VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis apologized Tuesday after he was quoted using a vulgar and derogatory term about gay men to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s ban on gay priests.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni issued a statement acknowledging the media storm that erupted about Francis’ comments, which were delivered behind closed doors to Italian bishops on May 20.

Italian media on Monday had quoted unnamed Italian bishops in reporting that Francis jokingly used the term “faggotness” while speaking in Italian during the encounter. He had used the term in reaffirming the Vatican’s ban on allowing gay men to enter seminaries and be ordained priests.

Bruni said Francis was aware of the reports and recalled that the Argentine pope, who has made outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics a hallmark of his papacy, has long insisted there was “room for everyone” in the Catholic Church.

“The pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who were offended by the use of a term that was reported by others,” Bruni said.

With the statement, Bruni carefully avoided an outright confirmation that the pope had indeed used the term, in keeping with the Vatican's tradition of not revealing what the pope says behind closed doors. But Bruni also didn't deny that Francis had used the term and acknowledged that some people had been offended by it.

Francis was addressing an assembly of the Italian bishops conference, which recently approved a new document outlining training for Italian seminarians. The document, which hasn’t been published pending review by the Holy See, reportedly sought to open some wiggle room in the Vatican’s absolute ban on gay priests by introducing the issue of celibacy as the primary requirement for priests, gay or straight.

The Vatican ban was articulated in a 2005 document from the Congregation for Catholic Education, and later repeated in a subsequent document in 2016, which said the church cannot admit to seminaries or ordain men who “practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture.”

The position has long been criticized as homophobic and hypocritical for an institution that certainly counts gay priests in its ranks. The late psychotherapist Richard Sipe, a onetime Benedictine monk who taught in U.S. seminaries, estimated in the early 2000s that as many as 30% of the U.S. clergy was homosexually oriented.

The late Rev. Donald Cozzens, a seminary rector, said the percentage was even higher, and asserted in his book “The Changing Face of The Priesthood” that the U.S. priesthood was increasingly becoming a gay profession since so many heterosexual men had left the priesthood to marry and have families.

Priests in the Latin rite Catholic Church cannot marry, while those in eastern rite churches may.

Francis strongly reaffirmed the Vatican ban on gay priests in his May 20 meeting with the Italian bishops, joking that “there is already an air of faggotness” in seminaries, the Italian media reported, after initial reporting from gossip site Dagospia.

Italian is not Francis’ mother tongue language, and the Argentine pope has made linguistic gaffes in the past that raised eyebrows. The 87-year-old Argentine pope often speaks informally, jokes using slang and even curses in private.

He has been known for his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, however, starting from his famous&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/general-news-7b465b60945f40deb3a68b3de742f84a">“Who am I to judge</a>&nbsp;” comment in 2013 about a priest who purportedly had a gay lover in his past. He has&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/vatican-transgender-lgbtq-b3d67868504ba701cce09da9ecc94de0">ministered to transgender Catholics</a>, allowed priests to bless same-sex couples and called for an end to anti-gay legislation, saying in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-gay-rights-ap-interview-1359756ae22f27f87c1d4d6b9c8ce212">Being homosexual is not a crime.</a>&nbsp;”

However, he has occasionally offended LGBTQ+ people and their advocates, including in that same interview where he implied that while homosexuality wasn't a crime, it was a sin. He&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-lgbtq-people-religion-marriage-862075728690d103bd99bbe8e1e65aba">later clarified</a>&nbsp;that he was referring to sexual activity, and that any sex outside marriage between a man and a woman was sinful in the eyes of the church.

And most recently, he signed off on a Vatican document asserting that&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/vatican-gender-surrogacy-abortion-pope-3f84d8eb97f045b0cfb0ec1efa4e614e">gender-affirming surgery was a grave violation of human dignity.</a>

New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics, welcomed Francis' apology Tuesday and said it confirmed that the "use of the slur was a careless colloquialism." But the group's director Francis DeBernardo questioned the underlying content of the pope's comments and the overall ban on gays in the priesthood.

“Without a clarification, his words will be interpreted as a blanket ban on accepting any gay man to a seminary,” DeBernardo said in a release, asking for a clearer statement on Francis' views about gay priests “so many of whom faithfully serve the people of God each day.”

Francis strongly reaffirmed that position in his May 20 meeting with the Italian bishops, joking that “there is already an air of faggotness” in seminaries, the Italian media reported, after initial reporting from gossip site Dagospia.

He has been known for his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, however, starting from his famous “Who am I to judge” comment in 2013 about a priest who purportedly had a gay lover in his past.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/3/1615845367722.png" alt="Italian media on Monday had quoted unnamed Italian bishops in reporting that Francis jokingly used the term “faggotness” while speaking in Italian during the encounter.-File photo CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>Italian media on Monday had quoted unnamed Italian bishops in reporting that Francis jokingly used the term “faggotness” while speaking in Italian during the encounter.-File photo CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis apologized Tuesday after he was quoted using a vulgar and derogatory term about gay men to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s ban on gay priests.Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni issued a statement acknowledging the media storm that erupted about Francis’ comments, which were delivered behind closed doors to Italian bishops on May 20.Italian media on Monday had quoted unnamed Italian bishops in reporting that Francis jokingly used the term “faggotness” while speaking in Italian during the encounter. He had used the term in reaffirming the Vatican’s ban on allowing gay men to enter seminaries and be ordained priests.Bruni said Francis was aware of the reports and recalled that the Argentine pope, who has made outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics a hallmark of his papacy, has long insisted there was “room for everyone” in the Catholic Church.“The pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who were offended by the use of a term that was reported by others,” Bruni said.With the statement, Bruni carefully avoided an outright confirmation that the pope had indeed used the term, in keeping with the Vatican's tradition of not revealing what the pope says behind closed doors. But Bruni also didn't deny that Francis had used the term and acknowledged that some people had been offended by it.Francis was addressing an assembly of the Italian bishops conference, which recently approved a new document outlining training for Italian seminarians. The document, which hasn’t been published pending review by the Holy See, reportedly sought to open some wiggle room in the Vatican’s absolute ban on gay priests by introducing the issue of celibacy as the primary requirement for priests, gay or straight.The Vatican ban was articulated in a 2005 document from the Congregation for Catholic Education, and later repeated in a subsequent document in 2016, which said the church cannot admit to seminaries or ordain men who “practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture.”The position has long been criticized as homophobic and hypocritical for an institution that certainly counts gay priests in its ranks. The late psychotherapist Richard Sipe, a onetime Benedictine monk who taught in U.S. seminaries, estimated in the early 2000s that as many as 30% of the U.S. clergy was homosexually oriented.The late Rev. Donald Cozzens, a seminary rector, said the percentage was even higher, and asserted in his book “The Changing Face of The Priesthood” that the U.S. priesthood was increasingly becoming a gay profession since so many heterosexual men had left the priesthood to marry and have families.Priests in the Latin rite Catholic Church cannot marry, while those in eastern rite churches may.Francis strongly reaffirmed the Vatican ban on gay priests in his May 20 meeting with the Italian bishops, joking that “there is already an air of faggotness” in seminaries, the Italian media reported, after initial reporting from gossip site Dagospia.Italian is not Francis’ mother tongue language, and the Argentine pope has made linguistic gaffes in the past that raised eyebrows. The 87-year-old Argentine pope often speaks informally, jokes using slang and even curses in private.He has been known for his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, however, starting from his famous&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/general-news-7b465b60945f40deb3a68b3de742f84a">“Who am I to judge</a>&nbsp;” comment in 2013 about a priest who purportedly had a gay lover in his past. He has&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/vatican-transgender-lgbtq-b3d67868504ba701cce09da9ecc94de0">ministered to transgender Catholics</a>, allowed priests to bless same-sex couples and called for an end to anti-gay legislation, saying in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-gay-rights-ap-interview-1359756ae22f27f87c1d4d6b9c8ce212">Being homosexual is not a crime.</a>&nbsp;”However, he has occasionally offended LGBTQ+ people and their advocates, including in that same interview where he implied that while homosexuality wasn't a crime, it was a sin. He&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-lgbtq-people-religion-marriage-862075728690d103bd99bbe8e1e65aba">later clarified</a>&nbsp;that he was referring to sexual activity, and that any sex outside marriage between a man and a woman was sinful in the eyes of the church.And most recently, he signed off on a Vatican document asserting that&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/vatican-gender-surrogacy-abortion-pope-3f84d8eb97f045b0cfb0ec1efa4e614e">gender-affirming surgery was a grave violation of human dignity.</a>New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics, welcomed Francis' apology Tuesday and said it confirmed that the "use of the slur was a careless colloquialism." But the group's director Francis DeBernardo questioned the underlying content of the pope's comments and the overall ban on gays in the priesthood.“Without a clarification, his words will be interpreted as a blanket ban on accepting any gay man to a seminary,” DeBernardo said in a release, asking for a clearer statement on Francis' views about gay priests “so many of whom faithfully serve the people of God each day.”The Vatican ban was articulated in a 2005 document from the Congregation for Catholic Education, and later repeated in a subsequent document in 2016, which said the church cannot admit to seminaries or ordain men who “practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture.”Francis strongly reaffirmed that position in his May 20 meeting with the Italian bishops, joking that “there is already an air of faggotness” in seminaries, the Italian media reported, after initial reporting from gossip site Dagospia.Italian is not Francis’ mother tongue language, and the Argentine pope has made linguistic gaffes in the past that raised eyebrows. The 87-year-old Argentine pope often speaks informally, jokes using slang and even curses in private.He has been known for his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, however, starting from his famous “Who am I to judge” comment in 2013 about a priest who purportedly had a gay lover in his past.

Pope Francis apologizes after quoted using homophobic slur

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. (AP) — Generations of American families have grown up not knowing exactly what happened to their loved ones who died while serving their country in World War II and other conflicts.

But a federal lab tucked away above the bowling alley at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha and a sister lab in Hawaii are&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/3f18def51817489a80ec461a84299604">steadily answering those lingering questions</a>, aiming to offer 200 families per year the chance to honor their relatives with a proper burial.

“They may not even have been alive when that service member was alive, but that story gets carried down through the generations," said Carrie Brown, a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lab manager at Offutt. "They may have seen on the mantle a picture of that person when they were little and not really understood or known who they were.”

Memorial Day and the upcoming 80th anniversary of D-Day on June 6 are reminders of the urgency of Brown's work. The forensic anthropologists, medical examiners and historians who work together to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/medal-of-honor-remains-identified-korea-d27e7c4be23a29e48a63652a29b19202">identify lost soldiers</a>&nbsp;are in a race against time as remains buried on battlefields around the globe deteriorate.

But advances in DNA technology, combined with innovative techniques including comparing bones to chest X-rays taken by the military, mean the labs can identify more of the missing soldiers every year. Some 72,000 World War II soldiers remain unaccounted for, along with roughly 10,000 more from all the conflicts since. The experts believe about half of those are recoverable.

The agency identified 59 servicemembers in 2013, when the Offutt lab first opened. That number has steadily risen — 159 service members last year, up from 134 in 2022 — and the labs have a goal of 200 identifications annually.

The labs' work allowed Donna Kennedy to bury her cousin, Cpl. Charles Ray Patten, with full military honors this month in the same Lawson, Missouri, cemetery where his father and grandfather are buried. Patten died 74 years ago during the Korean War, but spent decades buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.

“I just I ached. I mean, it hurt. You know, I just felt so bad. Even though I didn’t know him, I loved him,” Kennedy said.

Patten's funeral was a simple affair with just a few family members. But often when veterans who fought decades earlier are identified, people waving flags and holding signs line the streets of their hometowns to herald the return of their remains.

“This work is important first and foremost because these are individuals that gave their lives to protect our freedom, and they paid the ultimate sacrifice. So we’re here holding that promise that we’ll return them home to their families,” Brown said.

"It’s important for their families to show them that we’ll never stop, no matter what,” she said.

Often there are compelling details, Brown said.

One of her first cases involved the intact remains of a World War I Marine found in a forest in France with his wallet still in his pocket. The wallet, initialed G.H., contained a New York Times article describing plans for the offensive in which he ultimately died. He also had an infantryman badge with his name and the year he received it on the back.

Before leaving France with the remains, the team visited a local cemetery where other soldiers were buried and learned there were only two missing soldiers with the initials G.H.

Brown had a fair idea who that soldier was before his remains even arrived in the lab. That veteran was buried in Arlington National Cemetery and Brown often visits his grave when she is in Washington D.C.

The experts who work at the lab must piece together identities by looking at historical records about where the remains were found and which soldiers were in the area. They then consult the list of possible names and use the bones, objects found with them, military medical records and DNA to confirm their identities. They focus on battles and plane crashes where they have the greatest chance of success because of available information.

But their work can be complicated if soldiers were buried in a temporary cemetery and moved when a unit was forced to retreat. And unidentified soldiers were often buried together.

When remains are brought to the lab, they sometimes include an extra bone. Experts then spend months or even years matching the bones and waiting for DNA and other test results to confirm their identities.

One test even can identify if the soldier grew up primarily eating rice or a corn-based diet.

The lab also compares specific traits of collar bones to the chest X-rays the military routinely took of soldiers before they were deployed. It helps that the military keeps extensive records of all soldiers.

Those clues help the experts put together the puzzle of someone's identity.

“It’s not always easy. It’s certainly not instantaneous,” Brown said. “Some of the cases, we really have to fight to get to that spot, because some of them have been gone for 80 years.”

Associated PressOFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. (AP) — Generations of American families have grown up not knowing exactly what happened to their loved ones who died while serving their country in World War II and other conflicts.But a federal lab tucked away above the bowling alley at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha and a sister lab in Hawaii are&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/3f18def51817489a80ec461a84299604">steadily answering those lingering questions</a>, aiming to offer 200 families per year the chance to honor their relatives with a proper burial.“They may not even have been alive when that service member was alive, but that story gets carried down through the generations," said Carrie Brown, a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lab manager at Offutt. "They may have seen on the mantle a picture of that person when they were little and not really understood or known who they were.”Memorial Day and the upcoming 80th anniversary of D-Day on June 6 are reminders of the urgency of Brown's work. The forensic anthropologists, medical examiners and historians who work together to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/medal-of-honor-remains-identified-korea-d27e7c4be23a29e48a63652a29b19202">identify lost soldiers</a>&nbsp;are in a race against time as remains buried on battlefields around the globe deteriorate.But advances in DNA technology, combined with innovative techniques including comparing bones to chest X-rays taken by the military, mean the labs can identify more of the missing soldiers every year. Some 72,000 World War II soldiers remain unaccounted for, along with roughly 10,000 more from all the conflicts since. The experts believe about half of those are recoverable.The agency identified 59 servicemembers in 2013, when the Offutt lab first opened. That number has steadily risen — 159 service members last year, up from 134 in 2022 — and the labs have a goal of 200 identifications annually.The labs' work allowed Donna Kennedy to bury her cousin, Cpl. Charles Ray Patten, with full military honors this month in the same Lawson, Missouri, cemetery where his father and grandfather are buried. Patten died 74 years ago during the Korean War, but spent decades buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.“I just I ached. I mean, it hurt. You know, I just felt so bad. Even though I didn’t know him, I loved him,” Kennedy said.Patten's funeral was a simple affair with just a few family members. But often when veterans who fought decades earlier are identified, people waving flags and holding signs line the streets of their hometowns to herald the return of their remains.“This work is important first and foremost because these are individuals that gave their lives to protect our freedom, and they paid the ultimate sacrifice. So we’re here holding that promise that we’ll return them home to their families,” Brown said."It’s important for their families to show them that we’ll never stop, no matter what,” she said.Often there are compelling details, Brown said.One of her first cases involved the intact remains of a World War I Marine found in a forest in France with his wallet still in his pocket. The wallet, initialed G.H., contained a New York Times article describing plans for the offensive in which he ultimately died. He also had an infantryman badge with his name and the year he received it on the back.Before leaving France with the remains, the team visited a local cemetery where other soldiers were buried and learned there were only two missing soldiers with the initials G.H.Brown had a fair idea who that soldier was before his remains even arrived in the lab. That veteran was buried in Arlington National Cemetery and Brown often visits his grave when she is in Washington D.C.Most cases aren’t that easy.The experts who work at the lab must piece together identities by looking at historical records about where the remains were found and which soldiers were in the area. They then consult the list of possible names and use the bones, objects found with them, military medical records and DNA to confirm their identities. They focus on battles and plane crashes where they have the greatest chance of success because of available information.But their work can be complicated if soldiers were buried in a temporary cemetery and moved when a unit was forced to retreat. And unidentified soldiers were often buried together.When remains are brought to the lab, they sometimes include an extra bone. Experts then spend months or even years matching the bones and waiting for DNA and other test results to confirm their identities.One test even can identify if the soldier grew up primarily eating rice or a corn-based diet.The lab also compares specific traits of collar bones to the chest X-rays the military routinely took of soldiers before they were deployed. It helps that the military keeps extensive records of all soldiers.Those clues help the experts put together the puzzle of someone's identity.“It’s not always easy. It’s certainly not instantaneous,” Brown said. “Some of the cases, we really have to fight to get to that spot, because some of them have been gone for 80 years.”

Military labs do the detective work to identify soldiers decades after they died in World War II

WASHINGTON (AP) —When Balu Natarajan became the first Indian American champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1985, a headline on an Associated Press article read, “Immigrants’ son wins National Spelling Bee,” with the first paragraph noting the champion “speaks his parents’ native Indian language at home.”

Those details would hardly be newsworthy today after a quarter-century of Indian American spelling champs, most of them the offspring of parents who arrived in the United States on student or work visas.

<a href="https://www.spellingbee.com/meet-the-spellers">This year's bee</a>&nbsp;is scheduled to begin Tuesday at a convention center outside Washington and, as usual, many of the expected contenders are Indian American, including Shradha Rachamreddy, Aryan Khedkar, Bruhat Soma and Ishika Varipilli.&nbsp;Sarah Grace Fernandes, 12, 6th grader at St. Stephan the Martyr Catholic School, Omaha, is representing the state of Nebraska.

Nearly 70% of Indian-born U.S. residents arrived after 2000, according to census data, and that dovetails with the surge in Indian American spelling bee champions. There were two Indian American Scripps winners before 1999. Of the 34 since, 28 have been Indian American, including three straight years of Indian American co-champions and one year (2019)&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/31123142c2dd4349b7e11649270dc3e6">when eight champions were declared</a>, seven of Indian ancestry.

The experiences of first-generation Indian Americans and their spelling bee champion children illustrate the economic success and cultural impact of the nation's second-largest immigrant group.

As of 2022, there were 3.1 million Indian-born people living in the U.S., and Indian American households had a median income of $147,000, more than twice the median income of all U.S. households, according to census data. Indian Americans also were more than twice as likely to have college degrees.

Indians received 74% of the H-1B visas for specialized occupations approved in fiscal 2021, and a record total of nearly 269,000 students from India were&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/college-international-students-india-china-8104695e27ca9d035ce6f15ad52f1bc5">enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities</a>&nbsp;in 2022-23, according to the Institute of International Education.

Those numbers paint a picture of a high-achieving demographic that is well-suited for success in academic competitions.

Ganesh Dasari, whose daughter and son each made multiple appearances at the Scripps bee, holds a doctorate in civil engineering from the University of Cambridge and was recruited to the U.S. to work for ExxonMobil on an H-1B visa. He quickly obtained a green card.

“Me and my wife, we came from a similar background. We both benefited from having the education ... so we put a lot of emphasis on educating our kids,” Dasari said. “We basically introduced them to anything academic, and a couple of sports, but clearly there was a bias in our thinking that education is a higher priority than sports.”

In his 2016 address to Congress, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi&nbsp;<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4602630/user-clip-prime-minister-modi-recognizes-spelling-bee-champions&amp;fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2lootutnJhPs7C1561fSwH8AA1V-aXNWkRDAps6nBbPs6TaHriQ5RzIck_aem_AWa0ZNDhtefFWp29EG2jb2Y1EgWh_6jZsbmYSnD9jgTSUlLGGn7RVXYH44hhAFIBqY4EHk5NMcIpvSF_QLSKJYyK">mentioned “spelling bee champions”</a>&nbsp;among his country's contributions to the U.S. while that year's co-champs, Nihar Janga and Jairam Hathwar, watched from the gallery.

Even among Indian American spellers, a particular subgroup is overrepresented: families from the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where Telugu is the primary language. Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana, is India's information-technology hub and the region supplies many H-1B visa recipients.

“Whenever we go to the spelling bee events, everybody speaks that language,” Dasari said. “We realized there are so many people from the same state.”

Deval Shah, the father of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2023-spelling-bee-finals-updates-1b09d39ba7631d26f3a3c833f7aeefea">last year's champion, Dev Shah</a>, grew up in the northwestern state of Gujarat and proudly noted Dev was the first spelling bee champion of Gujarati descent. The parents of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/texas-san-antonio-education-cf165d27b93b784ab7fb7c0f9e7ecbf0">the 2022 winner, Harini Logan</a>, are from Chennai in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Shah is an engineer, his wife is a physician, and both of Harini's parents were trained as software engineers.

Indian-born parents of kids with an affinity for spelling have a network of similar families to provide guidance and support, as well as access to organizations like the North South Foundation, which offers academic competitions aimed at the Indian diaspora.

“The reason Indian American immigrants really dominate, the main reason is the North South Foundation,” Shah said.

When Harini won her first NSF spelling competition, Ganesh Dasari was one of the judges, and “he was literally chasing us down” to tell them “Harini has tremendous potential to be on the national stage,” said Rampriya Logan, Harini's mother.

Ishika, a 13-year-old from Spring, Texas, who will be competing at Scripps this year for the third time, woke her parents at 6 a.m. the day after she lost a third-grade classroom spelling bee, saying she wanted to participate in more bees. Her mother, an IT manager who immigrated to the U.S. in 2006, then reached out to ask advice from other families from the Houston area whose children were high-level spellers.

The relative wealth and stability of Indian American households could lead observers to conclude their children are benefiting primarily from a privileged upbringing. The truth is more nuanced, said Devesh Kapur, a professor of South Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a co-author of “The Other One Percent: Indians in America.”

“It is important to note that the children participating in the spelling bee competition come from striving middle-class immigrant families, often in occupations like IT, and not from wealthier Indian American households in finance or tech start-ups or consulting,” Kapur said.

Natarajan, a Chicago-based physician and health care executive, now serves as the volunteer president of the NSF, and he experienced the spelling bee as a parent when&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/df3754d09535412781362fd907ec9023">his son, Atman Balakrishnan, competed</a>. He said he sometimes feels out of place because he was born in the U.S. and he admires the grit of Indian-born parents and their children.

“It’s hard to describe, but it’s a very specific mindset that just drives effort and in many ways drives outcomes and sustainable success,” Natarajan said.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/5/1716913401526.png" alt="Sarah Grace Fernandes, 12, 6th grade, St. Stephan the Martyr Catholic School, Omaha-courtesy photo" />
 <figcaption>Sarah Grace Fernandes, 12, 6th grade, St. Stephan the Martyr Catholic School, Omaha-courtesy photo</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) —When Balu Natarajan became the first Indian American champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1985, a headline on an Associated Press article read, “Immigrants’ son wins National Spelling Bee,” with the first paragraph noting the champion “speaks his parents’ native Indian language at home.”Those details would hardly be newsworthy today after a quarter-century of Indian American spelling champs, most of them the offspring of parents who arrived in the United States on student or work visas.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/5/1716911963934.png" alt="Emory Jobe, 14, 8th Grade, Mission Trail Middle School in Olathe, Kansas -courtesy photo" />
 <figcaption>Emory Jobe, 14, 8th Grade, Mission Trail Middle School in Olathe, Kansas -courtesy photo</figcaption>
 </figure><a href="https://www.spellingbee.com/meet-the-spellers">This year's bee</a>&nbsp;is scheduled to begin Tuesday at a convention center outside Washington and, as usual, many of the expected contenders are Indian American, including Shradha Rachamreddy, Aryan Khedkar, Bruhat Soma and Ishika Varipilli.&nbsp;Sarah Grace Fernandes, 12, 6th grader at St. Stephan the Martyr Catholic School, Omaha, is representing the state of Nebraska.Nearly 70% of Indian-born U.S. residents arrived after 2000, according to census data, and that dovetails with the surge in Indian American spelling bee champions. There were two Indian American Scripps winners before 1999. Of the 34 since, 28 have been Indian American, including three straight years of Indian American co-champions and one year (2019)&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/31123142c2dd4349b7e11649270dc3e6">when eight champions were declared</a>, seven of Indian ancestry.The experiences of first-generation Indian Americans and their spelling bee champion children illustrate the economic success and cultural impact of the nation's second-largest immigrant group.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/5/1716912172264.png" alt="Carey Chebii Chesire , 13, Andover Middle School, Andover, Kansas -courtesy photo" />
 <figcaption>Carey Chebii Chesire , 13, Andover Middle School, Andover, Kansas -courtesy photo</figcaption>
 </figure>As of 2022, there were 3.1 million Indian-born people living in the U.S., and Indian American households had a median income of $147,000, more than twice the median income of all U.S. households, according to census data. Indian Americans also were more than twice as likely to have college degrees.Indians received 74% of the H-1B visas for specialized occupations approved in fiscal 2021, and a record total of nearly 269,000 students from India were&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/college-international-students-india-china-8104695e27ca9d035ce6f15ad52f1bc5">enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities</a>&nbsp;in 2022-23, according to the Institute of International Education.Those numbers paint a picture of a high-achieving demographic that is well-suited for success in academic competitions.Ganesh Dasari, whose daughter and son each made multiple appearances at the Scripps bee, holds a doctorate in civil engineering from the University of Cambridge and was recruited to the U.S. to work for ExxonMobil on an H-1B visa. He quickly obtained a green card.“Me and my wife, we came from a similar background. We both benefited from having the education ... so we put a lot of emphasis on educating our kids,” Dasari said. “We basically introduced them to anything academic, and a couple of sports, but clearly there was a bias in our thinking that education is a higher priority than sports.”In his 2016 address to Congress, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi&nbsp;<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4602630/user-clip-prime-minister-modi-recognizes-spelling-bee-champions&amp;fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2lootutnJhPs7C1561fSwH8AA1V-aXNWkRDAps6nBbPs6TaHriQ5RzIck_aem_AWa0ZNDhtefFWp29EG2jb2Y1EgWh_6jZsbmYSnD9jgTSUlLGGn7RVXYH44hhAFIBqY4EHk5NMcIpvSF_QLSKJYyK">mentioned “spelling bee champions”</a>&nbsp;among his country's contributions to the U.S. while that year's co-champs, Nihar Janga and Jairam Hathwar, watched from the gallery.Even among Indian American spellers, a particular subgroup is overrepresented: families from the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where Telugu is the primary language. Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana, is India's information-technology hub and the region supplies many H-1B visa recipients.“Whenever we go to the spelling bee events, everybody speaks that language,” Dasari said. “We realized there are so many people from the same state.”Deval Shah, the father of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2023-spelling-bee-finals-updates-1b09d39ba7631d26f3a3c833f7aeefea">last year's champion, Dev Shah</a>, grew up in the northwestern state of Gujarat and proudly noted Dev was the first spelling bee champion of Gujarati descent. The parents of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/texas-san-antonio-education-cf165d27b93b784ab7fb7c0f9e7ecbf0">the 2022 winner, Harini Logan</a>, are from Chennai in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Shah is an engineer, his wife is a physician, and both of Harini's parents were trained as software engineers.Indian-born parents of kids with an affinity for spelling have a network of similar families to provide guidance and support, as well as access to organizations like the North South Foundation, which offers academic competitions aimed at the Indian diaspora.“The reason Indian American immigrants really dominate, the main reason is the North South Foundation,” Shah said.When Harini won her first NSF spelling competition, Ganesh Dasari was one of the judges, and “he was literally chasing us down” to tell them “Harini has tremendous potential to be on the national stage,” said Rampriya Logan, Harini's mother.Ishika, a 13-year-old from Spring, Texas, who will be competing at Scripps this year for the third time, woke her parents at 6 a.m. the day after she lost a third-grade classroom spelling bee, saying she wanted to participate in more bees. Her mother, an IT manager who immigrated to the U.S. in 2006, then reached out to ask advice from other families from the Houston area whose children were high-level spellers.The relative wealth and stability of Indian American households could lead observers to conclude their children are benefiting primarily from a privileged upbringing. The truth is more nuanced, said Devesh Kapur, a professor of South Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a co-author of “The Other One Percent: Indians in America.”“It is important to note that the children participating in the spelling bee competition come from striving middle-class immigrant families, often in occupations like IT, and not from wealthier Indian American households in finance or tech start-ups or consulting,” Kapur said.Natarajan, a Chicago-based physician and health care executive, now serves as the volunteer president of the NSF, and he experienced the spelling bee as a parent when&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/df3754d09535412781362fd907ec9023">his son, Atman Balakrishnan, competed</a>. He said he sometimes feels out of place because he was born in the U.S. and he admires the grit of Indian-born parents and their children.“It’s hard to describe, but it’s a very specific mindset that just drives effort and in many ways drives outcomes and sustainable success,” Natarajan said.

Nebraska 6th grader in the field at Scripps National Spelling Bee

Bird flu has been detected in beef for the first time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Friday, but officials said the meat from a single sickened dairy cow was not allowed to enter the nation's food supply and beef remains safe to eat.

The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/livestock/h5n1-beef-safety-studies">USDA said</a>&nbsp;the virus was found as part of testing of 96 dairy cows that were diverted from the supply because federal inspectors noticed signs of illness during routine inspections of carcasses at meat processing plants. Bird flu was found in only one of those cows.

Bird flu has been confirmed in dairy cattle herds in nine states, has been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bird-flu-raw-milk-h5n1-6398d2eda26eb41797ee2700cf9d036b">found in milk</a>&nbsp;and has prompted the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bird-flu-outbreak-turkey-egg-chicken-prices-afca48e861a54091d0e224a5fcbed17b">slaughter of millions of chickens and turkeys</a>. But finding it in beef is a new development for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/disease-outbreaks-iowa-business-health-bird-flu-2c9ca4b3d04f3c0269a1fee233daa3a6">the outbreak</a>, which began in 2022.

The agency said last month that it would&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bird-flu-cows-ground-beef-dairy-h5n1-testing-bb199d266b0004ec0a228afb70695ad8">test ground beef</a>&nbsp;for bird flu at retail stores, but it has yet to find any sign of the virus.

Even if bird flu were to end up in consumer beef, the USDA says, cooking the meat to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit (73.9 Celsius) will kill it just like it kills E. coli and other viruses.

<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bird-flu-cows-michigan-farmworker-cacf56984b328ff2b2f94883b20f5272">Two farmworkers at dairies</a>&nbsp;in Michigan and Texas were sickened by bird flu this spring. The danger to the public remains low, but farmworkers exposed to infected animals are at higher risk, health officials said.

Only one other human case of bird flu has been confirmed in the United States. In 2022, a prisoner in a work program&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-health-environment-colorado-b98906e0a1899bb1f92da30a7b1dbe28">picked it up</a>&nbsp;while killing infected birds at a poultry farm in Montrose County, Colorado. His only symptom was fatigue, and he recovered.

Associated PressBird flu has been detected in beef for the first time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Friday, but officials said the meat from a single sickened dairy cow was not allowed to enter the nation's food supply and beef remains safe to eat.The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/livestock/h5n1-beef-safety-studies">USDA said</a>&nbsp;the virus was found as part of testing of 96 dairy cows that were diverted from the supply because federal inspectors noticed signs of illness during routine inspections of carcasses at meat processing plants. Bird flu was found in only one of those cows.Bird flu has been confirmed in dairy cattle herds in nine states, has been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bird-flu-raw-milk-h5n1-6398d2eda26eb41797ee2700cf9d036b">found in milk</a>&nbsp;and has prompted the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bird-flu-outbreak-turkey-egg-chicken-prices-afca48e861a54091d0e224a5fcbed17b">slaughter of millions of chickens and turkeys</a>. But finding it in beef is a new development for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/disease-outbreaks-iowa-business-health-bird-flu-2c9ca4b3d04f3c0269a1fee233daa3a6">the outbreak</a>, which began in 2022.The agency said last month that it would&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bird-flu-cows-ground-beef-dairy-h5n1-testing-bb199d266b0004ec0a228afb70695ad8">test ground beef</a>&nbsp;for bird flu at retail stores, but it has yet to find any sign of the virus.Even if bird flu were to end up in consumer beef, the USDA says, cooking the meat to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit (73.9 Celsius) will kill it just like it kills E. coli and other viruses.<a href="https://apnews.com/article/bird-flu-cows-michigan-farmworker-cacf56984b328ff2b2f94883b20f5272">Two farmworkers at dairies</a>&nbsp;in Michigan and Texas were sickened by bird flu this spring. The danger to the public remains low, but farmworkers exposed to infected animals are at higher risk, health officials said.Only one other human case of bird flu has been confirmed in the United States. In 2022, a prisoner in a work program&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-health-environment-colorado-b98906e0a1899bb1f92da30a7b1dbe28">picked it up</a>&nbsp;while killing infected birds at a poultry farm in Montrose County, Colorado. His only symptom was fatigue, and he recovered.

Bird flu virus detected in beef from an ill dairy cow, but USDA says meat remains safe

VIENNA (AP) — Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, according to a confidential report on Monday by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the latest in Tehran's attempts to steadily exert pressure on the international community.

Iran is seeking to have economic sanctions imposed over the country's controversial nuclear program lifted in exchange for slowing the program down. The program — as all matters of state in Iran — are&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-nuclear-program-raisi-helicopter-crash-diplomacy-27de312812676e698219a38e69bb9233">under the guidance of Iran’s supreme leader</a>, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and that likely won’t change in the wake of last week's helicopter crash that killed Iran's president and foreign minister.

The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency also comes against the backdrop of heightened tensions in the wider Middle East over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Israel and Iran have carried out direct strikes on each other’s territory for the first time last month.

The report, seen by The Associated Press, said that as of May 11, Iran has 142.1 kilograms (313.2 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60% — an increase of 20.6 kilograms (45.4 pounds) since&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-iaea-nuclear-quarterly-report-bca494913fbc8ccc1621466fe9c221e6">the last report by the U.N. watchdog in February</a>. Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

By IAEA’s definition, around 42 kilograms (92.5 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60% is the amount at which creating one atomic weapon is theoretically possible — if the material is enriched further, to 90%.

Also as of May 11, the report says Iran’s overall stockpile of enriched uranium stands at 6,201.3 kilograms (1,3671.5 pounds), which represents an increase of 675.8 kilograms (1,489.8 pounds) since the IAEA's previous report.

Iran has maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-iaea-nuclear-program-143e3e3c015dbf9c17316ad60ff989da">the IAEA chief, Rafael Mariano Grossi</a>, has previously warned that Tehran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade levels&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-iran-politics-government-mahmoud-ahmadinejad-6acdb64d36fcbe05b3ee725d8a585d96">to make “several” nuclear bombs</a>&nbsp;if it chose to do so. He has acknowledged the U.N. agency cannot guarantee that none of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/cop28-climate-talks-grossi-iaea-iran-nuclear-power-11a37c802d7e0bca6538d5c66a9ec6fd">Iran’s centrifuges may have been peeled away for clandestine enrichment</a>.

Tensions have grown between Iran and the IAEA since 2018, when then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. Since then, Iran has abandoned all limits the deal put on its program and quickly stepped up enrichment.

Under the original nuclear deal, struck in 2015, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium only up to 3.67% purity, maintain a stockpile of about 300 kilograms and use only very basic IR-1 centrifuges — machines that spin uranium gas at high speed for enrichment purposes.

The 2015 deal saw Tehran agree to limit enrichment of uranium to levels necessary for generating nuclear power in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. At the time, U.N. inspectors were tasked with monitoring the program.

Monday's report also said that Tehran has not reconsidered its September 2023 decision to bar IAEA inspectors from further monitoring its nuclear program and added that it expects Iran “to do so in the context of the ongoing consultations between the (IAEA) agency and Iran.”

According to the report, Grossi “deeply regrets” Iran's decision to bar inspectors — and a reversal of that decision “remains essential to fully allow the agency to conduct its verification activities in Iran effectively.”

The deaths of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian have triggered a pause in the IAEA's talks with Tehran over improving cooperation, the report acknowledged.

Before the May 19 helicopter crash, Iran had agreed to hold technical negotiations with IAEA on May 20, following a visit by Grossi earlier in the month. But those meetings fell apart due to the crash. Iran then sent a letter on May 21, saying its nuclear team wants to continue discussions in Tehran "on an appropriate date that will be mutually agreed upon,” the report said.

The report also said Iran has still not provided answers to the IAEA's years-long investigation about the origin and current location of manmade uranium particles found at two locations that Tehran has failed to declare as potential nuclear sites, Varamin and Turquzabad.

It said the IAEA’s request need to be resolved, otherwise the the agency “will not be able to confirm the correctness an completeness of Iran’s declarations" under a safeguards agreement between Tehran and the nuclear watchdog.

The report also said there was no progress so far in reinstalling more monitoring equipment, including cameras, removed in June 2022. Since then, the only recorded data is that of IAEA cameras installed at a centrifuge workshop in the city of Isfahan in May 2023 — although Iran has not provided the IAEA with access to this data.

VIENNA (AP) — Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, according to a confidential report on Monday by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the latest in Tehran's attempts to steadily exert pressure on the international community.Iran is seeking to have economic sanctions imposed over the country's controversial nuclear program lifted in exchange for slowing the program down. The program — as all matters of state in Iran — are&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-nuclear-program-raisi-helicopter-crash-diplomacy-27de312812676e698219a38e69bb9233">under the guidance of Iran’s supreme leader</a>, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and that likely won’t change in the wake of last week's helicopter crash that killed Iran's president and foreign minister.The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency also comes against the backdrop of heightened tensions in the wider Middle East over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Israel and Iran have carried out direct strikes on each other’s territory for the first time last month.The report, seen by The Associated Press, said that as of May 11, Iran has 142.1 kilograms (313.2 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60% — an increase of 20.6 kilograms (45.4 pounds) since&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-iaea-nuclear-quarterly-report-bca494913fbc8ccc1621466fe9c221e6">the last report by the U.N. watchdog in February</a>. Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.By IAEA’s definition, around 42 kilograms (92.5 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60% is the amount at which creating one atomic weapon is theoretically possible — if the material is enriched further, to 90%.Also as of May 11, the report says Iran’s overall stockpile of enriched uranium stands at 6,201.3 kilograms (1,3671.5 pounds), which represents an increase of 675.8 kilograms (1,489.8 pounds) since the IAEA's previous report.Iran has maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-iaea-nuclear-program-143e3e3c015dbf9c17316ad60ff989da">the IAEA chief, Rafael Mariano Grossi</a>, has previously warned that Tehran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade levels&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-iran-politics-government-mahmoud-ahmadinejad-6acdb64d36fcbe05b3ee725d8a585d96">to make “several” nuclear bombs</a>&nbsp;if it chose to do so. He has acknowledged the U.N. agency cannot guarantee that none of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/cop28-climate-talks-grossi-iaea-iran-nuclear-power-11a37c802d7e0bca6538d5c66a9ec6fd">Iran’s centrifuges may have been peeled away for clandestine enrichment</a>.Tensions have grown between Iran and the IAEA since 2018, when then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. Since then, Iran has abandoned all limits the deal put on its program and quickly stepped up enrichment.Under the original nuclear deal, struck in 2015, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium only up to 3.67% purity, maintain a stockpile of about 300 kilograms and use only very basic IR-1 centrifuges — machines that spin uranium gas at high speed for enrichment purposes.The 2015 deal saw Tehran agree to limit enrichment of uranium to levels necessary for generating nuclear power in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. At the time, U.N. inspectors were tasked with monitoring the program.Monday's report also said that Tehran has not reconsidered its September 2023 decision to bar IAEA inspectors from further monitoring its nuclear program and added that it expects Iran “to do so in the context of the ongoing consultations between the (IAEA) agency and Iran.”According to the report, Grossi “deeply regrets” Iran's decision to bar inspectors — and a reversal of that decision “remains essential to fully allow the agency to conduct its verification activities in Iran effectively.”The deaths of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian have triggered a pause in the IAEA's talks with Tehran over improving cooperation, the report acknowledged.Before the May 19 helicopter crash, Iran had agreed to hold technical negotiations with IAEA on May 20, following a visit by Grossi earlier in the month. But those meetings fell apart due to the crash. Iran then sent a letter on May 21, saying its nuclear team wants to continue discussions in Tehran "on an appropriate date that will be mutually agreed upon,” the report said.The report also said Iran has still not provided answers to the IAEA's years-long investigation about the origin and current location of manmade uranium particles found at two locations that Tehran has failed to declare as potential nuclear sites, Varamin and Turquzabad.It said the IAEA’s request need to be resolved, otherwise the the agency “will not be able to confirm the correctness an completeness of Iran’s declarations" under a safeguards agreement between Tehran and the nuclear watchdog.The report also said there was no progress so far in reinstalling more monitoring equipment, including cameras, removed in June 2022. Since then, the only recorded data is that of IAEA cameras installed at a centrifuge workshop in the city of Isfahan in May 2023 — although Iran has not provided the IAEA with access to this data.

Report: Iran's near-nuclear bomb-grade uranium stock grows

DENVER (AP) — The first attempts to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-ai-explained-policy-technology-regulations-discrimination-d3226c9139d3d06af263e7ff467d0666">regulate artificial intelligence programs</a>&nbsp;that play a hidden role in hiring, housing and medical decisions for millions of Americans are facing pressure from all sides and floundering in statehouses nationwide.

Only one of seven bills aimed at preventing AI’s penchant to discriminate when making consequential decisions — including who gets hired, money for a home or medical care — has passed. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis hesitantly signed the bill on Friday.

Colorado’s bill and those that faltered in Washington, Connecticut and elsewhere faced battles on many fronts, including between civil rights groups and the tech industry, and lawmakers wary of wading into a technology few yet understand and governors worried about being the odd-state-out and spooking AI startups.

Polis signed Colorado’s bill “with reservations,” saying in an statement he was wary of regulations dousing AI innovation. The bill has a two-year runway and can be altered before it becomes law.

“I encourage (lawmakers) to significantly improve on this before it takes effect,” Polis wrote.

Colorado’s proposal, along with six sister bills, are complex, but will broadly require companies to assess the risk of discrimination from their AI and inform customers when AI was used to help make a consequential decision for them.

The bills are separate from more than 400 AI-related bills that have been debated this year. Most are aimed at slices of AI, such as the use of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/deepfake-images-taylor-swift-state-legislation-bffbc274dd178ab054426ee7d691df7e">deepfakes in elections</a>&nbsp;or to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-ai-connecticut-regulation-b004b4477ac20cc365317edff9f7351b">make pornography</a>.

The seven bills are more ambitious, applying across major industries and targeting discrimination, one of the technology’s most perverse and complex problems.

“We actually have no visibility into the algorithms that are used, whether they work or they don’t, or whether we’re discriminated against,” said Rumman Chowdhury, AI envoy for the U.S. Department of State who previously led Twitter’s AI ethics team.

While anti-discrimination laws are already on the books, those who study AI discrimination say it’s a different beast, which the U.S. is already behind in regulating.

“The computers are making biased decisions at scale,” said Christine Webber, a civil rights attorney who has worked on class action lawsuits over discrimination including against Boeing and Tyson Foods. Now, Webber is nearing final approval on one of the first-in-the-nation settlements in a class action over AI discrimination.

“Not, I should say, that the old systems were perfectly free from bias either,” said Webber. But “any one person could only look at so many resumes in the day. So you could only make so many biased decisions in one day and the computer can do it rapidly across large numbers of people.”

When you apply for a job, an apartment or a home loan, there’s a good chance AI is assessing your application: sending it up the line, assigning it a score or filtering it out. It’s estimated as many as 83% of employers use algorithms to help in hiring, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

AI itself doesn’t know what to look for in a job application, so it’s taught based on past resumes. The historical data that is used to train algorithms can smuggle in bias.

Amazon, for example, worked on a hiring algorithm that was trained on old resumes: largely male applicants. When assessing new applicants, it downgraded resumes with the word “women’s” or that listed women’s colleges because they were not represented in the historical data — the resumes — it had learned from. The project was scuttled.

Webber’s class action lawsuit alleges that an AI system that scores rental applications disproportionately assigned lower scores to Black or Hispanic applicants. A study found that an AI system built to assess medical needs&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/racial-bias-in-health-care-software-aids-whites-over-blacks-b5fb4e1ae6e944fd979568df1fdb6df4">passed over Black patients</a>&nbsp;for special care.

Studies and lawsuits have allowed a glimpse under the hood of AI systems, but most algorithms remain veiled. Americans are largely unaware that these tools are being used, polling from Pew Research shows. Companies generally aren’t required to explicitly disclose that an AI was used.

“Just pulling back the curtain so that we can see who’s really doing the assessing and what tool is being used is a huge, huge first step,” said Webber. “The existing laws don’t work if we can’t get at least some basic information.”

That’s what Colorado’s bill, along with another surviving bill in California, are trying to change. The bills, including a flagship proposal in Connecticut that was killed under opposition from the governor, are largely similar.

Colorado’s bill will require companies using AI to help make consequential decisions for Americans to annually assess their AI for potential bias; implement an oversight program within the company; tell the state attorney general if discrimination was found; and inform to customers when an AI was used to help make a decision for them, including an option to appeal.

Labor unions and academics fear that a reliance on companies overseeing themselves means it'll be hard to proactively address discrimination in an AI system before it's done damage. Companies are fearful that forced transparency could reveal trade secrets, including in potential litigation, in this hyper-competitive new field.

AI companies also pushed for, and generally received, a provision that only allows the attorney general, not citizens, to file lawsuits under the new law. Enforcement details have been left up to the attorney general.

While larger AI companies have more or less been on board with these proposals, a group of smaller Colorado-based AI companies said the requirements might be manageable by behemoth AI companies, but not by budding startups.

“We are in a brand new era of primordial soup,” said Logan Cerkovnik, founder of Thumper.ai, referring to the field of AI. “Having overly restrictive legislation that forces us into definitions and restricts our use of technology while this is forming is just going to be detrimental to innovation.”

All agreed, along with many AI companies, that what’s formally called “algorithmic discrimination” is critical to tackle. But they said the bill as written falls short of that goal. Instead, they proposed beefing up existing anti-discrimination laws.

Chowdhury worries that lawsuits are too costly and time consuming to be an effective enforcement tool, and laws should instead go beyond what even Colorado is proposing. Instead, Chowdhury and academics have proposed accredited, independent organization that can explicitly test for potential bias in an AI algorithm.

“You can understand and deal with a single person who is discriminatory or biased,” said Chowdhury. “What do we do when it’s embedded into the entire institution?”

DENVER (AP) — The first attempts to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-ai-explained-policy-technology-regulations-discrimination-d3226c9139d3d06af263e7ff467d0666">regulate artificial intelligence programs</a>&nbsp;that play a hidden role in hiring, housing and medical decisions for millions of Americans are facing pressure from all sides and floundering in statehouses nationwide.Only one of seven bills aimed at preventing AI’s penchant to discriminate when making consequential decisions — including who gets hired, money for a home or medical care — has passed. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis hesitantly signed the bill on Friday.Colorado’s bill and those that faltered in Washington, Connecticut and elsewhere faced battles on many fronts, including between civil rights groups and the tech industry, and lawmakers wary of wading into a technology few yet understand and governors worried about being the odd-state-out and spooking AI startups.Polis signed Colorado’s bill “with reservations,” saying in an statement he was wary of regulations dousing AI innovation. The bill has a two-year runway and can be altered before it becomes law.“I encourage (lawmakers) to significantly improve on this before it takes effect,” Polis wrote.Colorado’s proposal, along with six sister bills, are complex, but will broadly require companies to assess the risk of discrimination from their AI and inform customers when AI was used to help make a consequential decision for them.The bills are separate from more than 400 AI-related bills that have been debated this year. Most are aimed at slices of AI, such as the use of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/deepfake-images-taylor-swift-state-legislation-bffbc274dd178ab054426ee7d691df7e">deepfakes in elections</a>&nbsp;or to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-ai-connecticut-regulation-b004b4477ac20cc365317edff9f7351b">make pornography</a>.The seven bills are more ambitious, applying across major industries and targeting discrimination, one of the technology’s most perverse and complex problems.“We actually have no visibility into the algorithms that are used, whether they work or they don’t, or whether we’re discriminated against,” said Rumman Chowdhury, AI envoy for the U.S. Department of State who previously led Twitter’s AI ethics team.While anti-discrimination laws are already on the books, those who study AI discrimination say it’s a different beast, which the U.S. is already behind in regulating.“The computers are making biased decisions at scale,” said Christine Webber, a civil rights attorney who has worked on class action lawsuits over discrimination including against Boeing and Tyson Foods. Now, Webber is nearing final approval on one of the first-in-the-nation settlements in a class action over AI discrimination.“Not, I should say, that the old systems were perfectly free from bias either,” said Webber. But “any one person could only look at so many resumes in the day. So you could only make so many biased decisions in one day and the computer can do it rapidly across large numbers of people.”When you apply for a job, an apartment or a home loan, there’s a good chance AI is assessing your application: sending it up the line, assigning it a score or filtering it out. It’s estimated as many as 83% of employers use algorithms to help in hiring, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.AI itself doesn’t know what to look for in a job application, so it’s taught based on past resumes. The historical data that is used to train algorithms can smuggle in bias.Amazon, for example, worked on a hiring algorithm that was trained on old resumes: largely male applicants. When assessing new applicants, it downgraded resumes with the word “women’s” or that listed women’s colleges because they were not represented in the historical data — the resumes — it had learned from. The project was scuttled.Webber’s class action lawsuit alleges that an AI system that scores rental applications disproportionately assigned lower scores to Black or Hispanic applicants. A study found that an AI system built to assess medical needs&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/racial-bias-in-health-care-software-aids-whites-over-blacks-b5fb4e1ae6e944fd979568df1fdb6df4">passed over Black patients</a>&nbsp;for special care.Studies and lawsuits have allowed a glimpse under the hood of AI systems, but most algorithms remain veiled. Americans are largely unaware that these tools are being used, polling from Pew Research shows. Companies generally aren’t required to explicitly disclose that an AI was used.“Just pulling back the curtain so that we can see who’s really doing the assessing and what tool is being used is a huge, huge first step,” said Webber. “The existing laws don’t work if we can’t get at least some basic information.”That’s what Colorado’s bill, along with another surviving bill in California, are trying to change. The bills, including a flagship proposal in Connecticut that was killed under opposition from the governor, are largely similar.Colorado’s bill will require companies using AI to help make consequential decisions for Americans to annually assess their AI for potential bias; implement an oversight program within the company; tell the state attorney general if discrimination was found; and inform to customers when an AI was used to help make a decision for them, including an option to appeal.Labor unions and academics fear that a reliance on companies overseeing themselves means it'll be hard to proactively address discrimination in an AI system before it's done damage. Companies are fearful that forced transparency could reveal trade secrets, including in potential litigation, in this hyper-competitive new field.AI companies also pushed for, and generally received, a provision that only allows the attorney general, not citizens, to file lawsuits under the new law. Enforcement details have been left up to the attorney general.While larger AI companies have more or less been on board with these proposals, a group of smaller Colorado-based AI companies said the requirements might be manageable by behemoth AI companies, but not by budding startups.“We are in a brand new era of primordial soup,” said Logan Cerkovnik, founder of Thumper.ai, referring to the field of AI. “Having overly restrictive legislation that forces us into definitions and restricts our use of technology while this is forming is just going to be detrimental to innovation.”All agreed, along with many AI companies, that what’s formally called “algorithmic discrimination” is critical to tackle. But they said the bill as written falls short of that goal. Instead, they proposed beefing up existing anti-discrimination laws.Chowdhury worries that lawsuits are too costly and time consuming to be an effective enforcement tool, and laws should instead go beyond what even Colorado is proposing. Instead, Chowdhury and academics have proposed accredited, independent organization that can explicitly test for potential bias in an AI algorithm.“You can understand and deal with a single person who is discriminatory or biased,” said Chowdhury. “What do we do when it’s embedded into the entire institution?”___

First state attempts to regulate AI’s hidden role in American life

BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/allison-winter/">ALLISON WINTER</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/">Kansas Reflector</a>

WASHINGTON — Republicans moved their long-awaited new farm bill through the U.S. House Agriculture Committee this week, despite opposition from most Democrats that could stall further advancement of the bill.

The massive $1.5 trillion legislation would set policy and funding levels for key food, agriculture and conservation programs for the next five years. After a marathon markup Thursday, the GOP-authored bill cleared the committee after midnight Friday, 33-21, with four Democratic votes.

The committee’s bill would increase farm “safety net” payments for some commodity crops, expand eligibility for disaster assistance and increase funding for speciality crops, organic farmers and dairy farmers.

It is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years. A title-by-title summary of the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://agriculture.house.gov/uploadedfiles/discussion_draft_ffns.pdf">942-page bill</a>&nbsp;can be found&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://agriculture.house.gov/uploadedfiles/detailed_summary_final.pdf">here</a>.

Democrats Don Davis of North Carolina, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Yadira Caraveo of Colorado and Eric Sorenson of Illinois&nbsp;joined all committee Republicans to vote to advance the bill.

After hours of heated debate and criticism from Democrats, support from the four lawmakers across the aisle seemed to surprise House Agriculture Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican who was the bill’s primary sponsor.

His microphone picked up his aside as the vote concluded: “That was bipartisan. I did not see that one coming.”

But the tepid Democratic support is likely not enough to see this version of the bill through to final passage in the House.

A handful of Republicans typically oppose farm bills over fiscal concerns. And even Democrats who voted for the bill in the House committee said it needs major changes before it could make it into law.

The measure does not have support of Democrats in the Senate or the White House.

“Everyone knows that this bill would never become law. The Senate won’t accept it and the administration won’t accept it,” Rep. David Scott of Georgia, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said at the markup. “And while this bill is a giant misstep, it nevertheless begins our journey toward passing a farm bill.”

As the House committee debated the bill, Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow, the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said in an interview Thursday that the House proposal has no chance in the Senate.

“It tears up the farm and food coalition and does not have the votes to pass on the House floor. And certainly not in the Senate,” Stabenow told States Newsroom.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/usda-chief-voices-deep-concerns-over-us-house-gop-farm-bills-nutrition-cuts">said earlier this week</a>&nbsp;that the farm bill draft would damage the coalition that traditionally has united behind farm bills and “raises the real possibility of being unable to get a farm bill through the process.”

The committee vote – which came eight months after the previous farm bill expired – was the first step in what is expected to continue to be a protracted dispute over food and farm policy.

Many farm commodity groups have come out in support of the bill, but it faces opposition from hunger advocacy groups as well as fiscal conservatives.

Heritage Foundation, National Taxpayers Union and Taxpayers for Common Sense, along with Environmental Working Group, united this week to oppose the legislation, which they characterized as a government giveaway to favored special interests.

The groups, which span the ideological spectrum, contend the proposed legislation would spend tens of billions of dollars in subsidies that would overwhelmingly go to a relatively small number of farmers who grow certain commodity crops.

Historically, farm bills have brought together lawmakers across party lines, uniting on regional interests. The massive bill stitches together support for agriculture producers, energy and conservation programs on farmland and food and nutrition programs for families in need.

But committee members are deeply divided over limits on nutrition and climate programs that are the funding mechanisms for the Republican bill.

“This, on the policy side, is a very good bill,” Rep. Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat, said. “But on the payment side, how do you get to your math?”

The&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2024/05/24/u-s-house-panel-debates-nutrition-benefit-changes-farm-bill/">key dispute</a>&nbsp;for Democrats is a funding calculation that would place limits on the formula that calculates benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, the food aid program formerly referred to as food stamps.

“One of the reasons it is so hard to negotiate the little items on this bill is because the big items and the funding mechanism are so fundamentally flawed,” Maine Democrat Chellie Pingree said.

The bill would limit future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, the formula that calculates benefits for SNAP. This would result in a nearly $30 billion reduction in spending over ten years, based on the estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, lawmakers say.

“If we want a farm bill that is able to pass into law with the bipartisan levels that it requires to pass beyond this committee, it is necessary that we go back to the negotiating table and remove this provision,” Caraveo said.

Caraveo, who faces a tough re-election in a toss-up district, ultimately voted in favor of the bill.

Connecticut Democrat Jahana Hayes offered an amendment that would have struck the changes to the program. But after more than two hours of impassioned debate on the issue Thursday night, the amendment failed on a party-line vote, 25-29.

The farm bill has to remain budget neutral, so lawmakers must fit their proposals into a baseline projection of how much the government would spend over the next 10 years if the current farm bill was extended.

The House Republican bill would offset increases in payments for farmers by placing limits on SNAP and a discretionary account at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The committee-passed bill would put limits on USDA’s discretionary Commodity Credit Corporation account and would remove climate-smart policy requirements for about $13 billion in conservation projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.

“Farmers agree that this is good money that has come to all of our states, and is critically important,” Pingree said. “So taking away this authority from one Agriculture secretary maybe because you don’t like one program is completely misguided. It’s not thinking into the future.”

On the Senate side, Stabenow released an outline of her own&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.agriculture.senate.gov/newsroom/dem/press/release/chairwoman-stabenow-unveils-the-rural-prosperity-and-food-security-act">proposal</a>&nbsp;for the farm bill in early May but said she is waiting for language from Republicans before they can move forward.

Among other things, Stabenow’s bill would boost eligibility for nutrition programs for low-income people like SNAP. Stabenow made public a summary of the bill, but not legislative text.

Arkansas Republican John Boozman, the Senate Agriculture Committee’s top Republican, said Thursday he supports the direction on the farm bill from the House Agriculture Committee but was not optimistic about swift movement in his chamber.

“We’ve got a lot of headwinds,” Boozman said in an interview with&nbsp;States Newsroom&nbsp;Thursday.

Boozman said he plans to release language in the coming weeks but indicated lawmakers might be headed toward another extension if they cannot make progress swiftly.

“When I visit with the farm groups, I think their attitude is that rather than just doing something, if it’s not meaningful, we’re better off waiting,” Boozman told States Newsroom. “This is a five-year commitment. And, again, if we’re not going to do meaningful changes, to improve the safety of the farmers, it’s probably not worth doing.”

The farm bill is generally considered “must-pass” legislation. Lawmakers must rewrite the sweeping legislation every five years to set mandatory funding levels and policy. The current farm bill expired at the end of September 2023 but most programs have continued through extensions.

The current extension lasts until the end of September, but it is not clear if lawmakers will make that deadline – especially as attention turns to election campaigns over the summer and fall.

The farm bill votes could be fuel in upcoming elections.

As the House committee debated the measure Thursday, the GOP candidate in the Michigan U.S. Senate race to replace Stabenow criticized Democratic candidate and committee member Elissa Slotkin for her stance on the bill. Republican Mike Rogers took to X (formerly Twitter) to say Slotkin had not focused enough on the bill.

While the House committee engaged in 13 hours of debate on the farm bill markup, both Democrats and Republicans acknowledged that there would need to be more negotiations on the bill before it could become law.

Rep. Frank Lucas, an Oklahoma Republican and longtime committee member who chaired the panel from 2011 to 2015, characterized the committee vote as “the first step of a long journey.”

“Now, ultimately, ultimately, we must work with each other to advance a comprehensive committee product,” Lucas said.

“As we begin this process, I want to remind all my colleagues, the real struggle is not here in the Ag Committee, but on the floor of the United States House and in the conference committee. We will sort out our differences with the United States Senate.”

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/5/1589039066122.png" alt="&nbsp;The U.S. House Agriculture Committee approved a bill this week to renew farm and nutrition programs, the the measure faces a tough road to becoming law. File photo" />
 <figcaption>&nbsp;The U.S. House Agriculture Committee approved a bill this week to renew farm and nutrition programs, the the measure faces a tough road to becoming law. File photo</figcaption>
 </figure>BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/allison-winter/">ALLISON WINTER</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/">Kansas Reflector</a>WASHINGTON — Republicans moved their long-awaited new farm bill through the U.S. House Agriculture Committee this week, despite opposition from most Democrats that could stall further advancement of the bill.The massive $1.5 trillion legislation would set policy and funding levels for key food, agriculture and conservation programs for the next five years. After a marathon markup Thursday, the GOP-authored bill cleared the committee after midnight Friday, 33-21, with four Democratic votes.The committee’s bill would increase farm “safety net” payments for some commodity crops, expand eligibility for disaster assistance and increase funding for speciality crops, organic farmers and dairy farmers.It is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years. A title-by-title summary of the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://agriculture.house.gov/uploadedfiles/discussion_draft_ffns.pdf">942-page bill</a>&nbsp;can be found&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://agriculture.house.gov/uploadedfiles/detailed_summary_final.pdf">here</a>.Democrats Don Davis of North Carolina, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Yadira Caraveo of Colorado and Eric Sorenson of Illinois&nbsp;joined all committee Republicans to vote to advance the bill.After hours of heated debate and criticism from Democrats, support from the four lawmakers across the aisle seemed to surprise House Agriculture Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican who was the bill’s primary sponsor.His microphone picked up his aside as the vote concluded: “That was bipartisan. I did not see that one coming.”<h2>Changes ahead</h2>But the tepid Democratic support is likely not enough to see this version of the bill through to final passage in the House.A handful of Republicans typically oppose farm bills over fiscal concerns. And even Democrats who voted for the bill in the House committee said it needs major changes before it could make it into law.The measure does not have support of Democrats in the Senate or the White House.“Everyone knows that this bill would never become law. The Senate won’t accept it and the administration won’t accept it,” Rep. David Scott of Georgia, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said at the markup. “And while this bill is a giant misstep, it nevertheless begins our journey toward passing a farm bill.”As the House committee debated the bill, Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow, the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said in an interview Thursday that the House proposal has no chance in the Senate.“It tears up the farm and food coalition and does not have the votes to pass on the House floor. And certainly not in the Senate,” Stabenow told States Newsroom.Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/usda-chief-voices-deep-concerns-over-us-house-gop-farm-bills-nutrition-cuts">said earlier this week</a>&nbsp;that the farm bill draft would damage the coalition that traditionally has united behind farm bills and “raises the real possibility of being unable to get a farm bill through the process.”The committee vote – which came eight months after the previous farm bill expired – was the first step in what is expected to continue to be a protracted dispute over food and farm policy.Many farm commodity groups have come out in support of the bill, but it faces opposition from hunger advocacy groups as well as fiscal conservatives.Heritage Foundation, National Taxpayers Union and Taxpayers for Common Sense, along with Environmental Working Group, united this week to oppose the legislation, which they characterized as a government giveaway to favored special interests.The groups, which span the ideological spectrum, contend the proposed legislation would spend tens of billions of dollars in subsidies that would overwhelmingly go to a relatively small number of farmers who grow certain commodity crops.<h2>Funding dispute</h2>Historically, farm bills have brought together lawmakers across party lines, uniting on regional interests. The massive bill stitches together support for agriculture producers, energy and conservation programs on farmland and food and nutrition programs for families in need.But committee members are deeply divided over limits on nutrition and climate programs that are the funding mechanisms for the Republican bill.“This, on the policy side, is a very good bill,” Rep. Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat, said. “But on the payment side, how do you get to your math?”The&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2024/05/24/u-s-house-panel-debates-nutrition-benefit-changes-farm-bill/">key dispute</a>&nbsp;for Democrats is a funding calculation that would place limits on the formula that calculates benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, the food aid program formerly referred to as food stamps.“One of the reasons it is so hard to negotiate the little items on this bill is because the big items and the funding mechanism are so fundamentally flawed,” Maine Democrat Chellie Pingree said.The bill would limit future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, the formula that calculates benefits for SNAP. This would result in a nearly $30 billion reduction in spending over ten years, based on the estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, lawmakers say.“If we want a farm bill that is able to pass into law with the bipartisan levels that it requires to pass beyond this committee, it is necessary that we go back to the negotiating table and remove this provision,” Caraveo said.Caraveo, who faces a tough re-election in a toss-up district, ultimately voted in favor of the bill.Connecticut Democrat Jahana Hayes offered an amendment that would have struck the changes to the program. But after more than two hours of impassioned debate on the issue Thursday night, the amendment failed on a party-line vote, 25-29.The farm bill has to remain budget neutral, so lawmakers must fit their proposals into a baseline projection of how much the government would spend over the next 10 years if the current farm bill was extended.The House Republican bill would offset increases in payments for farmers by placing limits on SNAP and a discretionary account at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The committee-passed bill would put limits on USDA’s discretionary Commodity Credit Corporation account and would remove climate-smart policy requirements for about $13 billion in conservation projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.“Farmers agree that this is good money that has come to all of our states, and is critically important,” Pingree said. “So taking away this authority from one Agriculture secretary maybe because you don’t like one program is completely misguided. It’s not thinking into the future.”<h2>Slow Senate progress</h2>On the Senate side, Stabenow released an outline of her own&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.agriculture.senate.gov/newsroom/dem/press/release/chairwoman-stabenow-unveils-the-rural-prosperity-and-food-security-act">proposal</a>&nbsp;for the farm bill in early May but said she is waiting for language from Republicans before they can move forward.Among other things, Stabenow’s bill would boost eligibility for nutrition programs for low-income people like SNAP. Stabenow made public a summary of the bill, but not legislative text.Arkansas Republican John Boozman, the Senate Agriculture Committee’s top Republican, said Thursday he supports the direction on the farm bill from the House Agriculture Committee but was not optimistic about swift movement in his chamber.“We’ve got a lot of headwinds,” Boozman said in an interview with&nbsp;States Newsroom&nbsp;Thursday.Boozman said he plans to release language in the coming weeks but indicated lawmakers might be headed toward another extension if they cannot make progress swiftly.“When I visit with the farm groups, I think their attitude is that rather than just doing something, if it’s not meaningful, we’re better off waiting,” Boozman told States Newsroom. “This is a five-year commitment. And, again, if we’re not going to do meaningful changes, to improve the safety of the farmers, it’s probably not worth doing.”<h2>Election issue</h2>The farm bill is generally considered “must-pass” legislation. Lawmakers must rewrite the sweeping legislation every five years to set mandatory funding levels and policy. The current farm bill expired at the end of September 2023 but most programs have continued through extensions.The current extension lasts until the end of September, but it is not clear if lawmakers will make that deadline – especially as attention turns to election campaigns over the summer and fall.The farm bill votes could be fuel in upcoming elections.As the House committee debated the measure Thursday, the GOP candidate in the Michigan U.S. Senate race to replace Stabenow criticized Democratic candidate and committee member Elissa Slotkin for her stance on the bill. Republican Mike Rogers took to X (formerly Twitter) to say Slotkin had not focused enough on the bill.<h2>More negotiations ahead</h2>While the House committee engaged in 13 hours of debate on the farm bill markup, both Democrats and Republicans acknowledged that there would need to be more negotiations on the bill before it could become law.Rep. Frank Lucas, an Oklahoma Republican and longtime committee member who chaired the panel from 2011 to 2015, characterized the committee vote as “the first step of a long journey.”“Now, ultimately, ultimately, we must work with each other to advance a comprehensive committee product,” Lucas said.“As we begin this process, I want to remind all my colleagues, the real struggle is not here in the Ag Committee, but on the floor of the United States House and in the conference committee. We will sort out our differences with the United States Senate.”Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

Farm bill advances from U.S. House panel but faces a tough row to hoe

DETROIT (AP) — Cars, trucks and SUVs in the U.S. keep getting older, hitting a record average age of 12.6 years in 2024 as people hang on to their vehicles largely because new ones cost so much.

S&amp;P Global Mobility, which tracks state vehicle registration data nationwide, said Wednesday that the average vehicle age grew about two months from&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/cars-older-record-age-prices-shortages-supply-6e3273208399803a402e707e1393475c">last year's record</a>.

But the growth in average age is starting to slow as new vehicle sales start to recover from pandemic-related shortages of parts, including computer chips. The average increased by three months in 2023.

Still, with an average U.S. new-vehicle selling price of just over $45,000 last month, many can't afford to buy new — even though prices are down more than $2,000 from the peak in December of 2022, according to J.D. Power.

“It’s prohibitively high for a lot of households now,” said Todd Campau, aftermarket leader for S&amp;P Global Mobility. "So I think consumers are being painted into the corner of having to keep the vehicle on the road longer.”

Other factors include people waiting to see if they want to buy an electric vehicle or go with a gas-electric hybrid or a gasoline vehicle. Many, he said, are worried about the charging network being built up so they can travel without worrying about running out of battery power. Also, he said, vehicles are made better these days and simply are lasting a long time.

New vehicle sales in the U.S. are starting to return to pre-pandemic levels, with prices and interest rates the big influencing factors rather than illness and supply-chain problems, Compau said. He said he expects sales to hit around 16 million this year, up from 15.6 million&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-sales-prices-chip-shortage-interest-rates-7e07b5d1b1362d1394514bfd0d6f4c0d">last year</a>&nbsp;and 13.9 million in 2022.

As more new vehicles are sold and replace aging vehicles in the nation's fleet of 286 million passenger vehicles, the average age should stop growing and stabilize, Compau said. And unlike immediately after the pandemic, more lower-cost vehicles are being sold, which likely will bring down the average price, he said.

People keeping vehicles longer is good news for the local auto repair shop. About 70% of vehicles on the road are 6 or more years old, he said, beyond manufacturer warranties.

DETROIT (AP) — Cars, trucks and SUVs in the U.S. keep getting older, hitting a record average age of 12.6 years in 2024 as people hang on to their vehicles largely because new ones cost so much.S&amp;P Global Mobility, which tracks state vehicle registration data nationwide, said Wednesday that the average vehicle age grew about two months from&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/cars-older-record-age-prices-shortages-supply-6e3273208399803a402e707e1393475c">last year's record</a>.But the growth in average age is starting to slow as new vehicle sales start to recover from pandemic-related shortages of parts, including computer chips. The average increased by three months in 2023.Still, with an average U.S. new-vehicle selling price of just over $45,000 last month, many can't afford to buy new — even though prices are down more than $2,000 from the peak in December of 2022, according to J.D. Power.“It’s prohibitively high for a lot of households now,” said Todd Campau, aftermarket leader for S&amp;P Global Mobility. "So I think consumers are being painted into the corner of having to keep the vehicle on the road longer.”Other factors include people waiting to see if they want to buy an electric vehicle or go with a gas-electric hybrid or a gasoline vehicle. Many, he said, are worried about the charging network being built up so they can travel without worrying about running out of battery power. Also, he said, vehicles are made better these days and simply are lasting a long time.New vehicle sales in the U.S. are starting to return to pre-pandemic levels, with prices and interest rates the big influencing factors rather than illness and supply-chain problems, Compau said. He said he expects sales to hit around 16 million this year, up from 15.6 million&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/auto-sales-prices-chip-shortage-interest-rates-7e07b5d1b1362d1394514bfd0d6f4c0d">last year</a>&nbsp;and 13.9 million in 2022.As more new vehicles are sold and replace aging vehicles in the nation's fleet of 286 million passenger vehicles, the average age should stop growing and stabilize, Compau said. And unlike immediately after the pandemic, more lower-cost vehicles are being sold, which likely will bring down the average price, he said.People keeping vehicles longer is good news for the local auto repair shop. About 70% of vehicles on the road are 6 or more years old, he said, beyond manufacturer warranties.

Average US vehicle age hits record 12.6 years as high prices force people to keep them longer

BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/shauneen-miranda/">SHAUNEEN MIRANDA</a>

WASHINGTON — As Democrats continue to ramp up their push against the oil industry, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and others on Thursday called out big oil companies and their executives for high gas prices heading into the heavily traveled Memorial Day weekend.

Republicans in turn have blamed President Joe Biden’s energy policies for high gas prices, with the potency of the issue for both parties illustrated by&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/survey-research/2024-swing-state-project/unique-election-driven-traditional-issue">a new poll&nbsp;</a>in seven battleground states that shows the economy and cost of living at the top of voters’ minds in the 2024 campaign for the presidency.

The Biden administration earlier this week&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/21/biden-to-release-1-million-barrels-of-gasoline-to-reduce-prices-at-the-pump-ahead-of-july-4.html">said</a>&nbsp;1 million gallons of oil will be released from reserves in the northeastern United States, in an effort to curb prices ahead of summer driving. And officials with the Biden campaign pointed out Thursday a Wall Street Journal&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/gas-prices-memorial-day-weekend-2df1feab?mod=hp_lead_pos7">report</a>&nbsp;that prices are trending downward even before the weekend.

The national average price of a gallon of gas was $3.615 Thursday, according to automotive group&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://gasprices.aaa.com/">AAA</a>, down from an all-time high of $5.016 in June 2022.

The Democratic lawmakers at Thursday’s press conference outside the U.S. Capitol included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and U.S. Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island; House Assistant Minority Leader Joe Neguse of Colorado; and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Nanette Barragán and Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, both of California.

“Instead of working to lower gas prices for Americans ahead of a busy Memorial Day weekend, Big Oil companies, executives, are huddling to find ways to keep prices high and keep their profits soaring,” Schumer said. The press conference was co-hosted by Climate Power, a strategic communications organization in the climate space and the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental advocacy group.

Earlier in May, the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/05/ftc-order-bans-former-pioneer-ceo-exxon-board-seat-exxon-pioneer-deal">Federal Trade Commission</a>&nbsp;alleged that Scott Sheffield, the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, “attempted to collude with the representatives of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and a related cartel of other oil-producing countries known as OPEC+ to reduce output of oil and gas, which would result in Americans paying higher prices at the pump, to inflate profits for his company.”

During Thursday’s event, Schumer said he would be sending a letter to the U.S. Justice Department next week “calling on them to investigate and prosecute collusion and price fixing that may have increased gasoline, fuel and energy costs, based on the report done by the FTC, when they unfortunately allowed (Exxon) Mobil to … merge with Pioneer (Natural Resources), which I thought was a bad idea.”

Schumer added that “the federal government must use every tool at our disposal to investigate the oil industry, hold accountable liable actors and illegal activities. There’s something wrong — very wrong — when big oil companies rake in the cash by polluting the atmosphere and at the expense of the American people.”

The Senate majority leader and his fellow Democratic lawmakers also called out former President Donald Trump over recent&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/09/trump-oil-industry-campaign-money/">media reports</a>&nbsp;saying Trump engaged in a quid pro quo offer with major oil companies’ CEOs in April.

Schumer said “one of the ways big oil companies spend their time these days is cozying up to Donald Trump, who, as we all know, is no enemy to big oil.”

Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for president, setting him up for a rematch with Biden.

Separately on Thursday, Whitehouse, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, and Oregon U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said their respective committees&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/budget-finance-committees-launch-joint-investigation-into-donald-trumps-quid-pro-quo-offer-to-big-oil-">launched a joint investigation</a>&nbsp;into Trump’s “quid pro quo offer to big oil.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/5/1716664294434.png" alt=" From left, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts; Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island; Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power; and U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democrat from California, urge big oil companies be held accountable for high gas prices on Thursday, May 23, 2024, outside of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)" />
 <figcaption> From left, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts; Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island; Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power; and U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democrat from California, urge big oil companies be held accountable for high gas prices on Thursday, May 23, 2024, outside of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)</figcaption>
 </figure>BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/shauneen-miranda/">SHAUNEEN MIRANDA</a>WASHINGTON — As Democrats continue to ramp up their push against the oil industry, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and others on Thursday called out big oil companies and their executives for high gas prices heading into the heavily traveled Memorial Day weekend.Republicans in turn have blamed President Joe Biden’s energy policies for high gas prices, with the potency of the issue for both parties illustrated by&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/survey-research/2024-swing-state-project/unique-election-driven-traditional-issue">a new poll&nbsp;</a>in seven battleground states that shows the economy and cost of living at the top of voters’ minds in the 2024 campaign for the presidency.The Biden administration earlier this week&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/21/biden-to-release-1-million-barrels-of-gasoline-to-reduce-prices-at-the-pump-ahead-of-july-4.html">said</a>&nbsp;1 million gallons of oil will be released from reserves in the northeastern United States, in an effort to curb prices ahead of summer driving. And officials with the Biden campaign pointed out Thursday a Wall Street Journal&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/gas-prices-memorial-day-weekend-2df1feab?mod=hp_lead_pos7">report</a>&nbsp;that prices are trending downward even before the weekend.The national average price of a gallon of gas was $3.615 Thursday, according to automotive group&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://gasprices.aaa.com/">AAA</a>, down from an all-time high of $5.016 in June 2022.The Democratic lawmakers at Thursday’s press conference outside the U.S. Capitol included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and U.S. Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island; House Assistant Minority Leader Joe Neguse of Colorado; and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Nanette Barragán and Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, both of California.“Instead of working to lower gas prices for Americans ahead of a busy Memorial Day weekend, Big Oil companies, executives, are huddling to find ways to keep prices high and keep their profits soaring,” Schumer said. The press conference was co-hosted by Climate Power, a strategic communications organization in the climate space and the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental advocacy group.Earlier in May, the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/05/ftc-order-bans-former-pioneer-ceo-exxon-board-seat-exxon-pioneer-deal">Federal Trade Commission</a>&nbsp;alleged that Scott Sheffield, the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, “attempted to collude with the representatives of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and a related cartel of other oil-producing countries known as OPEC+ to reduce output of oil and gas, which would result in Americans paying higher prices at the pump, to inflate profits for his company.”During Thursday’s event, Schumer said he would be sending a letter to the U.S. Justice Department next week “calling on them to investigate and prosecute collusion and price fixing that may have increased gasoline, fuel and energy costs, based on the report done by the FTC, when they unfortunately allowed (Exxon) Mobil to … merge with Pioneer (Natural Resources), which I thought was a bad idea.”Schumer added that “the federal government must use every tool at our disposal to investigate the oil industry, hold accountable liable actors and illegal activities. There’s something wrong — very wrong — when big oil companies rake in the cash by polluting the atmosphere and at the expense of the American people.”<h2>Trump and oil companies</h2>The Senate majority leader and his fellow Democratic lawmakers also called out former President Donald Trump over recent&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/09/trump-oil-industry-campaign-money/">media reports</a>&nbsp;saying Trump engaged in a quid pro quo offer with major oil companies’ CEOs in April.Schumer said “one of the ways big oil companies spend their time these days is cozying up to Donald Trump, who, as we all know, is no enemy to big oil.”Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for president, setting him up for a rematch with Biden.Separately on Thursday, Whitehouse, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, and Oregon U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said their respective committees&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/budget-finance-committees-launch-joint-investigation-into-donald-trumps-quid-pro-quo-offer-to-big-oil-">launched a joint investigation</a>&nbsp;into Trump’s “quid pro quo offer to big oil.”The senators are asking nine oil and gas companies and their trade associations for information and documents pertaining to the purported quid pro quo proposed by Trump.Neguse, a Colorado Democrat, said that for him, “all of this boils down to three words: polluters over people.” He noted that “over the last 16, 17 months, we have witnessed in the House an extreme MAGA Republican majority that has taken every opportunity to pass bill after bill to give giveaways to oil companies and to corporate polluters near and far.”<h2>Republicans blame Biden</h2>Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group, is seeking to turn the arguments back on Democrats. The group this week&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://americansforprosperity.org/press-release/with-the-start-of-summer-driving-season-afp-rolls-back-gas-prices-to-what-they-were-before-bidenomics/">announced</a>&nbsp;a series of events across the country where it will partner with local gas stations to roll back gasoline prices to what they were when Biden took office.In March, the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.gop.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=766">House GOP Conference</a>&nbsp;said “the surging prices at the pump Americans are facing are a direct result from Joe Biden’s unprecedented war on American energy, which Biden launched on his first day in office in an attempt to appease his Far Left base by implementing his radical Green New Deal agenda.”Republicans cited the U.S. Energy Department’s&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/biden-administration-temporarily-halt-some-export-approvals-liquified-natural-gas">move</a>&nbsp;to pause approvals of new exports of liquified natural gas to all countries without a free trade agreement with the United States, as well as the decision early in Biden’s tenure to&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://dailymontanan.com/2021/01/21/biden-nixes-keystone-xl-pipeline/">kill</a>&nbsp;the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline.Meanwhile, also Thursday, polling and analysis released by The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, in collaboration with Democratic polling firm BSG and Republican polling firm GS Strategy Group, found “the defining issue for this contest is a more traditional one: the economy.”Over half of likely voters from swing states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, viewed inflation and the cost of living as the “worst/weakest” part of the economy, according to the report. In seven states combined, Trump led Biden 47% to 44% in a head-to-head matchup. Trump led in all states except Wisconsin.Neither a spokesperson for the Trump Organization nor his 2024 presidential campaign immediately responded to a request for comment Thursday.