By MATTHEW LEE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has identified a host of athletic competitions it classifies as “major sporting events” — aside from soccer’s 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games — that athletes and coaches will be allowed to travel to the U.S. to take part in despite a broad visa ban on nearly 40 countries.

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In a cable sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates Wednesday, the State Department said athletes, coaches and support staff for the World Cup, the Olympics and events endorsed or run by a long list of collegiate and professional sporting leagues and associations would not be subject to the full and partial travel bans that apply to citizens of 39 countries and the Palestinian Authority.

However, the cable made clear that foreign spectators, media and corporate sponsors planning to attend the same events would still be banned unless they qualify for another exemption.

“Only a small subset of travelers for the World Cup, Olympics and Paralympics, and other major sporting events will qualify for the exception,” it said.

President Donald Trump’s administration has issued a series of immigration and travel bans as well as other visa restrictions as part of ongoing efforts to tighten U.S. entry standards for foreigners. At the same time, the administration has been looking to ensure that athletes, coaches and fans are able to attend major sporting events in the U.S.

Trump’s Dec. 16 proclamation banning the issuance of visas to the 39 countries and the Palestinian Authority had carved out an exception for athletes and staff competing in the World Cup, the Olympics and other major sporting events. It delegated a decision on which other sporting events would be covered to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Wednesday’s cable lists the events that are covered, including “all competitions and qualifying events” for the Olympic Games, Paralympic Games, Pan-American Games, and Para Pan-American Games; events hosted, sanctioned or recognized by a U.S. National Governing Body; all competitions and qualifying events for the Special Olympics; and official events and competitions hosted or endorsed by FIFA, soccer’s governing body, or its confederations.

The exemption also will cover official events and competitions hosted by the International Military Sports Council, the International University Sports Federation and the National Collegiate Athletic Association as well as those hosted or endorsed by U.S. professional sports leagues such as the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Women’s National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and Little League, National Hockey League, Professional Women’s Hockey League, NASCAR, Formula 1, the Professional Golf Association, Ladies Professional Golf Association, LIV Golf, Major League Rugby, Major League Soccer, World Wrestling Entertainment, Ultimate Fighting Championship and All Elite Wrestling.

The cable said other events and leagues could be added to the list.

Of the 39 countries, a full travel ban applies to Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and people with Palestinian Authority-issued passports.

A partial ban is in place for citizens of Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burundi, Cuba, Dominica, Gabon, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Mauritania, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Togo, Venezuela, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Attorney General Ellison launched a form on a website where Minnesotans can report on impacts of the federal actions in the state.

Residents can report on incidents that have impacted them or those close to them or things they have witnessed, according to the state Attorney General’s Office.

“These incident reports may be critical in supporting Attorney General’s Office actions defending and enforcing Minnesota’s laws and defending the State of Minnesota against actions that violate the State’s rights under the Constitution and applicable federal law,” according to a statement from the office.

The form can be accessed at ag.state.mn.us/Federal-Action.

President Donald Trump’s administration has significantly boosted immigration enforcement in Minnesota in recent weeks. Last week, Secretary of Homeland Security Krist Noem announced her agency would be sending 2,000 federal agents to the Twin Cities for enforcement actions.

According to the Attorney General’s Office incidents that can be reported include “violations of constitutional rights (racial profiling, excessive force, retaliation against protestors, observers, and media), business closures, reduced healthcare access, reduced education access, other issues impacting public safety and civil liberties, federal funding cuts, federal grant terminations, terms and conditions tied to federal program participation, other administrative actions by federal agencies.”

Ellison said the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other federal law enforcement groups “has done tremendous harm to the people of Minnesota.”

“I urge those who have personally experienced or directly witnessed that harm to share their stories with my office,” Ellison said in a statement. “What’s most useful to my office right now are experiences that are specific and as detailed and direct as possible. In order to highlight certain impacts in Court, we may need to speak with eyewitnesses or those directly involved, rather than just collecting stories you have heard secondhand. My team and I will use these stories and experiences to assist in our ongoing fight to end the federal surge in Minnesota and the chaos, pain, and violence it has caused.”

Submissions may be used in the state’s ongoing lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seeking to end Operation Metro Surge.

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The office is asking that those submitting reports “not share rumors, media reports, secondhand information they cannot verify, or social media posts documenting experiences they did not witness or personally experience.”

Furthermore, the Attorney General’s Office noted in its statement that it can’t provide legal representation for those in immigration-related matters or provide references for private attorneys who do so, so the office also asks individuals not submit such requests.

By DEVI SHASTRI

Wastewater testing can alert public health officials to measles infections days to months before cases are confirmed by doctors, researchers said in two studies published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Colorado health officials were able to get ahead of the highly contagious virus by tracking its presence in sewer systems, researchers wrote. And Oregon researchers found wastewater could have warned them of an outbreak more than two months before the first person tested positive.

The findings add to evidence that wastewater testing is a valuable weapon in tracking disease, including COVID-19, polio, mpox and bird flu.

But the national wastewater surveillance system, run by CDC since 2020, is newly at risk, under a Trump administration budget plan would slash its funding from about $125 million a year to about $25 million.

Peggy Honein, director of the CDC’s division of infectious disease readiness and innovation, said the proposed funding level would “sustain some of the most critical activities” but “it would likely require some prioritization.”

The national system covers more than 1,300 wastewater treatment sites serving 147 million people. It includes six “centers for excellence” — Colorado among them — that innovate and support other states in expanding their testing.

States brace for cuts

The funding cut is still a proposal, and Congress has started pushing back against cuts to health care in general.

But state health departments say they are preparing for a potential loss of federal support regardless. Most state programs are entirely federally funded, Honein said.

Colorado started its wastewater surveillance program in 2020 with 68 utilities participating voluntarily. The program has since narrowed in its focus even as it grew to include more diseases, because it is 100% federally funded, said Allison Wheeler, manager of the Colorado’s wastewater surveillance unit.

The work is funded through 2029, Wheeler said, and the department is talking to state leaders about what to do after that.

“I know that there are other states that haven’t been as fortunate as us,” Wheeler said. “They need this funding in order to sustain their program for the next year.”

Measles found in wastewater before patients are diagnosed

In the Colorado study, which Wheeler co-authored, officials started testing wastewater for measles in May, as outbreaks in Texas, New Mexico and Utah were growing and five cases had been confirmed in Colorado.

In August, wastewater in Mesa County tested positive about a week before two measles cases were confirmed by a doctor. Neither patient knew that they had been exposed to measles. As they traced 225 household and health care contacts of the first two patients, health officials found five more cases.

In Oregon, researchers used preserved sewage samples from late 2024 to determine if sewage testing could have discovered a burgeoning outbreak.

The 30-case outbreak spanned two counties and hit a close-knit community that does not readily seek health care, the study’s authors wrote. The first case was confirmed on July 11 and it ultimately took health officials 15 weeks to stop the outbreak.

The researchers found that wastewater samples from the area were positive for measles about 10 weeks before the first cases were reported. The virus concentration in the wastewater over the weeks also matched the known peak of the outbreak.

“We knew that we were missing cases, and I think that’s always the case in measles outbreaks,” said Dr. Melissa Sutton, of the Oregon Health Authority. “But this gave us an insight into how much silent transmission was occurring without us knowing about it and without our health care system knowing about it.”

State see value in sewage tracking

Other states, such as Utah, have integrated wastewater data into their public-facing measles dashboards, allowing anyone to track outbreaks in real time.

And in New Mexico, where 100 people got measles last year and one died, the testing helped state health officials shrink a vast rural expanse. The state’s system flagged cases in northwestern Sandoval County while officials were focused on a massive outbreak 300 miles (483 kilometers) away in the southeast, said Kelley Plymesser, of the state health department.

The early warning allowed the department to alert doctors and the public, lower thresholds for testing and refocus their resources. The outbreak ended in September. But because measles continues to spread across the Southwest, the state is still using the system to look for new cases.

Sutton, of Oregon, said she’s hopeful federal leaders will see the power of the system, its adaptability, affordability and reach.

“The widespread use of wastewater surveillance in the United States is one of the greatest advancements in communicable disease surveillance in a generation,” she said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By SAFIYAH RIDDLE, REBECCA SANTANA and GRAHAM LEE BREWER

The president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe has walked back claims he made in a memo and press release earlier this week that immigration enforcement arrested four tribal members and that the federal government tried to extract an “immigration agreement” out of the tribe in return for information about their members’ whereabouts.

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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it can’t verify claims that any of their officers arrested or “even encountered” members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe or found anyone in their detention centers claiming to be a tribal member. They denied asking the tribe for any kind of agreement.

Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out has not responded to repeated requests for comment, including after his updated memo was released on Thursday.

The accusations of arrests came at a time when many Native Americans are already concerned over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda and racial profiling by federal agents ensnaring them as well, and as some tribes have grappled with whether to engage in agreements with DHS tied to the crackdown.

Star Comes Out said Tuesday in a message on Facebook that the men were arrested in Minneapolis, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement has launched its biggest operation ever and is increasingly clashing with protesters and residents angry at the agency’s tactics.

Star Comes Out also said that when the tribe reached out about the arrests, “federal officials told us that the Tribe could access that information if we entered an immigration agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”

But in the memo Thursday, Star Comes Out said his earlier statement had been “misinterpreted” and that there was no such demand from federal officials. He said the tribe had been in “cooperative communications” with federal officials about the issue and that federal officials had said that “one option for the Tribe to have easier access to information is to enter into an immigration agreement” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and DHS. He did not specify what type of agreement.

He also said the tribe was “working with Tribal, State, and Federal officials to verify” reports that tribal members living in Minneapolis were arrested by ICE. Earlier in the week he said he had been “made aware that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained four Oglala Sioux tribal members in Minneapolis” and that the tribe had their first names. He called the arrests “a treaty violation.”

A series of ICE arrests of tribal citizens

The Department of Homeland Security pushed back, saying that they “have not uncovered any claims by individuals in our detention centers that they are members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe” and haven’t been able to verify that their officers arrested anyone from the tribe. They also denied asking for any type of agreement from the tribe in return for giving out information.

“ICE did NOT ask the tribe for any kind of agreement, we have simply asked for basic information on the individuals, such as names and date of birth so that we can run a proper check to provide them with the facts,” Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.

Last year, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said that several tribal citizens reported being stopped and detained by ICE officers in Arizona and New Mexico. He and other tribal leaders have advised their members to carry tribal IDs with them at all times.

Last November, Elaine Miles, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon and an actress known for her roles in “Northern Exposure” and “The Last of Us,” said she was stopped by ICE officers in Washington state who told her that her tribal ID looked fake.

A member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in Arizona was arrested in Iowa in November and was mistakenly slated to be turned over the ICE before the error was caught and she was released, according to local media reports.

Recent clashes between Kristi Noem and Native American reservations

There is a history of tension between the Oglala Sioux and DHS that dates back to when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was governor of South Dakota. In 2024, Star Comes Out banned Noem from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota after Noem said — without evidence — that cartels were infiltrating reservations in the state.

During her time as governor, Noem was banned from most of the nine reservations in the state.

Noem told federal lawmakers that a gang calling itself the Ghost Dancers was affiliated with drug cartels and was committing murder on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Star Comes Out said at the time that he took deep offense at her reference, saying the Ghost Dance is one of the Oglala Sioux’s “most sacred ceremonies,” and was used by Noem “with blatant disrespect and is insulting to our Oyate,” using the Lakota word for “people” or “nation.”

At the time Noem said Star Comes Out’s decision was “unfortunate” and that her focus was on working together.

Controversial collaborations with immigration agencies

The controversy between the Oglala Sioux Tribe and ICE comes as some Native American tribes with contracts with Homeland Security are rethinking those agreements.

A tribal business entity associated with the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation ended a nearly $30 million federal contract signed in October to come up with an early design for immigrant detention centers across the U.S, after the deal was derided online as “disgusting” and “cruel” by tribe members. Many questioned how a tribe whose own ancestors were uprooted two centuries ago from the Great Lakes region and corralled on a reservation south of Topeka could participate in the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.

In Alaska, Indigenous shareholders penned an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News advocating that the Bering Straits Native Corporation — owned by thousands of Native American shareholders in Alaska — divest from all immigration detention centers across the country.

A spokesperson for the company didn’t respond to an e-mailed request for comment.