In my opinion, a wedge salad should have a boatload of tasty garnishes. The cold, crisp, knife-cut Iceberg lettuce needs plenty of delicious blue cheese dressing, and the toppings should include some kind of onion, thick-cut crunchy bacon, and tomatoes. I’ve been known to throw in some sliced pickled beets and a few thin slivers of salami on the side of the plate.

The wedge salad recipe in Cook’s Illustrated magazine offers a dandy take on the onion element. Instead of sliced red onion, it suggests thinly sliced pickled shallots, a sweet-sour element that is quick to prepare and scrumptious. Their formula also includes a last-minute scattering of snipped fresh chives.

I’ve noticed that guests appreciate a place setting that includes steak knives. The sharp blades make cutting Iceberg lettuce much easier.

Wedge Salad

Yield: 4 servings

INGREDIENTS

Pickled Shallots:

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 shallots, thinly sliced

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Dressing:

2 ounces blue cheese (1/2 cup), crumbled

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

1/4 teaspoon hot sauce

Salad:

6 slices thick-cut bacon, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-wide pieces

1 head Iceberg lettuce (1 1/4 pounds), stem trimmed, chilled, see cook’s notes

1 plum tomato, cored and cut into 1/4-inch pieces, or 12 cherry tomatoes cut in half

4 ounces (1 cup) blue cheese, crumbled

2 tablespoons fresh chives, cut into 1/2-inch lengths

Cook’s notes: The lettuce’s core should stay intact to hold the leaves together in a tight stack.

DIRECTIONS

1. Prepare pickled shallots: Combine vinegar and sugar in a small microwave-safe bowl or glass measuring cup with a handle. Microwave until sugar is dissolved and vinegar is steaming, 30 to 60 seconds. Add shallots and stir to combine. Cover and cool completely for about 30 minutes. They can be refrigerated airtight for up to one week. Drain before using the shallots on the salad.

2. Prepare the dressing: While the shallots are pickling, mash the blue cheese in a medium bowl with a fork. Add the mayonnaise, sour cream, juice, vinegar, and hot sauce; stir to combine. Season with freshly ground black pepper.

3. Prepare the bacon: Cook bacon in a 10-inch skillet over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until fat is rendered and bacon is a deep, golden brown, adjusting heat to keep bacon from browning too quickly. Transfer bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.

4. Halve lettuce through core and cut each half into 2 wedges, leaving core intact. Arrange lettuce wedges, rounded side down, on rimmed plates or shallow bowls. Drizzle about 3 tablespoons dressing across the top of each wedge, using a spoon to help it cascade down the sides. Divide tomato(es), 1 cup crumbled blue cheese, and bacon among wedges. Garnish with drained pickled shallots and chives. Season generously with freshly ground black pepper. Pass remaining dressing separately.

Source: Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated magazine

Award-winning food writer Cathy Thomas has written three cookbooks, including “50 Best Plants on the Planet.” Follow her at CathyThomasCooks.com.

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By MICHAEL CASEY

BOSTON (AP) — Plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s campaign of arresting and deporting college faculty and students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations spent the first few days of the trial showing how the crackdown silenced scholars and targeted more than 5,000 protesters.

The lawsuit, filed by several university associations, is one of the first against President Donald Trump and members of his administration to go to trial. Plaintiffs want U.S. District Judge William Young to rule that the policy violates the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

The government argues that no such policy exists and that it is enforcing immigration laws legally to protect national security.

Investigating protesters

One of the key witnesses was Peter Hatch, who works for the Homeland Security Investigations unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over two days of testimony, Hatch told the court a “Tiger Team” was formed in March — after two executive orders that addressed terrorism and combating antisemitism — to investigate people who took part in the protests.

Hatch said the team received as many as 5,000 names of protesters and wrote reports on about 200 who had potentially violated U.S. law. The reports, several of which were shown in court Thursday, included biographical information, criminal history, travel history and affiliations with pro-Palestinian groups as well as press clips and social media posts on their activism or allegations of their affiliation with Hamas or other anti-Israel groups. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Until this year, Hatch said, he could not recall a student protester being referred for a visa revocation.

“It was anything that may relate to national security or public safety issues, things like: Were any of the protesters violent or inciting violence? I think that’s a clear, obvious one,” Hatch testified. “Were any of them supporting terrorist organizations? Were any of them involved in obstruction or unlawful activity in the protests?”

Among the report subjects were Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who was released last month after 104 days in federal immigration detention. Khalil has become a symbol of Trump’s clampdown on the protests.

Another was Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was released in May from a Louisiana facility. She spent six weeks in detention after she was arrested while walking on the street of a Boston suburb. She says she was illegally detained following an op-ed she cowrote last year criticizing the school’s response to the war in Gaza.

Hatch also acknowledged that most of the names came from Canary Mission, a group that says it documents people who “promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.” The right-wing Jewish group Betar was another source, he said.

Hatch said most of the leads were dropped when investigators could not find ties to protests and the investigations were not inspired by a new policy but rather a procedure in place at least since he took the job in 2019.

What is Canary Mission?

Weeks before Khalil’s arrest, a spokesperson for Betar told The Associated Press that the activist topped a list of foreign students and faculty from nine universities that it submitted to officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who made the decision to revoke Khalil’s visa.

The Department of Homeland Security said at the time that it was not working with Betar and refused to answer questions about how it was treating reports from outside groups.

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In March, speculation grew that administration officials were using Canary Mission to identify and target student protesters. That’s when immigration agents arrested Ozturk.

Canary Mission has denied working with administration officials, while noting speculation that its reports led to that arrest and others.

While Canary Mission prides itself on outing anyone it labels as antisemitic, its leaders refuse to identify themselves and its operations are secretive. News reports and tax filings have linked the site to a nonprofit based in the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. But journalists who have visited the group’s address, listed in documents filed with Israeli authorities, have found a locked and seemingly empty building.

In recent years, news organizations have reported that several wealthy Jewish Americans made cash contributions to support Canary Mission, disclosed in tax paperwork filed by their personal foundations. But most of the group’s funding remains opaque, funneled through a New York-based fund that acts as a conduit for Israeli causes.

Were student protesters targeted?

Attorneys for the plaintiffs pressed a State Department official Friday over whether protests were grounds for revoking a student’s visa, repeatedly invoking several cables issued in response to Trump’s executive orders as examples of policy guidance.

But Maureen Smith, a senior adviser in the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, said protest alone wasn’t a critical factor. She wasn’t asked specifically about pro-Palestinian protests.

“It’s a bit of a hypothetical question. We would need to look at all the facts of the case,” she said. “If it were a visa holder who engages in violent activity, whether it’s during a protest or not — if they were arrested for violent activity — that is something we would consider for possible visa revocation.”

Smith also said she didn’t think a student taking part in a nonviolent protest would be a problem but said it would be seen in a “negative light” if the protesters supported terrorism. She wasn’t asked to define what qualified as terrorism nor did she provide examples of what that would include.

Scholars scared by the crackdown

The trial opened with Megan Hyska, a green card holder from Canada who is a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, detailing how efforts to deport Khalil and Ozturk prompted her to scale back her activism, which had included supporting student encampments and protesting in support of Palestinians.

“It became apparent to me, after I became aware of a couple of high-profile detentions of political activists, that my engaging in public political dissent would potentially endanger my immigration status,” Hyska said.

Nadje Al-Ali, a green card holder from Germany and professor at Brown University, said that after the arrests of Khalil and Ozturk, she canceled a planned research trip and a fellowship to Iraq and Lebanon, fearing that “stamps from those two countries would raise red flags” upon her return. She also declined to take part in anti-Trump protests and dropped plans to write an article that was to be a feminist critique of Hamas.

“I felt it was too risky,” Al-Ali said.

Associated Press writer Adam Geller in New York contributed to this report.

By MELINA WALLING and JOSHUA A. BICKEL

BEND, Texas (AP) — Across a wide swath of Texas, the inundated rivers that ravaged communities also tore through farms and ranches.

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In the town of Bend, about two hours north of Austin, Boyd Clark waded into rising waters to help one of his stranded ostrich hens. Matthew Ketterman spent several agonizing hours trapped on top of his truck amid coursing rapids after driving out to check the fences on his exotic game ranch outside Burnet, about an hour south of Bend. And the overflowing San Gabriel River knocked Christmas trees sideways and staff had to get petting zoo animals into a temporary pen at Sweet Eats Adventure Farm in Georgetown, about 65 miles east of Ketterman’s ranch.

As authorities work to understand the extent of the loss of human life—as of Friday at least 120 people were killed more than 160 missing —farmers and ranchers are working to assess damage to their properties, crops and animals. Many are facing the task of caring for livestock while salvaging what crops they can and cleaning up the wreckage.

While many farmers lean on a relentless optimism to get through the uncertainty of relying on the weather for a living, extreme weather disasters like catastrophic floods, droughts and wildfires can take a toll. The weather events also pose unique challenges to those who rely on seasonal tourist rushes or who might not have crop insurance.

It’s a double-edged sword: as some farmers turn to agritourism or niche crops to weather unpredictable markets, climate change is also intensifying many of the natural disasters that can make it more difficult for those experiments to succeed. Even the larger operations are not immune; farmers who produce all kinds of crops must plan for emergencies.

“We expect it to happen again. It’s never a question of if, but when,” said Jon Meredith, co-owner of Sweet Eats, an agritourism outfit that mainly grows Christmas trees. “And so we just continue to try to mitigate our losses and reduce our risk around events like this.”

Still surveying the damage, starting repairs

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said there has been so much rain so quickly that some farmers are seeing complete loss or severe damage to their crops and infrastructure, in several counties and beyond the banks of overflowing rivers.

Christmas trees bend toward the ground as a result of recent flooding Wednesday, July 9, 2025, at a farm in Georgetown, Texas. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

“We’ve had farm equipment washed down the river. We’ve had tractors underwater, so they’re totaled, won’t be able to use those. Irrigation equipment wadded up like a bowl of spaghetti,” Miller told The Associated Press. “We’re finding cattle dead on top of trees downriver. So it’s pretty devastating.”

Miller said there are resources available for farmers. Those include the State of Texas Agriculture Relief Fund, which helps farmers access disaster funding, the Hay and Feed Hotline, which donates animal feed and the AgriStress Helpline that provides 24/7 mental health support.

Now comes the task of cleanup: repair miles of destroyed fence line, tally lost livestock and move debris from foliage and mud to piled-up picnic tables.

After a harrowing night waiting for hours to be rescued, Ketterman, who had gotten stuck on his vehicle, felt lucky to be alive. But he and his team were also grieving the loss of a member who died in the flooding on his way to work. They lost some animals to the churning water, as well.

“We’re in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, but you know, at the end of the day that’s just monetary and we’ll recover from that,” he said.

Disasters like floods can be tough for specialty farmers

Small farms that offer experiences to visitors, don’t sell to wholesalers or don’t have crop insurance are especially vulnerable, said Hannah Burrack, professor and chair of the entomology department at Michigan State University, who has worked with fruit farmers in the aftermath of floods.

Clark said ostrich growers can access some U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that cover the loss of grass that birds graze on, but otherwise there isn’t much assistance. Ostriches also get too cold in heavy rain. And it cuts down egg production; the hens almost stop laying eggs and mud and water can ruin what few they do.

“It does definitely affect our production this year and our profitability,” Clark said.

Burrack said that other crops for consumption like fruits and vegetables get submerged, they can no longer be sold. Unharvested plants in fields can build up, causing pest issues or creating an unpleasant experience for visitors. And once submerged, “long-term echoes of these short-term stressors” can make trees more vulnerable to disease.

Meredith said Sweet Eats was lucky the Christmas season is still months away; they still had a chance to put the trees back up. They would’ve had a harder time if they were still doing peach trees like they used to. “Because so much of our stuff is pick-your-own, so if we can’t be open for customers, then it magnifies the challenges that we face because of cash flow issues,” he said.

All farms need to plan for emergencies, climate change

It’s not just floods: farms across the country have taken hits due to extreme weather in recent years. Wildfires have damped farm-based businesses in California including pick-your-own apple orchards in the southern part of the state and wineries in the north. An unusually warm winter had Midwestern maple syrup producers scrambling in 2024, while pinching drought has hit pumpkins, along with many other crops, across the West.

It’s good business sense to observe how climate change might affect your operation and make adjustments accordingly, said Rob Leeds, an extension educator at Ohio State University who works with farmers, especially those interested in agritourism. He described how after watching a barrage of tornadoes and high winds in recent years, some cattle producers in Ohio have been building tougher barns that more typically would be seen in windswept areas of the West. Some fall-themed agritourism operators have started installing fans and misters, anticipating more hot days later into the fall.

It will take a while for Texas farmers to fully recover, but some are already building back stronger. Ketterman said he thinks they’re going to put up sturdier fence posts in the coming weeks as they secure the fence line.

They’ll lean on each other, too. Many farmers described the tight-knit sense of community as they weathered the storm.

“We all started calling each other, to make sure we could get our animals out and anything else that we needed to save,” said John Meredith, owner of Sweet Eats. “Just because this is a fact of life. When you live on a river, it’s beautiful and enjoyable, but there are occasionally times where things can go south very quickly.”

Walling reported from Chicago. Amy Taxin reported from Orange County, Calif.

Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social. Follow Joshua A. Bickel on Instagram, Bluesky and X @joshuabickel.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org

In 2017, Cody Barbo told a room of investors that he was getting married in a month. His friend asked him this question: “Hey man, you’re getting married. Do you have a will?” Barbo froze, threw out a mild swear word and answered, “I should probably have one.”

Barbo is the CEO of Trust & Will, a San Diego company that simplifies the creation of estate planning documents by drafting documents with its lawyer-vetted software.

Eight years later, Barbo is married and his family has grown.

So has his company. Trust & Will, based in San Diego’s Bankers Hill, has helped more than 1 million families make estate plans, Barbo said in an interview from his Dallas home office.

“Normally you pay thousands of dollars up front to do this with an attorney, or hundreds to thousands of dollars for those updates, for that ongoing guidance,” he said. “This is the democratization of estate planning.”

It has raised more than $80 million from venture capital and corporate investors including Moderne Ventures, American Express, AARP and Northwestern Mutual. Last year, the company became “cash-flow positive,” startup speak for hitting profitability, and then secured a Series C round of capital this year. It employs around 110 people, up from around 80 in 2023.

And last week, it announced the launch of a new AI-powered platform called EstateOS, which Barbo says will make estate planning even easier, more efficient, more personalized and more broadly accessible. It also turns Trust & Will — one of several companies that digitally create estate plans — into what Barbo says is “the first company to launch an AI-integrated estate planning platform at scale, specifically designed for both consumers and financial professionals. While others may be experimenting with AI, EstateOS is the first comprehensive system combining Trust & Will’s proprietary estate planning software with embedded OpenAI-powered tools to streamline creation, review, and updates of estate plans.”

New tools, an AI boost

Using proprietary software and OpenAI, EstateOS delivers four features that are “intelligent upgrades of previously manual or slower processes,” Barbo said, who co-founded the company with Daniel Goldstein and Brian Lamb.

Some of the new features will appeal to U.S. consumers — only 31% of which have a will, according to a company survey of 10,000 people — and others will appeal to the company’s industry targets: financial planners, life insurance agents, nonprofits and attorneys, he added.

One feature, called PlanScore, does what its name suggests: It “scores” estate plans with a rating system that helps customers find blind spots and figure out where their estate plan needs buttressing.

Another is an AI assistant that lets users ask questions and have the answer served instantly. Instead of digging around to find out who was named as a guardian, Barbo said, you can ask who the guardian is and get reminded that it is your mother-in-law.

A third feature is document extraction, which will summarize and mine user-submitted documents for useful or actionable data and workflows. This could be especially useful for people who have drawn estate plans that are “just sitting in a box in the closet.”

The last feature streamlines communication — and client prospecting. The “Connected Networks” tool brings together parties connected to an account, including executors, beneficiaries, attorneys and financial advisers, into a shared platform. That can make deed transfers and notarized transactions run more smoothly, and also make it easier for those professionals to build their contact lists.

Down the line, Barbo said a fifth service will keep track of life’s seismic events, the kind where an estate plan update could make sense, such as marriage, divorce, a new baby, a home purchase — and alert users when they should amend something.

Pricing to create a will or trust remains the same. An individual’s will-based plan starts at $199 and a trust-based plan starts at $499. Couples are charged an extra $100, and updates cost extra. Optional memberships at different pricing tiers give access to the EstateOS and other features. Attorney support is included in some plans or can be purchased as an add-on.

The estate planning startup’s plans

For its first eight years, Trust & Will was one of several in a crowded digital legal document and estate planning marketplace, all of which turned estate planning from a costly investment to something that could be scratched off one’s to-do list with a few clicks and a spare hour. LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer are the bigger names, but there’s also WillMaker.com and the company that would win wittiest estate planning domain name, if that were a thing — FreeWill.com.

The National Council on Aging recommends these online tools, saying “If an attorney isn’t in your budget, an online will-making service can be a good alternative.” Among the five companies it recommends, Trust & Will is crowned “most user-friendly.”

In estate planning, the use of AI is a topic of interest for attorneys, according to the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. A free video series explores practical and ethical issues around generative AI in estate planning. “Resistance to the coming of AI is futile,” one speaker, a law professor, said last year. Lawyers, he added, “should keep abreast of the changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology. So accordingly, you have an obligation to yourself, your clients, and the profession to become acquainted with and proficient with the use of AI in your estate planning practice.”

Barbo’s 2017 pitch to investors succeeded: His company won $5,000 in seed money. Today he is eyeing the biggest prize for a startup —  to take the company public.