By AAMER MADHANI and EDNA TARIGAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump made sure during his visit to Asia this week to praise regional allies who have backed his push to bring about a permanent end to the Israel-Hamas war.

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As he handed out plaudits, Trump appeared to go out of his way to name-check one leader in particular — Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto — for his help in Gaza.

“I want to thank Malaysia and Brunei as well as my friend, President Prabowo of Indonesia, for their incredible support of these efforts to secure the new day for the Middle East,” Trump told leaders at the Association of Southeast Nations summit in Malaysia. “It really is a new day.”

In the weeks since Israel and Hamas agreed to a fragile ceasefire and hostage deal, Indonesia, which boasts the biggest Muslim population in the world, has emerged as an intriguing partner to a White House keen on making peace in the Middle East a defining legacy of his presidency.

Trump has said that a priority tied to that plan, if the fragile ceasefire can hold, is building on his first-term Abraham Accords effort that forged diplomatic and commercial ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

White House officials believe that a permanent peace agreement in Gaza could pave the way for Indonesia as well as Saudi Arabia — the largest Arab economy and the birthplace of Islam — to normalize ties with Israel, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.

For his part, Subianto has shown eagerness to build a relationship with Trump and expand his nation’s global influence.

Earlier in October, at a gathering in Egypt to mark the ceasefire, Subianto was caught on a hot mic talking to the U.S. leader about a Trump family business venture. He appeared to ask Trump to set up a meeting with the president’s son Eric, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, which has two real estate projects underway in Indonesia.

But Indonesia, much like Saudi Arabia, has publicly maintained it can’t move forward on normalizing relations with Israel until there’s a clear pathway set for a Palestinian state.

“Any vision related to Israel must begin with the recognition of Palestinian independence and sovereignty,” said Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yvonne Mewengkang.

Could Trump’s dealmaking pave the way?

There may be a reason for the administration to be hopeful that the ceasefire deal has created an opening for Indonesia to soften its position. The White House might also have some cards it could play as it pitches Subianto.

Jakarta badly wants to join the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and Trump’s backing would be pivotal. Indonesia views joining the 38-member OECD as an opportunity to raise Indonesia’s international profile, access new markets, and attract investment from other organization members.

Greater U.S. investment in Indonesia’s rare earths industry could also be inviting to Jakarta, which boasts a top-20 world economy.

Indonesia has set its sights on dominating the global nickel market, and is already responsible for about half of the metal used around the world. Demand has skyrocketed as automakers need it for electric vehicle batteries and clean electricity projects that require larger batteries.

“Trump’s transactional dealmaking opens up possibilities that otherwise might not exist,” said Daniel Shapiro, a former top State Department official who worked on Israel-Indonesia normalization efforts during the Biden administration. “If the Indonesians have something they’re seeking from the United States — whether it’s in the realm of tariff relief, other types of trade arrangements, or security arrangements — this could represent an opportunity.”

Indonesia pledged troops and helped with Trump’s 20-point plan

Indonesian officials were among a small group of leaders from Muslim and Arab nations whom the White House used as a sounding board to help the administration fine-tune Trump’s 20-point ceasefire and hostage proposal. And Trump at this week’s summit in Malaysia again conferred with Subianto and other leaders about U.S.-led efforts to maintain the ceasefire in Gaza, according to a White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly about the private leaders’ conversation.

And Subianto, at the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly days before the ceasefire agreement was reached, pledged 20,000 Indonesian troops for a prospective U.N. peacekeeping mission in Gaza. In the remarks, Subianto reiterated his country’s call for “an independent Palestine” but underscored the need to “recognize and guarantee the safety and security of Israel.”

Rabbi Marc Schneier, a president for the interfaith group Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and an advocate of the Abraham Accords effort, said Subianto’s pledge for troops and his rhetoric about Israel suggest that the Indonesian leader could be primed to make the leap.

“Yes, he’s talking about a Palestinian state, but he’s also being clear that he wants a Palestinian state that does not come at the expense of a Jewish state,” Schneier said. “That’s what gives me hope.”

Indonesia’s historic backing of Palestinian state

Trump met with Subianto and other leaders soon after the U.N. remarks, and seemed as impressed with the Indonesian president’s style as he was with the pledge to a peacekeeping mission. Trump said he particularly enjoyed watching Subianto “banging on that table” in his U.N. speech.

But Subianto is likely to face deep skepticism from the Indonesian public on Israel normalization efforts.

Indonesian leaders, dating to the Republic’s first president, Sukarno, have sought to burnish an image of “a country that leads the fight against world colonialism,” said Dina Sulaeman, a scholar at Padjadjaran University in Bandung, Indonesia. The country had a protracted struggle for independence, freeing itself from Dutch colonial rule in its late 1940s revolution.

Indonesian leaders’ historical support for Palestinian statehood is also at odds with the current government in Israel, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which remains adamantly opposed to a two-state solution.

“So, if Indonesia suddenly wants to join the Abraham Accords and normalize Israel’s occupation of Palestine, the good image that the Indonesian government has built … over decades will collapse,” Sulaeman said.

The Trump administration had talks with the Indonesians about joining the Abraham Accords in its first term. The Biden administration, which tried to pick up on the normalization effort, also had “serious talks” with the Indonesians, Shapiro said.

Shapiro said he was directly involved in talks between the Biden administration and senior Indonesian officials about using a November 2023 state visit by then Indonesian President Joko Widodo to offer preliminary announcements “about moving forward” on a normalization effort. But the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel scuttled the effort.

“My judgment is there is good possibility, assuming the ceasefire holds,” Shapiro said of Trump’s chances of getting Jakarta to sign the accords. “How and when that deal can begin to take shape — that remains to be seen.”

Tarigan reported from Jakarta.

BY DASIA GARNER, HAYA PANJWANI, AARON KESSLER, SHANNON BUTLER, TINA TERRY, and TED DANIEL

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anthony Taylor will never forget the look of horror on the student’s face. The school crossing guard was walking into the crosswalk in front of Washington Township High School in Indianapolis when a car with a young boy and his mom, who was dropping him off at school, suddenly appeared. The mom’s eyes grew wide, and the boy began vigorously hitting on his mother’s chest.

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“Next thing, it was boom, lights out. That’s all I remember,” Taylor said. He woke up in the hospital hours after undergoing surgery for a fractured pelvis and other broken bones.

In many ways, Taylor was lucky. Despite the broken bones and the pins and metal plates to heal his body from that August 2018 collision, he returned to work.

Across the country, school crossing guards like Taylor, who stand in the cold, rain or heat to protect children, face the risk of injuries from drivers who may be distracted or in a hurry.

An investigation by The Associated Press and Cox Media Group Television Stations found that over the past 10 years, hundreds of school crossing guards — many of them of retirement age or older — have suffered injuries on the job after being hit by a vehicle, and dozens of them have died.

A full accounting is impossible. No federal agencies and just two states track how many crossing guards are injured or killed each year. And local police accident reports often have no code to distinguish between school crossing guards and other pedestrians hit near schools.

“Officers rarely stop to consider whether the injured ‘pedestrian’ was on duty.” said former Cornelius, North Carolina, Police Chief Bence Hoyle.

A database compiled by AP and Cox Media Group shows that 230 school crossing guards across 37 states and Washington, DC, were struck by vehicles. Nearly three dozen were killed in these collisions. The cases, compiled from incident and accident reports requested from nearly 200 police departments, represent only a portion of guards injured and killed nationwide.

The investigation shows that in these cases, drivers who hit or even kill crossing guards rarely face serious consequences. Of the incidents involving 183 crossing guards where an outcome could be determined, nearly half resulted in traffic citations — such as “failure to yield to a pedestrian.” About a quarter of the drivers weren’t ticketed at all, while just over a quarter faced criminal charges. Police said several factors go into whether or not a driver who hits a crossing guard is charged, including things such as weather conditions or negligence by the person operating the vehicle.

Taken as a whole, these incidents highlight a largely underreported problem: Crossing guards, tasked with protecting children as they navigate busy streets in front of schools, can be casualties of dangerous roadways.

“It’s a huge responsibility to step out in front of a vehicle,” said Dacia Maisonave, a crossing guard trainer in Seminole County, Florida. “It is unfortunate that our crossing guards don’t have a lot of laws. The only thing they really have to protect them is the stop paddle.”

‘Just slow down’

The lack of a system to track injuries and deaths of crossing guards has hampered efforts to develop better safety measures or even assess just how dangerous the job is, experts say. School crossing guard protection remains a patchwork of state and local policies.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes survey data for on-the-job injuries and deaths across most industries, but school crossing guards are included in a job category with road construction flaggers — and the agency does not publish a fatality rate for it.

The AP calculated its own fatality rates for nearly 200 job classifications with at least 10,000 workers and 10 deaths in 2023, the most recent year of available records. Crossing guards and flaggers were in the top fifth of deadliest jobs, the AP’s analysis found, on par with power line installers and air transportation workers. It’s the only occupation in that top fifth that interacts with children daily.

Crossing guard Travis Callis works outside Martinsburg North Middle School in Martinsburg, W.Va., on Sept. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/River Zhang)

Other federal agencies also rarely capture details specific to school crossing guards’ injuries or deaths. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s records on fatal accidents specify whether a school bus was involved or the crash happened within a designated school zone. But no information is captured about whether a victim was a crossing guard.

Very few accident reports filed through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration mention school crossing guards.

Only two states have made a serious effort to track crossing guard safety: New Jersey and Massachusetts.

After examining the deaths of 16 crossing guards struck by motor vehicles and more than 230 injuries between 1993 and 2008, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development launched a program aimed at crossing guard safety in February.

Officials in New Jersey said they target school zones for recurring safety inspections and have already issued eight serious violations and 30 others to employers for noncompliance. But even this pioneering effort faces limitations.

“Since there are no crossing guard standards in New Jersey, there is only so much we can do but to make sure they have appropriate training,” says Assistant State Labor Commissioner Justin Baker.

New Jersey state officials said they work with local police to provide training and proper equipment, including reflective vests.

Michael Flanagan, director of the Department of Labor Standards in Massachusetts, said his state began tracking school crossing guard injuries and deaths when a guard was fatally struck in 2012. In 2022, he said the state mandated that cities and towns report crossing guard injuries.

Labor experts say more can be done to make the job safer. Among possible solutions that remain underused in the U.S, experts say, are installing smart crosswalk systems with flashing LED lights, raised crosswalks, automated speed cameras or requiring all guards to wear high-visibility gear.

Flanagan said ultimately the most effective measure for protecting cross guards from injuries and deaths comes from talking to and educating motorists.

Crossing guard Travis Callis works outside Martinsburg North Middle School in Martinsburg, W.Va., on Sept. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/River Zhang)

“Crossing guards are out there, and just slow down and be aware of that and look out for them,” he said.

Close calls and deaths

School crossing guards are employed by local police departments, school districts or private companies hired by schools. Many of them are older adults or retirees — of the 160 cases where AP and Cox Media Group were able to document ages, more than half were older than 65.

In interviews, many guards say they enjoy their jobs. But they also recount almost daily close calls with hurried and distracted drivers who ignore posted warning signs and the guards themselves, even in crosswalks.

Travis Callis, a former crossing guard in Martinsburg, West Virginia, said while he’s never been hurt, he’s had several close run-ins, including an instance where a car was so close he could feel its heat on the back of his legs.

“I’m holding the sign up and they’re just driving at me,” he said.

In some cases, collisions can kill.

Last year, Stanley Brucker, 61, was working as a crossing guard at Fort Mill Elementary School in South Carolina when he was struck by a car as he was holding a stop sign and directing traffic.

Video captured by a passing school bus shows a vehicle hitting Brucker and flipping him over the car as he stands in the crosswalk. He was transported to a nearby hospital but later died.

Brucker was the fourth crossing guard to be hit or killed while working for the school district. His death caused many of the district’s crossing guards to refuse to show up for two days after they learned the driver who hit him wouldn’t face charges.

“There is no indication that the driver of the vehicle was driving in a dangerous or reckless manner,” local prosecutors in the 16th Circuit Solicitor’s Office said in a statement at the time.

Brucker’s family sees it differently and has filed a lawsuit against the school district and the driver who struck him.

The lawsuit accuses the Fort Mill School District of choosing locations for crossing guards that were not “reasonably safe,” citing “the actual conditions on the site in the middle of a busy highway and by the numerous past instances of injury to crossing guards.” No trial date has been set for the case to be heard.

In response to questions about the lawsuit, a spokesperson for the district wrote: “In light of the pending litigation, in which the actions of traffic guards employed by the company providing guards to the district is an issue, the district, on advice of counsel, is unable to respond further.” The Fort Mill School District and the driver who hit Brucker have both asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

Before the start of this school year, district officials informed parents that public schools in Fort Mill will not have traffic guards. The district has installed a new traffic system to help improve safety in the absence of traffic guards.

Rutledge Young, an attorney in Charleston, South Carolina, representing Brucker’s family, said Brucker was doing what he was told to do.

“I believe that Mr. Brucker was doing his job and was killed as a result,” Young said.

Across the country, data compiled by AP and Cox Media Group shows similar instances of guards being killed and drivers not facing criminal charges.

James Arthur Holland of Lexington, Kentucky, a crossing guard with the local police department, was hit and killed in 2023 by a driver while working outside an elementary school.

Police found that the driver did not have insurance or a driver’s license, and the vehicle’s registration had expired.

Police said the incident was not a result of speeding or impairment, but environmental conditions. The driver was given various traffic citations, but no criminal charges were filed.

Kevin VanFleet, a detective in the Simi Valley Police Department in California, said each collision must be looked at individually. He said several factors go into deciding if a driver is going to be charged, including what police — who rarely witness the accident — find during their investigation and whether local prosecutors feel charges are warranted.

“Not everybody that is involved in a collision, let’s say, with a pedestrian in a crosswalk, or perhaps a crossing guard in a crosswalk, is going to receive an infraction ticket. It depends on the severity of it,” VanFleet said

One common explanation for drivers hitting crossing guards that emerges from a review of traffic and incident reports is the glare of sunlight.

School crossing guard Anthony Taylor waits to cross the street, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

“The sun was in my eyes,” appears repeatedly in reports obtained by AP and Cox Media Group.

Last year, Patricia Davis, a guard in Monroe County, Georgia, about an hour east of Atlanta, was hit by a truck while helping students cross.

The driver told law enforcement that the sun was directly in his eyes, and he didn’t see Davis until his truck struck her. Davis was taken to the hospital after suffering minor injuries. The driver was not charged. Police labeled the collision an accident.

Dave Peavy, 76, a crossing guard in Gardner, Kansas, wasn’t as fortunate. Peavy, a Vietnam veteran who wore a Santa hat and passed out candy to kids crossing his intersection, was hit and killed by a car as he stepped out to stop traffic. The driver, who was not charged, told police that sunlight blinded him, and he never saw Peavy.

Crossing guards said these cases and dozens more like them highlight how drivers rarely face serious consequences when one of them is severely injured or killed.

Beyond distracted drivers and the glare of sunlight, experts point to multiple other factors that compromise crossing guard safety.

The higher hoods of today’s SUVs and trucks create larger blind spots that reduce visibility. Many school zones lack adequate traffic-slowing measures like speed bumps or automated enforcement cameras. And many local roads are designed to prioritize vehicle flow over pedestrian safety and have inadequate sight lines and insufficient buffer zones around crosswalks.

Still, former Police Chief Hoyle in North Carolina said drivers should be held accountable for injuring or killing crossing guards. He suggests raising speeding tickets in school zones to $1,000 and implementing license plate recognition systems to track down reckless drivers.

“The penalties should be much higher, making drivers think twice about speeding through a school zone,” Hoyle said.

VanFleet, the Simi Valley Police Department detective in California, said greater police presence in school zones would likely be more effective than fines.

“It’s not so much the cost of the infraction it would be that would cause a deterrence,” he said. “It would be having more officers out there doing more enforcement.

Not enough is being done

Among the incidents where AP and Cox Media Group could determine an outcome, around a quarter resulted in criminal charges. About 40% of those criminal charges occurred when the driver fled the scene.

Last year in Uvalde, Texas, elementary school crossing guard George Juarez was hospitalized after a pickup truck hit him and the driver fled the scene.

The driver hit the crossing guard after making an illegal left turn as Juarez attempted to redirect the truck that struck him.

The driver was charged with driving while intoxicated with an open container, and failure to stop and render aid.

This photo provided by Jennifer Snowden shows her father, Steven Winn, a 67-year-old crossing guard in Layton, Utah, who was fatally struck by a driver just after helping a group of elementary students cross the street to their school in January 2025. (Courtesy Jennifer Snowden via AP)

The driver that hit and killed Steven Winn, a 67-year-old crossing guard in Layton, Utah, just after he helped a group of elementary students cross to school, was also charged with an even more serious offense — negligent homicide.

Families who lose loved ones in fatal traffic accidents say the unexpected financial burden can be staggering, since many guards are retirees who work part-time and don’t have benefits. Dozens of current and former guards or their families have set up GoFundMe pages to help cover medical and funeral costs.

Those who survive hits can endure a long, painful recovery as well as mounting medical expenses.

Ron Ferguson was hit by a truck in 2020 while directing traffic in front of a local high school in Texarkana, Texas. The collision left him with a cracked skull, missing teeth and lingering damage to his left ear. Ferguson spent two weeks sedated while recovering.

He couldn’t breathe on his own or get out of bed, and needed nearly a month of grueling rehabilitation. Today, he said, he has mostly recovered, but some scars from the accident remain and he still has trouble with his memory.

“There are times I could see people now that I cannot remember their names,” he said.” But I can see the face. And then gradually I’ll start remembering.”

Crossing guards say they aren’t just waiting for officials to act to protect them.

Many of them have organized on social platforms like TikTok through series like “Crossing Guard Chronicles,” set up by former Atlanta crossing guard Shante Joseph to educate the public about the dangers guards face. Others have joined Facebook groups like the National Association of School Crossing Guards, a platform that allows guards to share experiences and advocate for reform.

They are also pushing their employers to provide items they think will make the job safer, such as body cameras, which some have already bought with their own money.

The guards said they would also like to see increased police supervision in school zones and license plate recognition systems to help police spot bad drivers.

Ultimately, they say they would like to see drivers treat crossing guard safety as seriously as the safety of the children they protect.

Still, despite the daily dangers they face, many school crossing guards say they continue to enjoy what they see as an important and much-needed function.

That’s why Anthony Taylor, the school crossing guard in Indianapolis, said he returned to his duties as a crossing guard after suffering severe injuries.

“I like what I do, and I enjoy being around the public,” Taylor said. “That’s what made me decide that, hey, I’m going back to finish out what I was there to start.”

This story has been updated to correct the name of the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and Cox Media Group’s local television stations. It is part of The AP Local Investigative Reporting Program. The program offers AP members workshops, reporting tools, and collaboration with AP journalists to help apply investigative techniques.

Dasia Garner is the 2025 Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting Intern. Gary Fields and River Zhang contributed reporting.

Contributing to this story from Cox Media Group Television Stations were: Jodie Fleischer, Josh Wade, Ted Daniel, WFXT Boston, Tina Terry and Michael Praats, WSOC Charlotte, Michele Newell and Mitchell Lierman, WSB-TV Atlanta, John Bedell, WHIO-TV Dayton, Shannon Butler, WFTV Orlando, Deja Mayfield, WJAX/WFOX Jacksonville, Brooke Griffin, KIRO Seattle, Amy Hudak and Alex Popichak, WPXI Pittsburgh.

By JOSHUA A. BICKEL and MELINA WALLING

EMINENCE, Ky. (AP) — Allan Bryant scans the sky as he watches over a minutes-old calf huddled under a tree line with its mother. After a few failed tries, the calf stands on wobbly legs for the first time, looking to nurse.

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Above, a pair of birds circle in the distance. Bryant, hoping they’re not black vultures, is relieved to see they’re only turkey vultures — red-headed and not aggressive.

“Honestly, the black vulture is one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen,” he said. “They’re easy to hate.”

Black vultures, scavengers that sometimes attack and kill sick or newborn animals, didn’t used to be a problem here. But now Bryant frequently sees the birds following a birth. He hasn’t lost a calf in several years, but they’ve killed his animals before. So now he takes measures to stop them.

In some of his fields, he erects a scarecrow of sorts — a dead black vulture — aimed at scaring off the birds. It’s a requirement of his depredation permit through the Kentucky Farm Bureau, which allows him to shoot a few birds a year. The dead bird keeps the live birds away for about a week, but they eventually come back, he said.

It’s a problem that may grow worse for cattle farmers as the scavenging birds’ range expands northward, in part due to climate change. Lobbying groups have been pushing for legislation that would allow landowners to kill more of these birds, which are protected but not endangered. But experts say more research is needed to better understand how the birds impact livestock and how their removal could affect ecosystems.

Warmer winters and changing habitats expanding birds’ range

Black vultures used to mainly live in the southeastern U.S. and farther south in Latin and South America, but over the past century they’ve started to rapidly stretch northward and also west into the desert Southwest, said Andrew Farnsworth, a visiting scientist at Cornell Lab of Ornithology who studies bird migration.

Warmer winters on average, fueled by climate change, are making it easier for the birds to stay in places that used to be too cold for them. What’s more, the human footprint in suburban and rural areas is enriching their habitat: development means cars, and cars mean roadkill. Cattle farms can also offer a buffet of vulnerable animals for vultures that learn the seasonal calving schedule.

A black vulture stands over a carcass Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, in Ballardsville, Ky. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned from a lot of different studies of birds, it’s that they are very good at taking advantage of food resources and remembering where those things are,” Farnsworth said.

Although black vultures are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, they aren’t really a migratory species, he said. Instead, they breed, and some disperse to new areas and settle there.

How farmers have been dealing with it

After losing a calf to a black vulture a decade ago, Tom Karr, who raises cattle near Pomeroy, Ohio, tried to move his fall calving season later in the year in hopes the vultures would be gone by then. But that didn’t help — the birds stay all year, he said.

Until newborn calves are a few days old, “we try to keep them up closer to the barns,” said Joanie Grimes, the owner of a 350-head calf-cow operation in Hillsboro, Ohio. She said they’ve been dealing with the birds for 15 years, but keeping them out of remote fields has helped improve matters.

A cow stands next to her newborn calf Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, in Eminence, Ky. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Annette Ericksen has noticed the black vultures for several years on her property, Twin Maples Farm in Milton, West Virginia, but they haven’t yet lost any animals to them. When they expect calves and lambs, they move the livestock into a barn, and they also use dogs — Great Pyrenees — trained to patrol the fields and the barnyard for raptors that might hurt the animals.

The size of their operation makes it easier to account for every animal, but “any loss would be severely detrimental to our small business,” she wrote in an email.

Local cattlemen’s associations and state farm bureaus often work together to help producers get depredation permits, which allow them to shoot a few birds each year, as long as they keep track of it on paper.

“The difficulty with that is, if the birds show up, by the time you can get your permit, get all that taken care of, the damage is done,” said Brian Shuter, executive vice president of the Indiana Beef Cattle Association. Farmers said calves can be worth hundreds of dollars or upward of $1,000 or $2,000, depending on the breed.

A new bill would let farmers shoot the protected birds with less paperwork

In March, lawmakers in Congress introduced a bill that would let farmers capture or kill any black vulture “in order to prevent death, injury, or destruction to livestock.” Many farmers and others in the cattle industry have supported the move, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in July commended the House Natural Resources Committee for advancing the bill.

Farnsworth, of the Cornell lab, said it’s not necessarily a good thing to make it easier to kill black vultures, which he said fill “a super important role” in cleaning up “dead stuff.”

Simply killing the birds, Farnsworth said, may make room for more bothersome predators or scavengers. He said though black vultures can leave behind gory damage, current research doesn’t show that they account for an outsize proportion of livestock deaths.

But many farmers are unwilling to do nothing.

“They just basically eat them alive,” Karr said. “It is so disgusting.”

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.

By COLLIN BINKLEY and MAKIYA SEMINERA, AP Education Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government shutdown has been a source of anxiety for school leaders wondering how long grant money will last and who can help them interpret federal laws. For Education Secretary Linda McMahon, it offers a preview of what she hopes to make permanent.

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Much of the department’s work has gone completely cold. No new grants are being awarded, and civil rights investigations have been halted. Money is still flowing for key programs, but in many respects, schools and states are on their own.

That’s the vision President Donald Trump has promoted since his presidential campaign — a world where states fully have the reins of education policy with little or no influence from the federal government.

Even before the shutdown, mass layoffs had left the agency with 2,400 employees, down from 4,100 when Trump took office. Remaining workers have mostly been furloughed during the budget impasse, leaving some 330 who are responsible for carrying out duties that are deemed essential.

In a recent social media post, McMahon said the shutdown proves her department is unnecessary. “Two weeks in, millions of American students are still going to school, teachers are getting paid, and schools are operating as normal,” McMahon wrote.

She offered a more direct assessment days later, after the agency hit its 46th year: “We don’t need a birthday cake,” she wrote. “We need an eviction notice.”

Some say the shutdown’s impact has been more significant. They warn that funding for preschool centers and school meals is running out, and students with disabilities might not be getting the help they need.

Here’s what we know about the impact so far.

Schools mostly have the money they need — for now

Most of the billions of dollars the Education Department steers to schools each year went out the door in October, leaving schools funded until July.

Other programs that aren’t funded in advance face more uncertainty. That includes federally funded Head Start preschool centers and school nutrition programs funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said Julia Martin, director of policy and government affairs at the Bruman Group, an education law firm.

Districts are required to cover the cost of school meals and then seek reimbursement from the Department of Agriculture, but the agency said it only has two months of reimbursements left amid the shutdown.

“Districts are really worried that they’re going to have to dig deep into their pockets to fund meals,” Martin said.

The last remnants of federal COVID-19 aid are still being released by the Education Department, but reimbursements have slowed with fewer staff reviewing the requests, Martin said.

America’s public schools are primarily funded by states and cities, but federal funding plays an important role. The billions sent already to schools include grants to help low-income students, those with disabilities and other populations.

Grant competitions to award smaller amounts of money have largely frozen. Schools and states that already received grants can keep spending them down, but all new grantmaking has ceased, the department said. At the college level, federal Pell grants for low-income students are still flowing, and the FAFSA financial aid form is still being processed.

FILE – The U.S. Department of Education building is photographed in Washington, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

With the government shuttered, schools look elsewhere for a help desk

Ordinarily, states and schools rely on the department to answer questions on a wide range of topics — from special education laws to statewide academic assessments to laws requiring public schools to provide certain services to students at private schools.

That work, known as technical assistance, has halted during the shutdown, and the Trump administration has moved to eliminate it almost entirely. A new round of layoffs this month targeted most workers in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Also gutted was the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which ensures that students with disabilities get the services they’re entitled to under federal law. It maintains “very regular” communication with states to field questions on coordinating aid to families and eliminating waitlists, said Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc of the United States, a disability rights group.

The new layoffs have been halted by a federal judge. But as the shutdown drags on, more states are likely to break federal laws unknowingly because they can’t get help from the government, said Neas, who led the special education office under former President Joe Biden.

“People of good intention and good faith are going to have honest questions that they’re not going to be able to get an answer for,” Neas said.

Some states have turned instead to law firms for advice, but there are not always clear answers. In August, the department rescinded 2015 guidance explaining schools’ legal obligations to students who are learning English. But with no new guidance replacing it before the government shutdown, schools have questions about their responsibilities, said Martin, of the Bruman law firm.

“In the meantime, a lot of districts are just going to continue to follow the old guidance because it’s the best thing they have,” Martin said.

What’s next for the department?

McMahon has acknowledged that only Congress can fully eliminate the Education Department, despite Trump’s campaign pledge to shut it down. As a workaround, officials have been developing plans to transfer core functions to other agencies.

The Education Department already moved some of its adult and career education programs to the Labor Department in July. The Labor Department now oversees federal Perkins grants, which go to states to fund career and technical education.

In court filings, the Education Department has said it was pursuing a similar deal to put the Treasury Department in control of the $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio.

The Supreme Court paved the way for that work to continue in a July decision overturning a lower court order blocking the department’s wind-down.

At her Senate confirmation hearing, McMahon also said special education programs might fit under the Department of Health and Human Services, and that the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights could be moved to the Justice Department.

The Associated Press’ education 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.