Dick Durbin, whose tenure as one of Illinois’ longest serving U.S. senators has also been a testament to the power of seniority in the chamber, announced Wednesday he would not seek a sixth term next year, setting up a scramble among potential successors vying for a politically coveted six-year term.

“The decision of whether to run for re-election has not been easy. I truly love the job of being a United States Senator. But in my heart, I know it’s time to pass the torch. So, I am announcing today that I will not be seeking re-election at the end of my term,” Durbin said in a video.

“Right now, the challenges facing our country are historic and unprecedented,” Durbin said. “The threats to our democracy and way of life are very real, and I can assure you that I will do everything in my power to fight for Illinois and the future of our country every day of my remaining time in the Senate.”

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Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, who had at times an uneasy relationship with Durbin over the control of power within the Democratic Party, said Durbin deserved the “utmost gratitude for representing the people of Illinois with integrity and honor.”

“His legacy is defined not just by the legislation he passed, but by the undeniable positive impact his character and moral leadership has had on the nation,” Pritzker said, adding Durbin “remains a clear voice for truth, equality, and justice.”

With Durbin’s announcement setting off a potential domino effect among Illinois Democratic members of congress and others angling to run for his Senate seat, he did not offer an endorsement of a potential successor. Instead, Durbin said the state was “fortunate to have a strong Democratic bench ready to serve. We need them now more than ever.”

Durbin, who turned 80 in November, had indicated that the Democrats’ loss of Senate control in last year’s general election would be a factor in deciding on whether to seek reelection in 2026. The party’s November loss also meant Durbin had to give up the chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, becoming instead  its ranking minority member.

He retained his role as Democratic whip, the No. 2 ranking party post in the chamber. First elected to the position in 2005 and alternating between majority and minority whip depending upon control of the chamber, Durbin is the longest serving party whip in Senate history.

First elected to the U.S. House in 1982 and to the Senate in 1996, Durbin is the state’s senior senator and dean of the Illinois congressional delegation. At the end of his current term, Durbin’s 30-year Senate tenure will tie him for the longest in state history with Shelby Cullom, a Republican from Springfield, who resigned as governor to serve from 1883 to 1913 as U.S. senator.

Before announcing his 2014 reelection bid, Durbin acknowledged that weighing whether to commit to another six-year term required “a little more thought.”

Since that time he has faced some health issues. In August 2014 he was treated for a nonmalignant stomach tumor. In May of 2017 he had an outpatient procedure to correct an abnormal heart rhythm and in June 2024 he underwent a hip replacement.

Durbin’s departure will leave Illinois with a gaping loss of clout in Washington. The state’s junior senator, Tammy Duckworth, served two House terms before entering the Senate in 2017. She was recruited by Durbin into politics after she suffered injuries as a helicopter pilot in the Iraq War.

Familiar with the appropriations process from his time in the House, Durbin has helped shepherd tens of billions of federal dollars to a state that lacks such things as major military or federal installations. Most recently, he helped secure for Illinois $13 billion in the post-pandemic 2021 stimulus bill and $17 billion in the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, including $4.1 billion for transit projects such as the $1.9 billion CTA Red Line extension project to 130th Street.

“Seniority looks better and better the longer I’m in the Senate, and there are advantages,” Durbin said in an April 2014 interview, citing the ability to gain significant transportation funding for the state from both Republican and Democratic administrations, including millions of dollars over the decades for improvement and expansion of O’Hare International Airport.

Along the way were the $240 million reconstruction of Wacker Drive, hundreds of millions of dollars to Amtrak and Chicago’s Union Station as well as $157 million announced last fall for Springfield’s rail relocation project, including a new transit hub, to facilitate higher-speed rail between Chicago and St. Louis. There also were millions of dollars awarded on the lock and dam system for the Mississippi River.

Politically, Durbin went through an evolution before becoming a party stalwart and champion of progressive causes and issues. It was a reflection of the differences in representing a more conservative central Illinois congressional district to serving as a statewide politician in an ever-deepening blue state.

An ardent opponent of tobacco, he was the author of legislation that banned cigarette smoking on airplanes. An avid supporter of immigration reform, he has been the chief backer of seeking a path to citizenship for “Dreamers,” children of undocumented immigrants raised in the U.S. He also was a leader in advancing the First Step Act, which reformed criminal justice sentencing and increased job training to curb recidivism.

Durbin was one of fewer than two dozen senators to vote against the original authorization to go to war in Iraq, saying he believed the Bush administration had failed to make the case for it.

He fought against for-profit higher education institutions that profited from student loans while offering unaccredited courses.As judiciary committee chair, he led the nominations of 235 federal judgeships under President Joe Biden as well as the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Born and raised in East St. Louis, Durbin earned his bachelor degree and subsequent law degree from Georgetown University and served as an intern to liberal Illinois Sen. Paul Douglas as well as working on Douglas’ unsuccessful 1966 reelection campaign against Republican Charles Percy.

After college, Durbin moved to Springfield where he started a law business and became legal counsel to Lt. Gov. Paul Simon and later to the state Senate Judiciary Committee as well as Senate parliamentarian. In 1976, he lost a general election bid for the state Senate. Two years later he was the lieutenant governor candidate of Democrat Michael Bakalis in an unsuccessful challenge to the team of Republican Gov. Jim Thompson and Dave O’Neal.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, right, with Dick Durbin, from left, Mayor Michael Bilandic and Michael Bakalis at the Continental Plaza on Oct. 24, 1978. Kennedy was in town to stump for Bakalis’ candidacy for governor. Durbin was the lieutenant governor candidate. (William Yates/Chicago Tribune)

In 1982, Durbin challenged and defeated 11-term Republican Rep. Paul Findley and went on to win reelection to the House six times. In his first term in the House, Durbin was an opponent of abortion, but later became a major abortion rights advocate.

In 1996, he defeated Pat Quinn to win the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate seat that his friend, Paul Simon, was retiring from and went on to easily defeat Republican Al Salvi in the general election. He never faced a strenuous GOP challenge in his subsequent bids for reelection.

Then-U.S. Rep. and Senate hopeful Dick Durbin, left, appears with President Bill Clinton at Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School on Sept. 17, 1996, in Flossmoor. (José M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)

On Jan. 16, he honored Simon in a Senate floor speech commemorating the 10 year anniversary of the passage of his Paul Simon Water for the World Act, which improved access to clean water and sanitation around the world.

“Simon was ahead of his time on so many issues, including the importance of clean drinking water and sanitation for the poorest people in the world,” Durbin said. “Paul Simon realized that focusing on providing clean drinking water in some of the poorest places in the world can be transformative.”

In 2000, Durbin was under consideration by Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore to be named as his vice presidential candidate, which eventually went to Sen. Joe Lieberman. The Democratic ticket lost in controversy to Republican George W. Bush.

Arriving at his new office in Springfield, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, left, laughs with U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood, center, and fellow U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, on Jan. 10, 2005. (Pete Souza/Chicago Tribune)

“I’m not sure why people run for vice president, unless they think ultimately they’ll be president,” Durbin said seven years later. “The office itself is a little hard to explain. You spend four years standing two steps behind and looking at the back of the president’s head. It doesn’t strike me as being as interesting as this.”

In November 2006, Durbin played a major and influential early role in persuading the state’s then junior senator, Barack Obama, to run for president in 2008. Durbin was the first Democratic senator to endorse Obama, even before he officially announced, and was largely alone among his colleagues for more than a year until Obama demonstrated success by winning the Iowa Caucus.

With the November election of President Donald Trump, Durbin spent the early part of the year as a leading judiciary committee critic of some Trump nominees, including Pam Bondi for attorney general.

At Bondi’s January confirmation hearing, Durbin noted that, in reference to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, she had ‘said there was a peaceful transition of power.’ Let me repeat that. ‘A peaceful transition of power.’

“[Have you] seen the videotapes? What happened here on January 6?” he asked her.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking member, delivers opening remarks during a Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing, Feb. 12, 2025, at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington. Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) listens at left. The committee considered Todd Blanche for deputy attorney general and Abigail Slater for an assistant attorney general. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

“January 6 resulted in the deaths of five of our law enforcement officers: Officer Brian Sicknick, Officer Howard Liebengood, Officer Jeffrey Smith, Officer Gunther Hashida, and Officer Kyle DeFreytag—and the injuries to approximately 140 other law enforcement officers. Despite Ms. Bondi’s claims of a “peaceful transition of power,” January 6 tells a different story,” he said.

Less than a decade into Congress, Durbin was asked what issues attract his attention. What he said then was consistent with his career.

“I have a tendency to be fairly eclectic when it comes to issues,” he told Illinois Issues magazine. “I grab issues, and sometimes I ruffle feathers a little bit with the so-called leadership team.”

By ISABELLA O’MALLEY

Harmful bleaching of the world’s coral has grown to include 84% of the ocean’s reefs in the most intense event of its kind in recorded history, the International Coral Reef Initiative announced Wednesday.

It’s the fourth global bleaching event since 1998, and has now surpassed bleaching from 2014-17 that hit some two-thirds of reefs, said the ICRI, a mix of more than 100 governments, non-governmental organizations and others. And it’s not clear when the current crisis, which began in 2023 and is blamed on warming oceans, will end.

“We may never see the heat stress that causes bleaching dropping below the threshold that triggers a global event,” said Mark Eakin, executive secretary for the International Coral Reef Society and retired coral monitoring chief for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“We’re looking at something that’s completely changing the face of our planet and the ability of our oceans to sustain lives and livelihoods,” Eakin said.

FILE – Bleaching is visible on coral reef off the coast of Nha Trang, Vietnam, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Yannick Peterhans, File)

Last year was Earth’s hottest year on record, and much of that is going into oceans. The average annual sea surface temperature of oceans away from the poles was a record 20.87 degrees Celsius (69.57 degrees Fahrenheit).

That’s deadly to corals, which are key to seafood production, tourism and protecting coastlines from erosion and storms. Coral reefs are sometimes dubbed “rainforests of the sea” because they support high levels of biodiversity — approximately 25% of all marine species can be found in, on and around coral reefs.

Coral get their bright colors from the colorful algae that live inside them and are a food source for the corals. Prolonged warmth causes the algae to release toxic compounds, and the coral eject them. A stark white skeleton is left behind, and the weakened coral is at heightened risk of dying.

The bleaching event has been so severe that NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program has had to add levels to its bleaching alert scale to account for the growing risk of coral death.

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Efforts are underway to conserve and restore coral. One Dutch lab has worked with coral fragments, including some taken from off the coast of the Seychelles, to propagate them in a zoo so that they might be used someday to repopulate wild coral reefs if needed. Other projects, including one off Florida, have worked to rescue corals endangered by high heat and nurse them back to health before returning them to the ocean.

But scientists say it’s essential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that warm the planet, such as carbon dioxide and methane.

“The best way to protect coral reefs is to address the root cause of climate change. And that means reducing the human emissions that are mostly from burning of fossil fuels … everything else is looking more like a Band-Aid rather than a solution,” Eakin said.

“I think people really need to recognize what they’re doing … inaction is the kiss of death for coral reefs,” said Melanie McField, co-chair of the Caribbean Steering Committee for the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, a network of scientists that monitors reefs throughout the world.

The group’s update comes as President Donald Trump has moved aggressively in his second term to boost fossil fuels and roll back clean energy programs, which he says is necessary for economic growth.

“We’ve got a government right now that is working very hard to destroy all of these ecosystems … removing these protections is going to have devastating consequences,” Eakin said.

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.

A St. Paul man has pleaded guilty to attempted murder after shooting at a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy during a pursuit last year on St. Paul’s East Side.

Trevion Armand Figgs, 21, was a passenger in a Honda Accord and fired at least three bullets from an assault rifle at Deputy Joe Kill, who was struck with shrapnel near his right collar bone in the March 2024 incident. He was transported to Regions Hospital for minor injuries.

A plea agreement Figgs reached with the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office last week includes a 12½-year prison term at sentencing and the dismissal of the remaining charges: first-degree assault of a peace officer and drive-by shooting.

Trevion Armand Figgs (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Figgs remains jailed in lieu of $1.3 million bail ahead of sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled.

According to the criminal complaint, St. Paul police officers saw someone, later identified as a 17-year-old, driving a Honda Accord recklessly at Payne Avenue and Jessamine Street around 10:45 p.m. March 1, 2024. The officers tried to pull him over, but he sped away.

A short time later, Kill saw the Accord and noticed that two people were in it. When the teen blew through a red light at Payne Avenue and Seventh Street, Kill turned on his emergency lights and siren and began pursuit.

As the Accord headed east on Euclid Street, the front-seat passenger, who wore a face mask and was later identified as Figgs, leaned out of the car, sat on the door frame and fired a tan-colored assault rifle at the deputy, who was 25 to 30 yards behind.

Kill swerved his squad to the left, stopped in the 900 block of Euclid Street and took cover under the driver compartment. Kill thought three shots were fired at him.

Two bullet fragments were recovered from the front floor of the deputy’s squad car. His ballistic vest showed a scuff mark on its upper right consistent with being struck by an object.

Surveillance video audio from the neighborhood recorded approximately “three to five gunshot-like noises,” the complaint says. Officers found two .223-caliber rifle casings in the middle of Euclid Street.

Officers searched the area and found the Accord unoccupied and parked in an alley in the 1000 block of Pacific Street. Surveillance video showed the car in the alley around 10:50 p.m., then two people running east.

A search of the car turned up two more spent .223-caliber rifle casings. Paperwork showed the teen driver was in the process of buying the car.

Further investigation showed a close relationship between the teen and Figgs, whose house is in the area where the car was found.

Investigators then received information from Figgs’ Snapchat account. It showed that an account associated with the teen sent Figgs a photo of Figgs wearing a black face mask and holding a tan assault rifle consistent with the one described by the deputy.

Officers executed a search warrant at Figgs’ home and arrested him. In an upper bedroom, officers recovered a tan AR-style rifle stock, a Polymer 80 handgun, a debit card in the teen’s name and loose .223- and 9mm-caliber ammunition.

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Three days before the case was filed against Figgs, prosecutors charged him by a sealed complaint with attempted murder stemming from a June 2023 shooting on the city’s East Side. Prosecutors say Figgs fired nearly 30 rounds at an SUV, one of which struck a 19-year-old man in the back. The case is pending.

In December, the teen driver was adjudicated delinquent — the juvenile version of being found guilty — of aiding and abetting first-degree assault of a peace officer. He was placed on extended jurisdiction juvenile prosecution under the condition that he complete a long-term treatment program at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Red Wing. An adult sentence of just over seven years was stayed pending completion of the juvenile term, which ends when he turns 21.

By FATIMA HUSSEIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The height of tax season was the height of turmoil at the IRS.

The agency shuffled through three acting directors over the course of a week. It’s preparing to lose tens of thousands of workers to layoffs and voluntary retirements. And President Donald Trump is weighing in on which nonprofits should lose their tax-exempt status, an incursion into the agency’s typically apolitical stance that threatens to further erode trust in federal institutions and weaponize enforcement efforts.

Just three months into Trump’s second term, the government’s fly-under-the-radar tax collector has become the latest platform for the Republican administration’s vision to cut and control the federal bureaucracy. Tax policy experts fear that taxpayer services and collection efforts will face prolonged delays as a result of the rapid changes.

The quick turnover in leadership and other changes are likely to dampen employee morale at the IRS and hurt the agency’s ability to serve taxpayers in a timely manner, says Janet Holtzblatt, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

“Leadership sets the tone, particularly in this environment,” she said.

Already, she notes, the agency has lost decades of institutional knowledge from nonpartisan career civil servants who have left over policy disagreements and layoffs.

Chaos embroils agency amid leadership turnover

The upheaval unfolded as Americans dutifully filed their taxes ahead of the April 15 deadline and as a legion of IRS employees undertook work to process returns and dole out refunds. The latest filing season data shows the agency accepted more than 117 million returns this tax season and issued $228.7 billion in refunds.

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“We’re committed to improving the efficiency of the Internal Revenue Service,” said the agency’s newest acting commissioner, Michael Faulkender. “For the last 35 years, we’ve been five years away from the IRS being modernized. Under the direct leadership of Treasury, the modernization will be done in two years at a fraction of the cost.”

Meanwhile, the IRS, like other federal agencies, is hemorrhaging employees over cuts spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency, all while the agency churns through acting leaders as it awaits the installation of a permanent leader.

Douglas O’Donnell, the Trump administration’s first acting IRS commissioner, announced his retirement in February as furor spread over DOGE gaining access to IRS taxpayer data. Melanie Krause, the second acting commissioner, resigned early this month over a deal between the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security to share immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Gary Shapley, an IRS whistleblower who testified publicly about investigations into Hunter Biden’s taxes, was acting commissioner for a matter of days before being replaced by Faulkender, who was elevated just last week. The New York Times reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had complained to Trump that Shapley had been installed without his knowledge and at the behest of Trump adviser Elon Musk.

Trump’s nominee for IRS commissioner, former U.S. Rep. Billy Long of Missouri, is still waiting for a confirmation hearing but faces controversies of his own. Most recently, Senate Democrats have called for a criminal investigation into Long’s connections to alleged tax credit loopholes. The lawmakers allege that firms connected to Long duped investors into spending millions of dollars to purchase fake tax credits. Long did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment.

Punishing enemies and rewarding friends

Among other concerns at the agency are fears that Trump will weaponize the IRS against his enemies — and reward his friends.

Some of the Democratic Party’s core political institutions, including fundraising platform ActBlue and the protest group Indivisible, are preparing for the possibility that the federal government may soon launch criminal investigations against them.

Trump said last week at the White House that the administration is looking at the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, which has defied the government’s attempts to limit activism on campus, and environmental groups. He also mentioned the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

“It’s supposed to be a charitable organization,” Trump said of CREW. “The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that. We’re looking at a lot of things.”

Jonathan S. Masur, an administrative law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, said it’s unlawful for the president to unilaterally take away organizations’ tax-exempt status.

“It’s illegal for starters. The Supreme Court has established that that step is not allowed,” he said, adding that he anticipates that the court system will “very quickly block” any such move from the president.

The Trump administration is also watching out for allies of the president.

Treasury official David Eisner sent an email in March to a top IRS official regarding Mike Lindell, the founder of MyPillow and one of the chief proponents of the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

“The ‘My Pillow guy’ and a high-profile friend of the President recently received an audit letter, from what I understand, his second in two years,” Eisner wrote in the email, which was viewed by the AP. The president “is concerned that he may have been inappropriately targeted,” Eisner wrote.

Bringing immigration enforcement to the IRS

Among other changes in recent weeks are concerns about the IRS’ engagement with the Department of Homeland Security over enforcing a new data-sharing agreement signed earlier this month by Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The agreement will allow ICE to submit names and addresses of immigrants inside the U.S. illegally to the IRS for cross-verification against tax records.

That agreement is being litigated in federal court.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich will soon decide whether to refuse or grant a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed by nonprofit groups. The groups argue that immigrants in the country illegally who pay taxes are entitled to the same privacy protections as U.S. citizens and immigrants who are legally in the country.

The Treasury Department says the agreement will help carry out Trump’s agenda to secure U.S. borders and is part of his larger nationwide immigration crackdown, which has resulted in deportations, workplace raids and the use of an 18th-century wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants.

Holtzblatt said the agreement is indicative of the turmoil at the IRS.

“There’s an emphasis on improving technology and sharing information,” but it’s unclear for what reason, she said.