HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved.

Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred.

As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers who were themselves rattled by Fetterman’s behavior, according to a second person who was briefed separately on the meeting.

The interaction at Fetterman’s Washington office, described to The Associated Press by the two people who spoke about it on the condition of anonymity, came the day before New York Magazine published a story in which former staff and political advisers to Fetterman aired concerns about the senator’s mental health.

That story included a 2024 letter, also obtained by the AP, in which Fetterman’s one-time chief of staff Adam Jentleson told a neuropsychiatrist who had treated Fetterman for depression that the senator appeared to be off his recovery plan and was exhibiting alarming behavior, including a tendency toward “long, rambling, repetitive and self-centered monologues.”

Asked about the meeting with teachers union representatives, Fetterman said in a statement through his office that they “had a spirited conversation about our collective frustration with the Trump administration’s cuts to our education system.” He also said he “will always support our teachers, and I will always reject anyone’s attempt to turn Pennsylvania’s public schools into a voucher program.”

Fetterman earlier this week brushed off the New York Magazine story as a “one-source hit piece and some anonymous sources, so there’s nothing new.” Asked by a reporter in a Senate corridor what he would say to people who are concerned about him, Fetterman said: “They’re not. They’re actually not concerned. It’s a hit piece. There’s no news.”

Reached by telephone, Aaron Chapin, the president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association who was in the meeting with Fetterman, said he didn’t want to discuss what was a private conversation.

Surviving a stroke, battling depression

The teachers union encounter adds to the questions being raised about Fetterman’s mental health and behavior barely three years after a he survived a stroke on the 2022 campaign trail that he said almost killed him. That was followed by a bout with depression that landed him in Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for six weeks, barely a month after he was sworn into the Senate.

The scrutiny also comes a time when Fetterman, now serving third year of his term, is being criticized by many rank-and-file Democrats in his home state for being willing to cooperate with President Donald Trump, amid Democrats’ growing alarm over Trump’s actions and agenda.

Fetterman — who has been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, in which the heart muscle becomes weakened and enlarged, and auditory processing disorder, a complication from the stroke — has talked openly about his struggle with depression and urged people to get help.

In November, he told podcast host Joe Rogan that he had recovered and fended off thoughts of harming himself.

“I was at the point where I was really, you know, in a very dark place. And I stayed in that game and I am staying in front of you right now and having this conversation,” Fetterman said.

But some who have worked closely with Fetterman question whether his recovery is complete.

In the 2024 letter to Dr. David Williamson, Jentleson warned that Fetterman was not seeing his doctors, had pushed out the people who were supposed to help him stay on his recovery plan and might not be taking his prescribed medications. Jentleson also said Fetterman had been driving recklessly and exhibiting paranoia, isolating him from colleagues.

“Overall, over the last nine months or so, John has dismantled the early-warning system we all agreed upon when he was released,” Jentleson wrote. “He has picked fights with each person involved in that system and used those fights as excuses to push them out and cut them off from any knowledge about his health situation.”

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Williamson works, declined to make him available for an interview, citing privacy and confidentiality laws protecting patient medical information.

A lone wolf in the Senate

Fetterman has long been a wild card in the political realm, forging a career largely on his own, independently from the Democratic Party.

As a small-town mayor in Braddock, the plainspoken Fetterman became a minor celebrity for his bare-knuckled progressive politics, his looks — he’s 6-foot-8 and tattooed with a shaved head — and his unconventional efforts to put the depressed former steel town back on the map.

He endorsed the insurgent Democrat Bernie Sanders in 2016’s presidential primary and ran from the left against the party-backed Democrat in 2016’s Senate primary. In 2020, when he was lieutenant governor, he became a top surrogate on cable TV news shows for Joe Biden’s presidential bid and gathered a national political following that made him a strong small-dollar fundraiser.

Elected to the Senate in 2022, he has made waves with his casual dress — hoodies and gym shorts — at work and at formal events and his willingness to chastise other Democrats.

Fetterman returned to the Senate after his hospitalization in 2023 a much more outgoing lawmaker, frequently joking with his fellow senators and engaging with reporters in the hallways with the assistance of an iPad or iPhone that transcribes conversations in real time.

Yet two years later, Fetterman is still something of a loner in the Senate.

He has separated himself from many of his fellow Democrats on Israel policy and argued at times that his party needs to work with, not against, Trump. He met with Trump and Trump’s nominees — and voted for some — when other Democrats wouldn’t.

He has stood firmly with Democrats in other cases and criticized Trump on some issues, such as trade and food aid.

One particularly head-scratching video of Fetterman emerged earlier this year in which he was on a flight to Pittsburgh apparently arguing with a pilot over his seatbelt.

Despite fallout with progressives over his staunch support of Israel in its war in Gaza, Fetterman was still an in-demand personality last year to campaign in the battleground state of Pennsylvania for Biden and, after Biden dropped his reelection bid, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Since Trump won November’s election — and Pennsylvania — things have changed. Many one-time supporters have turned on Fetterman over his softer approach to Trump and his willingness to criticize fellow Democrats for raising alarm bells.

It nevertheless brought Fetterman plaudits.

Bill Maher, host of the political talk show “Real Time with Bill Maher,” suggested that Fetterman should run for president in 2028. Conservatives — who had long made Fetterman a target for his progressive politics — have sprung to Fetterman’s defense.

Still, Democrats in Pennsylvania say they are hearing from people worried about him.

“People are concerned about his health,” said Sharif Street, the state’s Democratic Party chairman. “They want to make sure he’s OK. People care about him. There’s a lot of love for him out there.”

___

Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report. Follow Marc Levy on X at https://x.com/timelywriter.

Marc Levy, The Associated Press

BUFFALO (AP) — Amid attacks on federal judges who have slowed President Donald Trump’s agenda, Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday defended judicial independence as necessary to “check the excesses of the Congress or the executive.”

“Judicial independence is crucial,” Roberts, the leader of the Supreme Court and the entire federal judiciary, said at a gathering of judges and lawyers in his hometown.

The 70-year-old chief justice largely repeated things he has said previously. But his comments, in response to questions from another federal judge, drew applause from the 600 people who gathered to mark the 125th anniversary of federal courts in the Western District of New York.

Asked about comments from Trump and his allies supporting the impeachment of judges because of their rulings, Roberts largely repeated the statement he issued in March. “Impeachment is not how you register disagreement with a decision,” he said.

His appearance in the city where he was born followed — by less than a week — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s forceful condemnation of attacks on judges.

In a speech to a conference of judges and lawyers in Puerto Rico, Jackson talked about “the relentless attacks and disregard and disparagement that judges around the country, and perhaps many of you, are now facing on a daily basis.”

Jackson, in remarks posted on the court’s website, described the attacks as “the elephant in the room” in the course of a talk that did not once mention Trump.

The president, senior aide Stephen Miller and billionaire Elon Musk have railed at judges who have blocked parts of Trump’s agenda, sometimes with highly personal attacks. Trump called the judge who temporarily halted deportations using an 18th century wartime law a “radical left lunatic.”

There also have been unsettling attempts at intimidation in the form of unwanted pizza deliveries to the homes of judges and their children. Some of those deliveries have been sent in the name of Daniel Anderl, the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas. Anderl was shot dead at the family home by a disgruntled lawyer in 2020.

“These deliveries are threats intended to show that those seeking to intimidate the targeted judge know the judge’s address or their family members’ addresses,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wrote Tuesday in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.

Trump has largely spared the high court, which is weighing several emergency appeals of lower court rulings that have gone against him.

The president has a mixed record in front of the justices so far. On Tuesday, the court’s conservative majority revived the administration’s ban on transgender military service members while court challenges to the policy continue. The three liberal justices dissented.

But the court also has temporarily halted some deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members under an 18th century wartime law. And the justices also said deportations can’t take place without giving people a chance to challenge them in court.

Next week, the court is hearing arguments over Trump’s executive order that would deny citizenship to American-born children of people who are in the country illegally. The Justice Department wants the court to narrow lower court orders so that the restrictions could be enforced in more than half the country, while the cases continue.

___

Mark Sherman, The Associated Press

A deadly midair collision in January between a military helicopter and a commercial airliner, several additional crashes and technical problems that resulted in mass cancellations at New Jersey’s biggest airport have prompted officials to pledge a fix for the nation’s outdated air traffic control system and vow to hire more controllers.

Doing so, they say, would help ensure safety and prevent the kind of problems that have plagued the Newark, New Jersey, airport since its radar system briefly failed last week.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy plans to unveil a multi-billion-dollar plan to overhaul the nation’s air traffic control system Thursday, while the Federal Aviation Administration works to quickly solve technology and staffing problems in Newark and avoid similar crisis elsewhere.

Amid turmoil, one thing seems clear: An aging system struggles to handle the nation’s more than 45,000 daily flights.

It’s uncertain whether Duffy’s plan that President Donald Trump supports will get the necessary congressional funding to be more effective than previous reform efforts during the last three decades. But Duffy says it’s necessary. Already more than $14 billion has been invested in upgrades since 2003 but none have dramatically changed how the system works.

“We are on it. We are going to fix it. We are going to build a brand new system for all of you and your families and the American people,” Duffy said.

But details are scant. It’s unclear whether the plan will involve privatizing the air traffic control system as Trump backed in his first term. Duffy has not highlighted that possibility. Thursday’s announcement is expected to attract dozens of unions, which would likely oppose privatization, along with trade groups, industry representatives and family members of victims of the January crash.

History of problems

For years, the system has operated well enough to be largely neglected by every administration, said University of Illinois professor Sheldon Jacobson, who has studied risks in aviation. “But well enough isn’t good enough when it comes to air travel because people’s lives are at risk.”

Jacobson is skeptical Duffy’s proposal will succeed. But there could be renewed support following the collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter over Washington D.C. in January, and a plane that flipped and caught fire in Toronto.

The weaknesses of the nation’s air traffic control system have for years been highlighted in reports and hearings. Most recently, a Government Accountability Office review released in March declared that 51 of the FAA’s 138 systems were considered unsustainable and another 54 were potentially unsustainable. A 2023 outage in FAA’s Notice to Airmen system forced the grounding of every flight nationwide for more than two hours.

“We’re dealing with an outmoded system and we have an outdated infrastructure,” said former Continental Airlines CEO Frank Lorenzo, who helped establish a major hub in Newark that United Airlines still maintains years after acquiring Continental. “We haven’t really given it the attention that it requires.”

Outdated technology

The president of National Air Traffic Controllers Association told Congress that the majority of the FAA’s telecommunications infrastructure at more than 4,600 sites relies at least in part on aging copper wires, instead of more reliable fiber optic lines that can handle more data. Unexpected outages related to those lines routinely cause ground stops at airports and appear to have led to the problems in Newark.

The radar system air traffic controllers in Philadelphia use to direct planes in and out of the Newark airport went offline for at least 30 seconds on April 28. That facility relies on radar data sent over lines from New York that may have failed, some of which are old copper phone lines. The FAA relies on those lines because Newark controllers were moved from New York to Philadelphia last summer to address staffing issues.

The FAA said Wednesday it plans to replace any old copper wires with fiber optics and add three new data lines between New York and Philadelphia. The agency is also working to get additional controllers trained and certified.

It wasn’t immediately clear how long either step will take, but Duffy has said he hopes the situation in Newark will improve by summer, which is when an ongoing runway construction project is scheduled for completion. Several controllers remain on extended trauma leave after the radar outage, which worsened staff shortages in Philadelphia.

In response, the FAA has slowed traffic in and out of Newark to ensure flights can be handled safely, leading to cancellations. Duffy also said FAA will meet with all airlines to determine how many flights the airport can handle. On Wednesday, Newark led the nation with 42 canceled departures and 46 canceled arrivals, according to FlightAware.com. That’s even after United cut 35 daily flights at the airport starting last weekend.

Some upgrades have been completed

The FAA has made incremental improvements as part of its Nextgen program that was established in 2003. Advancements include development of the ADS-B system that provides more precise aircraft locations to controllers and other planes. That system has been a focal point of the investigation of the January crash because the Black Hawk helicopter was not using it to broadcast its location at the time of the collision.

Duffy has also tried to supercharge air traffic controller hiring by shortening the time it takes to get into the academy and improving student success rates. The FAA is also offering bonuses to experienced controllers to discourage early retirement.

A major challenge to upgrading the aviation infrastructure is that the FAA must keep the current system operating while developing a new system — and then find a way to seamlessly switch over. That’s partly why the agency has pursued more gradual improvements in the past.

“The problem has existed for decades. It’s not because of neglect, but because it’s a hard problem to solve,” said Jeff Guzetti, who is a former accident investigator who also worked in the Transportation Department’s Inspector General’s office for several years that was focused on aviation. “And it requires money and good management. And the FAA has been has had shortages of both money and in some cases good management for years.”

Josh Funk, The Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The city of Birmingham is one step closer to losing control over Alabama’s largest water utility after the governor signed a bill on Wednesday that would give more power to neighboring suburbs, despite a pending federal lawsuit alleging the move would constitute racial discrimination.

The bill redistributes power from Birmingham city officials — who currently appoint a majority of the nine-person board — to the governor, the lieutenant governor and the surrounding four counties that are also in the board’s jurisdiction. It also reduces the number of board members to seven. Board members approve rate hikes and manage infrastructure projects for the utility’s 770,000 customers.

The state Senate voted unanimously to pass the bill, and the House of Representatives voted along party lines.

“No doubt, this is an important issue to all those residents served by this utility board. The Alabama Legislature overwhelmingly passed SB330, and I was pleased to sign it into law,” Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said in a written statement.

Proponents of the bill point to frequent rate hikes, old infrastructure and recent scandals. The legislation said that the power transfer will prevent catastrophic events that have happened in cities like Jackson, Mississippi, or Detroit, Michigan.

Opponents say that the restructured board wouldn’t solve the utility’s problems.

Five counties rely on the Birmingham Water Works Board. Over 40% of customers are concentrated in the city of Birmingham, and 91% are in Jefferson County. The new system would give more weight to Jefferson County’s neighboring areas that have only a fraction of the customers, but which house some of the reservoirs that supply the system.

Mayor Randall Woodfin and city council members filed a federal lawsuit against Ivey on Tuesday, alleging that the legislation “constitutes blatant racial discrimination” because it gives the majority-white suburbs disproportionate influence and takes power away from Birmingham, a majority-Black city where close to half of the utility’s customers live.

“We live in America, representation matters. It matters at all levels of government — the federal level, the state level, the local level,” Woodfin said at a press conference on Tuesday.

U.S. Chief District Judge Emily C. Marks declined to temporarily block the bill from going into effect on Tuesday evening without first hearing oral arguments from either side. She set a hearing for May 15.

____

Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Safiyah Riddle, The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Pro-Palestinian protestors wearing masks and keffiyehs clashed with security guards Wednesday after staging a protest inside Columbia University’s main library.

Videos and photos shared on social media showed dozens of protesters pushing past campus security officers and racing into the building. The group then hung Palestinian flags and other banners on bookshelves in an ornate reading room. Some also appeared to have scrawled “Columbia will burn” across framed pictures.

Other videos showed campus security officers barring another group of protesters from entering the library, with both sides shoving to try and force the other group aside.

University officials in a statement that the protest is so far isolated to one room in the library. They say protesters were asked for identification and ordered to disperse, but none immediately complied.

“They have been told that failure to comply will result in violations of our rules and policies and possible arrest,” officials said, noting that the disruption comes as students are studying and preparing for final exams.

“These disruptions of our campus and academic activities will not be tolerated. Individuals found to be in violation of University Rules and policies will face disciplinary consequences,” officials added.

Mayor Eric Adams said police were monitoring the situation and in communication with the university. A police department said officers were aware of the disturbance and had been stationed nearby ready to intervene if requested.

Following threats by the Trump administration to its federal funding, Columbia in March announced sweeping policy changes.

Among them, a ban on students wearing masks to conceal their identities and a rule that those protesting on campus must present their identification when asked. The school also said it had hired new public safety officers empowered to make arrests on campus.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian student group, said it had occupied part of Butler Library because it believed the university profited from “imperialist violence.”

“Repression breeds resistance — if Columbia escalates repression, the people will continue to escalate disruptions on this campus,” the group wrote online.

The Associated Press

The Trump administration is promising to fix the nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers after recent control tower mishaps and a string of crashes earlier this year.

The need for more controllers who direct planes across increasingly crowded skies, though, isn’t a new issue or one that will be resolved quickly.

How big is the shortage of controllers?

The Federal Aviation Administration has about 14,000 air traffic controllers. More than 1,800 were hired last year, the largest number in nearly a decade, and the government is on track to hire even more this year. Still, there’s a need for about 3,000 more to fully staff the system.

What are the impacts?

Understaffing has meant controllers often are forced to work mandatory overtime, sometimes six days a week. That has led to concerns about fatigue after highly publicized close calls between planes that were following orders from controllers. The FAA agreed last summer to increase the minimum rest time between shifts. In some high-traffic areas, including New York and Florida, the FAA has limited the number of flights because of the lack of controllers.

Why is there a shortage if thousands are being hired?

It’s a demanding and stressful job with unpredictable hours and a high turnover rate. Many don’t make it though the first few years. And experienced controllers face a mandatory retirement age of 56.

Is this just a recent concern?

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has been raising concerns for more than decade, telling Congress in 2015 that the shortage was at a crisis level. It said then that the FAA had missed its hiring targets for five years in a row. The union again said last spring that the number of fully certified controllers was down 10% from where it was 10 years ago.

What’

s the Trump administration’s plan?

The administration wants to “supercharge” the controller workforce and announced a program last week to speed up hiring and give existing controllers more money not to retire early. But because it takes years to train and certify new hires, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said it still will take at least three or four years to meet the current needs.

How do you become a controller?

Most go through several months training at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma, although about one-third of the candidates don’t make it to the end. Others are taught the job in the military, and a handful of colleges offer the same training found at the academy. Trainees then go on to work as developmental controllers in airport towers or radar centers until they’re ready to be certified. That final step typically takes two to three years.

What are the requirements?

The FAA says trainees must be willing to go anywhere across the U.S. while working nights and weekends. Applicants must be a U.S. citizen, younger than 31 and able to pass a medical exam, background check and a skills assessment. The FAA says less than 10% of applicants are accepted into the training program.

John Seewer, The Associated Press