By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A new American airstrike campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels appears more intense and more extensive, as the U.S. moves from solely targeting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel as well as dropping bombs in city neighborhoods, an Associated Press review of the operation shows.

The pattern under U.S. President Donald Trump reflects a departure from the Biden administration, which limited its strikes as Arab allies tried to reach a separate peace with the group. It comes after the Iran-backed Houthis threatened to resume attacking “any Israeli vessel” and have repeatedly fired at Israel over the country’s refusal to allow aid into the Gaza Strip.

The Houthi attacks and the response to them have drawn new scrutiny in Washington after security officials in Trump’s administration shared plans for the first round of strikes on the rebels in a group chat that included a journalist. But bombing alone may not be enough to stop the Houthis, whose earlier barrage of missile fire toward the U.S. Navy represented the most intense combat it had seen since World War II.

“Folks that say, ‘We’ll go in there and take out everyone with the last name Houthi and we’ll win.’ The Houthi leadership has been taken out in history in the past, and they are resilient,” retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan said. “They came back and they grew stronger. So this isn’t something that is a one-and-done.”

Meanwhile, concerns are growing over civilians being caught in the middle of the campaign. While the U.S. military has not acknowledged any civilian casualties since the strikes began over a week ago, activists fear strikes may have killed noncombatants already in territory tightly controlled by the Houthis.

“Just because you can’t see civilian harm doesn’t mean it’s not happening,” warned Emily Tripp, the director of the U.K.-based group Airwars, which studies Western airstrike campaigns.

A new, intense U.S. airstrike campaign shakes Yemen

The Trump campaign began March 15. American warships fired cruise missiles while fighter jets flying off of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier dropped bombs on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, a nation on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula that is the Arab world’s poorest.

“No terrorist force will stop American commercial and naval vessels from freely sailing the Waterways of the World,” Trump said in a social media post announcing the campaign, days after his administration reimposed a “foreign terrorist organization” designation on the Houthis.

So far, the Houthis say the airstrikes have killed 57 people.

That’s just over half the 106 people the Houthis’ secretive leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, claimed the U.S. and U.K. killed during all of 2024. He provided no breakdown of combatants versus noncombatants. Houthi fighters often aren’t in uniform.

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Al-Houthi said the two countries launched over 930 strikes last year. The U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, known as ACLED, has recorded 305 strikes. The discrepancy between the figures could not be immediately reconciled, though the Houthis could be counting individual pieces of ordnance launched, rather than a single event with multiple bombs used, as ACLED does. The rebels also have exaggerated details in the past.

Between March 15 to March 21, ACLED reported 56 events. The campaign also has seen the highest number of events in a week since the American bombing campaign began on Yemen during the Israel-Hamas war.

Trump administration officials have touted the differences between their strikes and those carried out under President Joe Biden.

“The difference is, these were not kind of pin prick, back and forth, what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks,” Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told ABC’s “This Week” on March 16. “This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out.”

Waltz has also claimed key members of Houthi leadership, including their “head missileer,” have been killed. The Houthis have not acknowledged any losses in their leadership.

There are indeed clear differences, said Luca Nevola, the senior analyst for Yemen and the Gulf at ACLED. Under Biden, the focus appeared to be on mobile launchers for missiles and drones, then infrastructure, he said. Trump is targeting urban areas more intensely, judging from the number of strikes on cities so far.

“It’s very likely that somehow the Trump administration is pursuing a decapitation strategy,” Nevola added.

The Trump administration is also allowing the U.S. military’s Central Command, which oversees Mideast operations, to launch offensive strikes at will, rather than having the White House sign off on each attack as under Biden. That will mean more strikes.

Israel, which has repeatedly been targeted by Houthi missile fire and drones, including Thursday, also launched four rounds of airstrikes in 2024 and another in January.

Less transparency, growing concerns about civilians being harmed

During the Biden administration, Central Command offered details to the public on most strikes conducted during the campaign. Those details often included the target struck and the reason behind it.

Since the start of the new campaign, however, there’s been no similar breakdown.

Donegan, the retired vice admiral, praised that strategy during a recent call hosted by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “You don’t tell the enemy what you’re going to do, and you don’t tell them what you’re not going to do.”

But that also means the Houthis’ description of targets is the only one that’s public. They’ve claimed two attacks targeted an under-construction cancer clinic in the city of Saada, as well as private homes and crowded city neighborhoods. There’s been no effort so far from the U.S. military to either dispute that or offer evidence to support strikes on those targets.

“It’s an extremely complicated information environment in Yemen,” Tripp, of Airwars, said. “The Houthis have extensive restrictions on (activists) and operations, media and press.”

Even so, some information can be gleaned from Houthi-released footage. One strike around Saada that the Houthis say killed a woman and four children included missile debris. Serial numbers on the fragments correspond to a contract for Tomahawk cruise missiles, an AP examination of the imagery showed. That corresponded to an assessment separately made by Airwars.

Including that Saada strike, Airwars believes it is likely that at least five U.S. strikes in the new Trump campaign that have hurt or killed civilians, based off of videos and photos from the site, Houthi statements and other details.

The U.S. military declined to answer questions regarding possible civilian casualties but said the “Houthis continue to communicate lies and disinformation.”

“CENTCOM won’t provide details on strikes and locations until the operation has concluded, and there is no additional risk to U.S. personnel or assets involved,” it added, using an acronym for Central Command. “At the direction of the president, CENTCOM continues to conduct strikes across multiple Iran-backed Houthi locations every day and night to restore freedom of navigation and restore American deterrence.”

Houthi attacks started over the Israel-Hamas war

From November 2023 — weeks after the Israel-Hamas war began — until January of this year, the Houthis targeted over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two and killing four sailors.

The rebels said the campaign in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting the two waterways was carried out in solidarity with Hamas. It stopped with the ceasefire reached in that war in January.

The attacks greatly raised the Houthis’ profile as they faced economic problems and launched a crackdown targeting any dissent and aid workers at home amid Yemen’s decadelong stalemated war.

Since the ceasefire ended, the Houthis have not resumed their attacks on shipping in the vital corridor for cargo and energy shipments moving between Asia and Europe. Still, overall traffic remains sharply reduced.

A European Union naval force has been patrolling the Red Sea and escorting ships, as well as taking Houthi fire. However, the vast majority of Houthi attacks toward military targets has been pointed at U.S. Navy vessels.

More US forces move into Mideast as Yemen’s future in question

The U.S. airstrikes have kept up a daily tempo since beginning March 15. Meanwhile, the USS Carl Vinson and its carrier strike group is to transit into the Middle East.

That, along with the Truman, will likely give the American military two places to launch aircraft since it hasn’t immediately appeared that any strikes came from bases in other Mideast nations — where public sentiment remains strongly with the Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war.

The U.S. military also may be bringing additional firepower, as radio transmissions from B-2 stealth bombers and flight-tracking data suggested the U.S. Air Force is moving a number of the aircraft to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by the AP showed three B-2s parked Wednesday at Camp Thunder Cove on the island. That would provide a closer location for the long-range bombers to launch that’s still far outside of the range of the rebels — and avoids using allies’ Mideast bases.

In October, the Biden administration used the B-2 to target what it described as underground bunkers used by the Houthis.

But the future of Yemen itself remains in question. The Houthis broadly maintain control over the capital of Sanaa and the country’s northwest. Yemen’s exiled government is part of a fractious coalition that for now appears unable to wrest any control back from the rebels. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which launched a war 10 years ago against the Houthis, have pushed for peace talks as fighting appears broadly frozen on the ground.

“The United States can hurt the Houthis, it can weaken them,” wrote Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen expert at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, “but without effective ground troops — either its own or someone else’s — it will not be able to eliminate their capabilities.”

By Annie Sciacca, KFF Health News

The Trump administration’s crackdown on DEI programs could exacerbate an unexpectedly steep drop in diversity among medical school students, even in states like California, where public universities have been navigating bans on affirmative action for decades. Education and health experts warn that, ultimately, this could harm patient care.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has issued a handful of executive orders aimed at terminating all diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives in federally funded programs. And in his March 4 address to Congress, he described the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision banning the consideration of race in college and university admissions as “brave and very powerful.”

Last month, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights — which lost about 50% of its staff in mid-March — directed schools, including postsecondary institutions, to end race-based programs or risk losing federal funding. The “Dear Colleague” letter cited the Supreme Court’s decision.

Paulette Granberry Russell, president and CEO of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said that “every utterance of ‘diversity’ is now being viewed as a violation or considered unlawful or illegal.” Her organization filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders.

While California and eight other states — Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Washington — had already implemented bans of varying degrees on race-based admissions policies well before the Supreme Court decision, schools bolstered diversity in their ranks with equity initiatives such as targeted scholarships, trainings, and recruitment programs.

But the court’s decision and the subsequent state-level backlash — 29 states have since introduced bills to curb diversity initiatives, according to data published by the Chronicle of Higher Education — have tamped down these efforts and led to the recent declines in diversity numbers, education experts said.

After the Supreme Court’s ruling, the numbers of Black and Hispanic medical school enrollees fell by double-digit percentages in the 2024-25 school year compared with the previous year, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Black enrollees declined 11.6%, while the number of new students of Hispanic origin fell 10.8%. The decline in enrollment of American Indian or Alaska Native students was even more dramatic, at 22.1%. New Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander enrollment declined 4.3%.

“We knew this would happen,” said Norma Poll-Hunter, AAMC’s senior director of workforce diversity. “But it was double digits — much larger than what we anticipated.”

The fear among educators is the numbers will decline even more under the new administration.

At the end of February, the Education Department launched an online portal encouraging people to “report illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning,” stating that students should have “learning free of divisive ideologies and indoctrination.” The agency later issued a “Frequently Asked Questions” document about its new policies, clarifying that it was acceptable to observe events like Black History Month but warning schools that they “must consider whether any school programming discourages members of all races from attending.”

“It definitely has a chilling effect,” Poll-Hunter said. “There is a lot of fear that could cause institutions to limit their efforts.”

Numerous requests for comment from medical schools about the impact of the anti-DEI actions went unreturned. University presidents are staying mum on the issue to protect their institutions, according to reporting from The New York Times.

Utibe Essien, a physician and UCLA assistant professor, said he has heard from some students who fear they won’t be considered for admission under the new policies. Essien, who co-authored a study on the effect of affirmative action bans on medical schools, also said students are worried medical schools will not be as supportive toward students of color as in the past.

“Both of these fears have the risk of limiting the options of schools folks apply to and potentially those who consider medicine as an option at all,” Essien said, adding that the “lawsuits around equity policies and just the climate of anti-diversity have brought institutions to this place where they feel uncomfortable.”

In early February, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit against the University of California-San Francisco’s Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland over an internship program designed to introduce “underrepresented minority high school students to health professions.”

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Attorney Andrew Quinio filed the suit, which argues that its plaintiff, a white teenager, was not accepted to the program after disclosing in an interview that she identified as white.

“From a legal standpoint, the issue that comes about from all this is: How do you choose diversity without running afoul of the Constitution?” Quinio said. “For those who want diversity as a goal, it cannot be a goal that is achieved with discrimination.”

UC Health spokesperson Heather Harper declined to comment on the suit on behalf of the hospital system.

Another lawsuit filed in February accuses the University of California of favoring Black and Latino students over Asian American and white applicants in its undergraduate admissions. Specifically, the complaint states that UC officials pushed campuses to use a “holistic” approach to admissions and “move away from objective criteria towards more subjective assessments of the overall appeal of individual candidates.”

The scrutiny of that approach to admissions could threaten diversity at the UC-Davis School of Medicine, which for years has employed a “race-neutral, holistic admissions model” that reportedly tripled enrollment of Black, Latino, and Native American students.

“How do you define diversity? Does it now include the way we consider how someone’s lived experience may be influenced by how they grew up? The type of school, the income of their family? All of those are diversity,” said Granberry Russell, of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. “What might they view as an unlawful proxy for diversity equity and inclusion? That’s what we’re confronted with.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, recently joined other state attorneys general to issue guidance urging that schools continue their DEI programs despite the federal messaging, saying that legal precedent allows for the activities. California is also among several states suing the administration over its deep cuts to the Education Department.

If the recent decline in diversity among newly enrolled students holds or gets worse, it could have long-term consequences for patient care, academic experts said, pointing toward the vast racial disparities in health outcomes in the U.S., particularly for Black people.

A higher proportion of Black primary care doctors is associated with longer life expectancy and lower mortality rates among Black people, according to a 2023 study published by the JAMA Network.

Physicians of color are also more likely to build their careers in medically underserved communities, studies have shown, which is increasingly important as the AAMC projects a shortage of up to 40,400 primary care doctors by 2036.

“The physician shortage persists, and it’s dire in rural communities,” Poll-Hunter said. “We know that diversity efforts are really about improving access for everyone. More diversity leads to greater access to care — everyone is benefiting from it.”

This article was produced by KFF Health News , which publishes California Healthline , an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By LEAH WILLINGHAM, Associated Press

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Synthetic dyes used to make brightly colored cereals, drinks and candies are coming under scrutiny in states across the country, where lawmakers say the federal government has stalled in taking action despite evidence of harmful effects.

West Virginia, which ranks at the bottom in the U.S. for many health metrics, became the first to sign a sweeping statewide ban on seven such dyes this week. Lawmakers in more than 20 states — from deep red West Virginia to heavily Democratic California — are making a bipartisan push to restrict access to the dyes, which have been tied to neurobehavioral problems in some children and of which U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been an outspoken critic.

“We should not be forced to police our own foods,” said Republican Sen. Laura Wakim Chapman, who heads the Senate’s health committee and told lawmakers the vote might be the most important of their political careers. “No more toxic colors, no more poisoning ourselves and our children. No more unnecessary risks. Our health is not for sale.”

FILE – Then-West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey speaks during a news conference at the state Capitol, in Charleston, W.Va., May 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean, File)

In signing the bill, Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey referenced Kennedy’s slogan in saying, “There’s no better place to lead the Make America Healthy Again mission.”

The prohibition on certain preservatives and red, blue, green and yellow dyes takes effect for school food in August, and across the state in 2028. It follows narrower bills approved in California last year and Virginia last week that would ban six artificial dyes from being served in public schools beginning in 2027.

Why do lawmakers want to see the dyes die?

Thirty-six color additives are approved by the Federal Drug Administration for use in food and drinks in the U.S. Nine petroleum-based chemical dyes, including Red 3, have been allowed in U.S. food.

Public health advocates have been lobbying for state and federal action for years, pointing to research that links food dyes and other chemical additives to health risks, including exacerbating symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in some children and animal research linking certain additives to cancers.

The European Union and some countries, including Australia and Japan, have banned or restricted the use of certain food dyes because of potential health risks.

FILE – Boxes of Kellogg’s Fruit Loops cereal are displayed in a Target store in Pittsburgh, Nov. 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

In October, dozens of protesters outside the Michigan headquarters of WK Kellogg Co. demanded that the company remove artificial dyes from cereals such as Apple Jacks and Froot Loops. Kellogg announced that it would remove artificial colors and ingredients from its U.S. products by 2018, but never did so, despite making the change in other countries, such as Canada, where Froot Loops are colored with concentrated carrot juice, watermelon juice and blueberry juice.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned Red 3 from the nation’s food supply in January, setting a 2027 deadline for manufacturers to eliminate it from their products. Makers of ingested drugs like cough syrups have until January 2028.

Food industry warns of cost increases

The National Confectioners Association, a trade group for chocolate, candy, gum and mints sellers, said the new regulations will make food more expensive, less accessible and lead to less variety on grocery store shelves. It said states such as West Virginia, where 1 in 4 children live in poverty and many neighborhoods are “food deserts” with limited access to affordable, nutritious food, will be disproportionately impacted.

Charles Leftwich, vice president of food safety and quality assurance for Sysco Corp., the world’s largest food service distributor, said food safety policies should be supported by science and “be consistently applied across all geographies.”

“We shouldn’t have a fragmented approach when it comes to food safety, because it breeds a lack of trust and confidence with within consumers,” Leftwich said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Changes underway

School districts in West Virginia have begun phasing out breakfast cereals, strawberry milk or other products in anticipation of the new law’s August deadline.

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Chris Derico, who runs Harrison County’s school nutrition program, expects the new regulation to increase costs but said he’s not “in panic mode about it” because none of the products containing the artificial dyes are used in main dishes served to students.

Travis Austin, who leads food service in the Cabell County Schools system, called the policy “a step in the right direction” and said it will be up to manufacturers to rework their formulas to remain competitive.

“It’s all about money,” he said. “If Froot Loops and Lucky Charms aren’t going to change their formulations, then we’re not going to buy them. We’ll buy ones that do.”

Lawmakers in West Virginia, which leads the nation in chronic diseases such as obesity, noted that the dyes are often found in sugary foods.

When the bill passed the state Senate, sponsor Jason Barrett said West Virginia was the first state to approve such a sweeping law but won’t be the last. He cited a bill advancing in Oklahoma that would ban 21 synthetic food dyes and additives.

He said companies prey on low-income consumers and children.

“With passage of this bill, we are saying to big food corporations that the health of our people comes first,” he said.

By MARTHA BELLISLE, Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) — Budget woes, combined with cuts to the federal wildfire-fighting workforce and President Donald Trump’s tariff and sovereignty threats against Canada, have made it more difficult for state officials to plan for the upcoming wildfire season.

In Washington, a $12 billion budget shortfall prompted majority Democrats in the Legislature this week to propose slicing spending on wildfire prevention and fighting by one-third to two-thirds.

“These massive cuts to wildfire prevention and response increase the threat to public safety — putting lives and homes at greater risk,” state Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dave Upthegrove told The Associated Press in an email. “The cuts make Washington more likely to experience the kind of horrific scene we saw recently in Southern California.”

Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove stands for a portrait with young trees at the Webster Forest Nursery Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Olympia, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

As Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency slashes federal spending, the Trump administration withheld money for wildfire mitigation in several states and then fired thousands of workers involved in firefighting from various agencies. Those included rangers in the Forest Service and weather forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Some were rehired under a court order, but many were then immediately placed on administrative leave.

Washington State Forester George Geissler, who has decades of wildland firefighting experience, said the officials who fired federal workers don’t understand the roles they play in fighting fires. Although they don’t have “firefighter” listed as their job title, they all undergo special wildland firefighting training that enables them to respond to a fire when needed, he said.

Meanwhile, tensions between the U.S. and Canada over Trump’s proposed tariffs and calls to make the country the U.S.’s 51st state have also complicated wildfire planning, especially in border states, Geissler said. Washington state has maintained a solid relationship with British Columbia for decades, but it’s unclear how firefighting will work if the borders are closed due to federal tensions, he said.

“In wildfire, we like to say we can bring order to chaos,” he said. “But the hard part has been that things are changing so quickly and doing such dramatic swings, it’s hard to anticipate and plan.”

FILE – Washington Department of Natural Resources firefighter Chris Werner, of Chehalis, works the south fire line of the Archer Mountain fire in Skamania County, Wash., Sept. 6, 2017. (Alisha Jucevic/The Columbian via AP, File)

State and local budget woes have compounded those concerns.

Wildfire season in the West can run as early as April through November, while drier and hotter conditions linked to climate change have increased their intensity. These conditions have also sparked recent wildfires burning in the Carolinas, New Jersey, Florida and Texas.

Oregon and California lawmakers boost wildfire spending

Lawmakers in Oregon held a special session in December to approve $218 million in emergency wildfire funding. The 2024 wildfire season was the state’s most expensive on record, and the funds paid contractors who helped fight the blazes. Lawmakers have said finding new revenue sources for combating wildfires is a key issue in this year’s legislative session.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed spending $325 million on wildfire mitigation efforts next year. Many lawmakers have signaled their support for more investments in wildfire mitigation programs after the deadly fires in Los Angeles earlier this year.

FILE – A lone home stands among residences levelled by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and the city council appealed to Sacramento this week for nearly $2 billion in disaster recovery aid at a time when City Hall is facing a nearly $1 billion projected deficit. The request included over $56 million for fire suppression and safety.

Washington state officials grapple with a budget shortfall

Washington state had made fighting wildfires a priority in recent years — passing a bill in 2021 that permanently authorized spending $125 million each two-year budget cycle on response, forest restoration and communities. Those projects ensured that 95% of the state’s wildfires were held to 10 acres or less, officials said.

“That’s some of the best money that we can spend,” said Sen. Sharon Shewmake, D-Bellingham. Oregon and Washington had about the same number of fires last year, but while 2 million acres burned in Oregon, only about 300,000 acres burned in Washington, she said.

When newly elected Gov. Bob Ferguson took office, he told lawmakers that state agencies needed to reduce spending by at least $4 billion and asked each department, including Natural Resources, to find ways to reduce spending by 6%.

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A budget proposal from Washington House Democrats this week came in $85 million short of the $125 million that had been allocated for the previous two two-year budget cycles, while the Senate’s was $40 million short of that target.

The Washington State Council of Firefighters said the budget proposals would make it less safe for their members.

“Any cuts to funding for wildfire suppression and forest resiliency is going to be detrimental to the response to wildfire incidents for both the DNR and all fire service firefighters across the state of Washington,” Jeff Wainwright, a council spokesperson, told the AP.

The House and Senate proposals exceed Ferguson’s request, and instability at the federal level will magnify the shortages, said Michael Kelly, a DNR spokesperson.

“Our federal partners are behind on training and they’re behind on funding and they’re cutting staff,” Kelly said. “Knowing that we’re dealing with federal partners who can’t bring as much to the table this year, we hoped the Legislature would be able to give us the full amounts.”

Deputy Majority Leader Larry Springer, who authored the 2021 bill that allocated $125 million for wildfires, said he understands the need for funding, but the state’s fiscal challenges forced lawmakers to focus the money on one part of firefighting — the initial attack — and try to refocus on things like forest thinning and prescribed burns that help prevent fires in the next few years.

“Given the fact that we don’t have enough money to do all of that now, it’s a matter of which ones are the most important right now in the short term,” he said.

Washington Rep. Tom Dent, a Moses Lake Republican who has authored many wildfire-fighting bills over the years, said the state needs to ensure that it funds its initial attack and frontline firefighting programs.

“I’m relatively fiscally conservative,” Dent told the AP. “But you have to recognize there are times when you spend money to save money. This is one of those times.”

Associated Press reporters Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon; Trân Nguyễn in Sacramento, California; and Michael Blood in Los Angeles contributed.