ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland and 19 other states are suing multiple federal agencies, contending President Donald Trump’s administration has illegally fired thousands of federal probationary workers.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown is leading the coalition of attorneys general in the federal lawsuit that was filed late Thursday in Maryland, where the state estimates about 10% of households receive wages from the federal government.

“The draconian actions of the Trump-Vance Administration could lead to tens of thousands of jobs lost, hundreds of thousands of lives disrupted, and the cratering of tens of millions of dollars in income here in Maryland,” Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, said Friday in support of the complaint.

The mass firings will cause irreparable burdens and expenses on the states, the lawsuit said, because states will have to support recently unemployed workers and review and adjudicate claims of unemployment assistance. More than 800 fired federal workers in Maryland already have applied for unemployment benefits, Brown’s office said.

The lawsuit also contended that the layoffs will hurt state finances due to lost tax revenue.

“President Trump’s unlawful mass firings of federal workers are a blatant attack on the civil service, throwing thousands of hardworking families into financial turmoil,” Brown, a Democrat, said in a news release. “Instead of following the law and notifying states, his administration blindsided Maryland, forcing us to deal with the devastating economic fallout and social consequences.”

Trump, a Republican, has said he’s targeting fraud, waste and abuse in a bloated federal government. The president and his adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have fired both new and career workers, telling agency leaders to plan for “large-scale reductions in force.” The purge has spawned a number of lawsuits as unions and attorneys general have challenged Doge’s authority. Attempts to contact the White House and Justice Department for comment were unsuccessful.

Probationary workers have been targeted for layoffs across the federal government because they’re usually new to the job and lack full civil service protection.

While federal agencies claimed the employees were fired for unsatisfactory performance or conduct, the lawsuit said the firings were part of the administration’s attempt to restructure and downsize the entire government.

That means the administration was required to follow federal laws and regulations that govern large-scale federal reductions in force, the lawsuit said. For example, regulations require that government agencies consider an employee’s tenure, performance and veteran status when making termination decisions, the attorneys said. Regulations also typically require 60 days’ advance notice of termination in a reduction in force.

“This has inflicted and will continue to inflict serious and irreparable harms on the Plaintiff States, as they must now deal with a sudden surge in unemployment, without the advance notice required under the federal (reduction in force) statute and regulations,” the lawsuit said.

The attorneys general are asking for the court to reinstate the fired employees and stop further terminations of federal employees.

The other states that have joined the lawsuit are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia also is a plaintiff.

Brian Witte, The Associated Press

The theme of “hope” was chosen long before this year’s deterioration of Washington-Kyiv relations, but participants at an international Ukrainian studies conference said that hope is needed more than ever — not only in Ukraine but in the United States itself.

Religious leaders, scholars, artists and diplomats have been gathering at Notre Dame University in Indiana since Thursday for a three-day conference focused on “Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine.”

But hope may be hard to summon at a conference that brought together supporters of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s ongoing military assaults. It came just a week after a disastrous Oval Office meeting in which U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — followed by the U.S. pausing military aid and intelligence-sharing.

Those at the conference said it’s important that Ukraine and its supporters maintain hope — not as a pie-in-the-sky sentiment but as a force that energizes their resistance.

“Today, our enemy is trying to make Ukraine a symbol of failure and ruin,” said Taras Dobko, rector of Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. “To live by hope in such a country means to be on a mission, to bring hope where it hurts, where things fall apart and where anxiety overwhelms.”

But, he added, hope is motivating Ukrainians to resist. “Hope is not only a spiritual resource, not only a source of strength for individuals in difficult times, but also a strategic security asset.”

The conference, organized by Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies in tandem with Ukrainian Catholic University, included speakers, an art exhibition and prayers for peace.

The conference also featured remarks from the top-ranking Ukrainian Catholic official in the United States as well as Ukraine’s ambassador to Washington, who warned that Russia is trying to delegitimize Ukraine’s claims to statehood.

“It is the war on multiple fronts,” Ambassador Oksana Markarova said in a pre-recorded video statement played at the conference Thursday. “Our brave soldiers and civilians defend Ukraine’s physical and spiritual integrity while we diplomats, scholars and experts continue our efforts on information fronts by educating American and international societies about what is really at stake and why Ukraine resists so persistently and so relentlessly, even in the most difficult situations.”

Markarova did not mention last Friday’s disastrous Oval Office meeting, which she attended.

But she said it’s important to recognize that “appropriation of Ukraine’s culture and denial of our national identity remains the key avenue of Russia’s criminal war against Ukraine.”

She said it’s important to “restore historical justice and deny Russia any claims over Ukraine and our statehood.”

Ukrainians’ initiative in defending themselves against Russia “deserves respect,” said Archbishop Borys Gudziak, in his keynote presentation at the conference. Gudziak heads the Ukrainian Archeparchy of Philadelphia and is president of Ukrainian Catholic University.

Ukraine is not asking for pity, he said, but added: “When a bully is attacking it, it needs a little bit of solidarity.”

Gudziak said that hope has motivated Ukrainians to fight or do vital civilian work such as repairing war-damaged power grids, recognizing that “my life is important, but maybe there’s something bigger than my life.”

He added that the temptation to despair is wide these days.

“I walked the halls of Washington a lot in the last few weeks,” Gudziak said. “There’s a lot of scared people, talented diplomats in the State Department who don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow in all these government offices.”

He said it’s important to honor workers’ human dignity during this time.

“I hope that today Ukraine can give America hope to not be afraid,” he said. “Say what is true. Witness. Make the stand for the immigrants, for the poor, for the unjustly fired. Because it’s easy to get crushed by fear. There’s great trepidation today in Ukraine, but there’s also a trust, a trust in God.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Peter Smith (), The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that would disqualify workers of nonprofit groups deemed to have engaged in “improper” activities.

An executive order being signed Friday directs the Education Department to modify the program to deny loan relief to some borrowers. It would exclude loan forgiveness to people whose work is tied to illegal immigration, foreign terrorist groups or other illegal activity, White House officials said.

Congress created the program in 2007 to encourage careers in the government or nonprofit groups. It offers to cancel any remaining student debt after borrowers make 10 years of payments while working in public service. It’s open to government workers, teachers, police, religious pastors and certain nonprofit employees, among others.

More than 2 million Americans have eligible employment and open student loans, according to December data from the Education Department.

At her Senate confirmation hearing, Education Secretary Linda McMahon pledged to continue Public Service Loan Forgiveness as ordered by Congress. “That’s the law,” she said in response to questions from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

Under current rules, nonprofits are eligible if they focus on certain areas including public interest law, public health or education. Trump’s order appears to target those who work in certain fields at odds with his political agenda, including immigration.

Advocates have gone to court to defend the program in the past, and Trump’s action is almost certain to face legal challenges. It drew quick backlash from advocates.

“Threatening to punish hardworking Americans for their employers’ perceived political views is about as flagrant a violation of the First Amendment as you can imagine,” said Aaron Ament, president of the National Student Legal Defense Network.

Updating eligibility rules typically requires the Education Department to go through a lengthy federal rulemaking process. Any new regulation that started this year would usually not take effect until 2027.

The forgiveness program has been the subject of a political tug of war since Trump’s first term, when borrowers first started hitting the 10-year finish line.

The vast majority who applied for relief in 2017 were rejected because they were found to have enrolled in ineligible payment plans or failed to meet other criteria. An investigation by a federal watchdog group concluded the Education Department had failed to make the program’s eligibility rules clear.

Under President Joe Biden, the Education Department loosened the program’s rules through a federal rulemaking process, expanding eligibility to people who would have been denied previously.

In its final weeks, the Biden administration announced it had granted relief to more than 1 million people through the program, up from 7,000 who were granted cancellation during Trump’s first term.

The Biden administration changes were assailed by Republican lawmakers who said only Congress had the authority to change the program’s rules.

Biden also pushed for broader student loan cancellation but was blocked by the Supreme Court and by repeated legal challenges from Republican-led states.

Republicans have been sharply opposed to student loan cancellation, saying it unfairly passes the cost to taxpayers who already repaid their loans or didn’t go to college.

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

Collin Binkley, The Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin election officials voted Friday to force Madison city workers to sit for depositions as they try to learn more about how nearly 200 absentee ballots in November’s election went uncounted.

The uncounted ballots in the state’s capital city didn’t affect any results, but the Wisconsin Elections Commission still launched an investigation in January to determine whether Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl violated state law or abused her discretion. She didn’t notify the elections commission of the uncounted ballots until December, almost a month and a half after the election and well after the results were certified on Nov. 29.

Commissioners astounded at failure to count ballots

The commission hasn’t made a decision yet on whether Witzel-Behl acted illegally or improperly, but commissioners appeared flabbergasted at the failure to count the ballots as they reviewed the investigation during a meeting Friday. Chair Ann Jacobs was particularly incensed with Witzel-Behl for not launching her own in-depth probe immediately.

“This feels like a complete lack of leadership and a refusal to be where the buck stops,” Jacobs said. “You don’t get to put your head in the sand for weeks. … I am genuinely shocked by this timeline.”

Don Millis said it was a “travesty” that the ballots were never counted. “You’re telling the world that these 193 people didn’t vote in what many thought was the most consequential election of our lifetime,” he said.

What did the commission decide to do?

The commission voted unanimously to authorize Jacobs and Millis to question Madison city employees in depositions — question-and-answer periods usually led by attorneys in which the subject gives sworn testimony. Jacobs said she would confer with Millis about who to question but Witzel-Behl will likely be one of the subjects.

Madison city attorney Mike Haas, who was in the audience, told The Associated Press outside the meeting that he would not fight the depositions. “The city wants to get to the bottom of this as much as anyone else,” he said.

The commission also voted unanimously to send a message to clerks around the state informing them of the problems in Madison and warning them to scour polling places for any uncounted ballots during the upcoming April 1 election. Jacobs said she plans to call for more substantial changes to state election policy going into the 2026 elections after commissioners learn more about what happened in Madison.

The investigation’s findings so far

The city clerk’s office discovered 67 unprocessed absentee ballots in a courier bag that had been placed in a security cart on Nov. 12, the day election results were canvassed.

Witzel-Behl said she told two employees to notify the elections commission, but neither did. A third employee visited the Dane County Clerk’s Office in person to inform officials there of the discovery. That employee said he didn’t remember what the Dane County clerk said, but he recalled a “general sense” that the county would not want the ballots for the canvass.

The Dane County clerk, Scott McDonell, told the commission that he knew nothing of the uncounted ballots until they were reported in the media.

The clerk’s office discovered another 125 uncounted absentee ballots in a sealed courier bag in a supply tote on Dec. 2. Witzel-Behl said she didn’t inform county canvassers because the canvass was finished and, based on the county’s response to Nov. 12 discovery, she didn’t think the county would be interested.

The elections commission wasn’t notified of either discovery until Dec. 18. Witzel-Behl said the employees she asked to notify the commission waited until reconciliation was completed. Reconciliation is a routine process in which poll workers and elections officials ensure an election’s accuracy, including checking the number of ballots issued at the polls to the number of voters.

Holes in protocols

The investigators noted that Madison polling places’ absentee ballot logs didn’t list the number of courier bags for each ward, which would have told election inspectors how many bags to account for while processing ballots.

City election officials also had no procedures for confirming the number of absentee ballots received with the number counted. Witzel-Behl said that information was emailed to election inspectors the weekend before the election, but no documents provided the total number of ballots received.

If Witzel-Behl had looked through everything to check for courier bags and absentee ballot envelopes before the election was certified the missing ballots could have been counted, investigators said.

Witzel-Behl also couldn’t explain why she didn’t contact the county or the state elections commission herself, investigators said.

Voters prep for lawsuit

Four Madison voters whose ballots weren’t counted filed claims Thursday for $175,000 each from the city and Dane County, the first step toward initiating a lawsuit.

Todd Richmond, The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration said Friday that it’s pulling $400 million from Columbia University, canceling grants and contracts because of what the government describes as the Ivy League school’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus.

The notice came five days after federal agencies announced they were considering orders to stop work on $51 million in contracts with the New York City university and reviewing its eligibility for over $5 billion in federal grants going forward. And it came after Columbia set up a new disciplinary committee and ramped up its own investigations into students critical of Israel, alarming free speech advocates.

But Columbia’s efforts evidently didn’t go far enough for the federal government.

“Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding. For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement Friday.

Columbia vowed to work with the government to try to get the money back.

“We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and well-being of our students, faculty and staff,” the university said in a statement.

It is not clear which research, projects or activities will be affected at Columbia, which operates a medical center among many other functions. The university said it was reviewing the announcement. An inquiry was sent to the federal Education Department, which issued Friday’s announcement along with the Health and Justice departments and the General Services Administration.

Columbia has become the first target in President Donald Trump’s campaign to cut federal money to colleges accused of tolerating antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023.

The university was at the forefront of U.S. campus protests over the war last spring. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment in April and inspired a wave of similar protests. Protesters at Columbia went on to seize a campus building, resulting in dozens of arrests when police cleared the building.

In recent days, a much smaller contingent of demonstrators have staged brief occupations of buildings at Columbia-affiliated Barnard College to protest the expulsion of two students accused of disrupting an Israeli history class. Several students were arrested following an hourslong takeover of a building Wednesday.

Many people involved in the protests said there’s nothing antisemitic about criticizing Israel over its actions in Gaza or expressing solidarity with Palestinians.

Columbia has acknowledged concerns about antisemitism: A university task force said last summer that Jews and Israelis at the school were ostracized from student groups, humiliated in classrooms and subjected to verbal abuse amid the spring demonstrations.

Some students, and an attorney advising them, see its new disciplinary crackdown as an effort to mollify the government by suppressing pro-Palestinian speech.

Columbia was one of five colleges that has come under new federal antisemitism investigations, and it’s one of 10 being visited by a task force in response to allegations that the colleges have failed to protect Jewish students.

Others under investigation include the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; Northwestern University; and Portland State University.

Jennifer Peltz, The Associated Press

The Trump administration has stalled at least $60 million in funding intended largely for affordable housing developments nationwide, throwing hundreds of projects into a precarious limbo, according to information and documents obtained by The Associated Press

The move is part of a flurry of funding freezes, staffing cuts and contract cancellations by the Trump administration at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, changes that have instilled widespread uncertainty in the affordable housing industry.

The some $60 million is intended to go to small community development nonprofits in small grants. The money is often used as seed funding for affordable housing projects, turning a concept into a viable development and consequently drawing in more public and private investment.

Congress chose three nonprofits to distribute the grants, but HUD said in letters that it was cancelling contracts with two of the organizations which together were to distribute the $60 million. That’s pushed millions in funding already promised to small nonprofits, or yet to be awarded, into the twilight zone.

“Many of those organizations have already committed funds to pay workers, such as HVAC technicians, local contractors, homeownership counselors,” said Shaun Donovan, CEO of Enterprise Community Partners, one of the two groups whose contract was cancelled.

“They will have to stop that work immediately. That will cost local jobs, hobble the creation of affordable homes, and stall opportunity in hundreds of communities.”

A spokesperson for HUD said the program, called Section 4, will continue and is not being cut, but that “the department is consolidating some grants, while others remain.”

It remains unclear how or when the funding will arrive to the small nonprofits, which has thrown their work into disarray.

“Not knowing for me means we assume that the money is not coming, and that means that I have to pivot,” said Jonathan Green, executive director of a nonprofit in Mississippi that’s building a 36-unit affordable housing development in Biloxi.

Green said about $20,000 in grant dollars are now in limbo, money that was meant to pay for an environmental review that could cost upwards of $10,000, and licenses and permits. That threatens discussions Green is having with potential partners and investors who want to see all the up-front work done first.

“My fear is that, if the project stops altogether, we may never get it started again,” he said.

The development is supposed to be in East Biloxi, where lots still remain empty after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Before an ounce of dirt has been moved on the project, Green’s organization has received enough calls from people eager to become tenants that they’ve started a waiting list.

That’s the position hundreds of other small nonprofits have found themselves in, with not just their grant funds in question but investments on the line. For every dollar in grants disbursed by Enterprise Community Partners, the local nonprofits leverage another $95 in other capital, CEO Donovan said.

Congress gave the national nonprofits the job of administering the grants, fielding and assessing hundreds of applications, so that the government doesn’t have to, Donovan said.

In one of the contract termination letters obtained by the AP, HUD said the contracts were cancelled at the direction of the Department of Government Efficiency. It said the group’s operations “were not in compliance” with Trump’s executive order targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The letter also allows the organizations to appeal the termination.

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation is the other group whose contract was cancelled.

“Without access to this seed capital, housing projects for hardworking, families will stall, worsening shortages and pushing distressed neighbors into overcrowded conditions or homelessness,” it said in a statement.

Habitat for Humanity International is the third nonprofit disbursing the grants, but the organization has not responded to repeated requests for comment or said if their contract was cancelled.

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Bedayn 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.

Jesse Bedayn, The Associated Press