Rosales, CB Nicholas Romero, CB Michael Boxall, CB Jefferson Diaz, RWB Bongi Hlongwane; GK Dayne St. Clair.

Scouting report: Miami ranks within the top six in MLS in goals scored (20) and goals conceded (11). But it’s offense Minnesotan soccer aficionados will want to see out of Messi and Co., and what Eric Ramsay and associates will want to stop. Last year, Messi and Luis Suarez each scored 20 goals in MLS play. This year, Messi has four and Suarez two through 10 games. But Suarez is tied for MLS lead with six assists.

Prediction: Minnesota soccer supporters will will get their wish. Messi will impress — either scoring or creating a goal — but MNUFC will come out with the victory. Loons win 2-1.

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The final stage of jury selection for the racketeering and sex trafficking trial of hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was set to occur on Friday in Manhattan federal court.

Federal prosecutors and lawyers assembled in a courtroom to narrow a pool of 45 prospective jurors to 12 jurors and six alternates who will hear the two-month trial beginning on Monday.

For three days this week, would-be jurors were asked questions to help the judge and lawyers determine if they could be fair and impartial. And they were also questioned to ensure they could decide the case on the facts even after seeing explicit videos of sexual activity that some might find disturbing.

Combs, 55, pleaded not guilty to charges after his September arrest and has remained held without bail at a federal lockup in Brooklyn.

FILE – Music mogul and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs arrives at the Billboard Music Awards, May 15, 2022, in Las Vegas. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

On Friday, prosecutors were permitted to strike six prospective jurors from the jury while defense lawyers were permitted 10 strikes before the jury is finalized. Generally, lawyers do not have to explain why they are ejecting individuals from the panel. The process was expected to take about an hour.

If Combs is convicted on all charges, which include racketeering, kidnapping, arson, bribery and sex trafficking, he would face a mandatory 15 years in prison and could remain behind bars for life.

Prosecutors allege that the Bad Boy Records founder used his fame and power at the top of the hip-hop world to sexually abuse women from 2004 to 2024.

An indictment includes descriptions of “Freak Offs,” drugged-up orgies in which women were forced to have sex with male sex workers while Combs filmed them.

The charges against him also portray Combs as abusive to his victims, sometimes choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, often by the hair. Once, the indictment alleges, he even dangled someone from a balcony.

His lawyers contend that prosecutors are trying to criminalize sexual activity between consenting adults. They concede that Combs had abused various substances but say he has undergone treatment.

A centerpiece of the evidence against him are recordings of Combs beating a longtime girlfriend in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016.

After a video of the encounter aired on CNN last year, Combs apologized, saying, “I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.”

Numerous prospective jurors interviewed by Judge Arun Subramanian from Monday through Wednesday said they had seen the video and some were deemed to be too affected by it to be impartial and remain in the jury pool.

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Retired Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, the ascetic bachelor and New Hampshire Republican who became a darling of liberals during his nearly 20 years on the bench, has died. He was 85.

Souter died Thursday at his home in New Hampshire, the court said in a statement Friday.

He retired from the court in June 2009, giving President Barack Obama his first Supreme Court vacancy to fill. Obama, a Democrat, chose Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Latina justice.

Souter was appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1990. He was a reliably liberal vote on abortion, church-state relations, freedom of expression and the accessibility of federal courts. Souter also dissented from the decision in Bush v. Gore in 2000, which effectively handed the presidency to George W. Bush, the son of the man who put him on the high court.

In retirement, Souter warned that ignorance of how government works could undermine American democracy.

“What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough … some one person will come forward and say, ‘Give me total power and I will solve this problem.’ That is how the Roman republic fell,” Souter said in a 2012 interview.

His lifestyle was spare — yogurt and an apple, consumed at his desk, was a typical lunch — and he shunned Washington’s social scene. He couldn’t wait to leave town in early summer. As soon as the court finished its work in late June, he climbed into his Volkswagen Jetta for the drive back to the worn farmhouse where his family moved when he was 11.

Yet for all his reserve, Souter was beloved by colleagues, court employees and friends. He was a noted storyteller and generous with his time.

“Justice David Souter served our Court with great distinction for nearly twenty years. He brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service,” Chief Justice John Roberts said. Souter continued hearing cases on the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for more than a decade after he left the high court, Roberts said.

When Bush plucked Souter from obscurity in 1990, liberal interest groups feared he would be the vote that would undo the court’s Roe v. Wade ruling in favor of abortion rights. He was called a stealth nominee by some.

Bush White House aide John Sununu, the former conservative governor of New Hampshire, hailed his choice as a “home run.” And early in his time in Washington, Souter was called a moderate conservative.

But he soon joined in a ruling reaffirming woman’s right to an abortion, a decision from 1992 that is his most noted work on the court. Thirty years later, a more conservative court overturned that decision and the constitutional right to abortion.

Souter asked precise questions during argument sessions, sometimes with a fierceness that belied his low-key manner. “He had an unerring knack of finding the weakest link in your argument,” veteran Supreme Court advocate Carter Phillips said.

Souter was history’s 105th Supreme Court justice and only its sixth bachelor.

Although hailed by The Washington Post as the capital city’s most prominently eligible single man when he moved from New Hampshire, Souter resolutely resisted the social whirl.

“I wasn’t that kind of person before I moved to Washington, and, at this age, I don’t see any reason to change,” the intensely private Souter told an acquaintance.

He worked seven days a week through most of the court’s term from October to early summer, staying at his Supreme Court office for more than 12 hours a day. He said he underwent an annual “intellectual lobotomy” at the start of each term because he had so little time to read for pleasure.

Souter rented an apartment a few miles from the court and jogged alone at Fort McNair, an Army installation near his apartment building. He was once mugged while on a run, an apparently random act.

Souter returned to his well-worn house in Weare, New Hampshire, for a few months each summer and was given the use of an office in a Concord courthouse.

An avid hiker, Souter spent much of his time away from work trekking through the New Hampshire mountains.

When Souter in 2005 joined an unpopular 5-4 decision on eminent domain allowing a Connecticut city to take several waterfront homes for a private development, a group angered by the decision tried to use it to evict him from his Weare farmhouse to make way for the “Lost Liberty Hotel.” But Weare residents rejected the proposal.

Shortly after his retirement, Souter bought a 3,500-square-foot Cape Cod-style home in Hopkinton, New Hampshire. It was reported, though perhaps it was just part of Souter’s lore, that he worried that the foundation of the house in Weare would give way under the weight of all the books he owned.

Souter had been a federal appellate judge for just over four months when picked for the high court. He had heard but one case as a federal judge, and as a state judge previously had little chance to rule on constitutional issues.

Though liberals were initially wary of his appointment, it was political conservatives who felt betrayed when in two 1992 rulings Souter helped forge a moderate-liberal coalition that reaffirmed the constitutional right of abortion and the court’s longtime ban on officially sponsored prayers in public schools.

Yet as Souter biographer Tinsley Yarbrough noted, the justice did not take “extreme positions.”

Indeed, in June 2008, Souter sided with Exxon Mobil Corp. and broke with his liberal colleagues in slashing the punitive damages the company owed Alaskan victims of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Before serving as a New Hampshire judge, Souter was his state’s attorney general for two years. He worked on the attorney general’s staff the eight previous years, after a brief stint in private practice.

Souter earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University, and a master’s degree from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar Washington, D.C.

___

Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack contributed to this report from Concord, New Hampshire.