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Source: Canadian Press

Employees across the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began receiving notices of dismissal Tuesday, as part of a major overhaul expected to ultimately lay off up to 10,000 people. The notices come just days after President Donald Trump moved to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights at HHS and other government agencies.

Here’s the latest:

Trump’s schedule for Tuesday

At 12:30 p.m., President Trump and Vice President JD Vance will have lunch at the White House. At 3 p.m., Trump will sign executive orders. There will also be a press briefing held at noon today, according to the White House.

FDA’s top tobacco official is removed from post in latest blow to health agency’s leadership

The Food and Drug Administration’s chief tobacco regulator has been removed from his post amid sweeping cuts at the agency and across the federal health workforce handed down Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter.

In an email to staff, FDA tobacco director Brian King said: “It is with a heavy heart and profound disappointment that I share I have been placed on administrative leave.”

King was removed from his position and offered reassignment to the Indian Health Service, according to a person familiar with the matter who did not have permission to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Dozens of staffers in FDA’s tobacco center also received notices of dismissal Tuesday morning, including the entire office responsible for enforcing tobacco regulations.

▶ Read more about the FDA’s chief tobacco regulator

— Matthew Perrone

Trump has dubbed April 2 ‘Liberation Day’ for his tariffs. Here’s what to expect

Trump has repeatedly called April 2 “Liberation Day,” with promises to roll out a set of tariffs, or taxes on imports from other countries, that he says will free the U.S. from a reliance on foreign goods. To do this, Trump has said he’ll impose “reciprocal” tariffs to match the duties that other countries charge on U.S. products.

But a lot remains unknown about how these levies will actually be implemented. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Trump would unveil his plans on Wednesday, but maintained that the details are up to the president to announce.

Since taking office just months ago, Trump has proven to be aggressive with tariff threats, all while creating a sense of whiplash through on-again, off-again trade actions. And it’s possible that we’ll see more delays or confusion this week.

▶ Read more about Trump’s “Liberation Day”

Layoffs begin at US health agencies

Employees across the massive U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began receiving notices of dismissal on Tuesday in a major overhaul expected to ultimately lay off up to 10,000 people.

The notices come just days after Trump moved to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights at HHS and other agencies throughout the government.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announced a plan last week to remake HHS, which, through its agencies, is responsible for tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, conducting and funding medical research, monitoring the safety of food and medicine, and administering health insurance programs for nearly half of the country.

The plan would consolidate agencies that oversee billions of dollars for addiction services and community health centers across the country under a new office called the Administration for a Healthy America.

The layoffs are expected to shrink HHS to 62,000 positions, lopping off nearly a quarter of its staff — 10,000 jobs through layoffs and another 10,000 workers who took early retirement and voluntary separation offers.

▶ Read more about the layoffs at HHS

The Associated Press


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WASHINGTON (AP) — While most Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the conflict is not weighing as heavily on his public perception as it did on President Joe Biden, a new poll shows.

That’s because of Trump’s solid support from his base on this issue. The survey of U.S. adults from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that about 8 in 10 Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of the conflict. Only about 4 in 10 Democrats approved of Biden’s handling of the conflict last June, shortly before Biden dropped out of the presidential race.

“During Trump’s first administration, we did not actively start any wars. And there’s a stark difference between his history and his first term versus the Biden presidency. And I think Trump is just trying to fix things that Biden let get out of hand,” said Patrick Vigil, a 60-year-old Republican from New Mexico who voted for Trump in November’s election.

The poll suggests Republicans are growing more satisfied with the country’s foreign policy actions as Trump pulls back U.S. support for Ukraine and puts new pressure on allies — notably with his talk of annexing Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.

Trump has warned Hamas that there would be “hell to pay” if Israeli hostages weren’t returned immediately and urged Israel to wrap up their offensive and “get it over with.” He has supported ceasefire talks in both conflicts and said he’d end the war between Ukraine and Russia within “24 hours” — or even before taking office. Since becoming president again, Trump has publicly torn into Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy but also tried to pressure Russia’s Vladimir Putin to accept a peace deal.

Broadly, Republicans are more content with the U.S. on solving global issues now that President Trump is in office. About half of Republicans say the U.S.’s current role in world affairs is about right, up from about 2 in 10 last February when Biden was president.

There’s a greater consensus that the U.S. should be focused on ceasefire negotiations in Israel and Ukraine than there was last year too. About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say it’s “extremely” or “very” important for the U.S. to negotiate a permanent ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, up from about half in an AP-NORC poll conducted in February 2024, with a similar uptick on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Republicans have grown more committed to both foreign policy goals since Trump took office, according to the poll. For instance, about 6 in 10 Republicans now think it’s highly important for the U.S. to negotiate a permanent ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, up from about 4 in 10 last year.

“I think we really need to step back and figure out a way just to bring everybody to the table so that they can use their own resources and figure out what they need to do to compromise,” said Lisa Major, 61, a registered Republican from Kentucky who voted for Trump in November.

Keith Willey, a Republican-leaning registered independent from Florida who voted for a third-party candidate for president, said peace deals in Ukraine and Gaza have become more important to him over time amid mounting death and destruction.

But Willey said he doesn’t support a deal that allows Hamas to stay in control in Gaza and he doesn’t support a ceasefire in Ukraine that divides it up with Russia or hinges on the U.S. taking control of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.

He still supports strong American intervention on Ukraine’s behalf against Russia, supports strong U.S. backing of Israel and doesn’t like Trump’s friendly relationship with Russia or Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I’m not tired of giving weapons to Ukraine. I think we should support where we can to have them fight for their own country. But, generally speaking, I would like to see a ceasefire,” Willey, 63, said.

Many Republicans don’t want more investment in Ukraine, though — only about 2 in 10 think providing aid to Ukraine’s military to fight Russia is “extremely” or “very” important — and not all of Trump’s voters are satisfied with Trump’s ceasefire efforts.

Michael Johnson, a 36-year-old registered independent from North Carolina who voted for Trump, isn’t happy with Trump’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza or the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Johnson said Trump had held himself out as a president who could bring the wars to an end quickly but hasn’t.

“I don’t think he went through with what he said he would do,” Johnson said. “He said he would stop it, but it’s still going on. There’s a lot of people losing their lives out there, young kids and stuff.”

And many Republicans want Trump to continue shrinking American involvement abroad. About 4 in 10 Republicans now say the U.S. should take a less active role in world affairs.

That includes Major, who supports Trump, likes how he’s handling foreign conflicts and sees him trying to reduce the role the U.S. plays in the world, as she wants him to do.

“For one, it takes our attention off of the citizens of America, but also it may be sending a really negative message where we keep involving ourselves in other people’s issues when we can’t figure out our own issues,” Major said.

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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,229 adults was conducted March 20-24, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

Marc Levy And Linley Sanders, The Associated Press




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ATLANTA (AP) — Only one person in U.S. history has defied the two-term example set by the first president, George Washington. And voters responded by forbidding future presidents from being elected more than twice.

President Donald Trump has alluded to arcane legal arguments in repeatedly suggesting he could seek a third term. Besides challenging long-settled readings of the U.S. Constitution, a Trump move to run in 2028 would challenge the precedent that voters have repeatedly upheld when given the opportunity.

Here is an explanation of the historical and legal tradition behind the presidency being a job for a maximum of two terms and two terms only.

Washington set the example of voluntary limits

It seemed a foregone conclusion that Washington, president of the 1787 convention that yielded the U.S. Constitution, also would become the nation’s first federal executive, even as anti-federalists worried that he’d be reelected again and again, becoming a quasi-king by acclamation.

Washington began his presidency in 1789, leading an executive branch of government that the Constitution’s authors balanced with two others: Congress and the judiciary.

Besides those structural guards against concentrations of power, Washington put aside his military garb and title, opting for the era’s formal attire and the honorific of “Mr. President” to underscore his status as an elected civilian. He considered not standing for reelection. He even had James Madison draft a farewell address before ultimately seeking and winning another term in 1792. Four years later, he tasked Alexander Hamilton with dusting off and polishing up Madison’s farewell draft as he announced his retirement from public life.

There was no legal barrier to a third Washington term. But his decision set the tone. Four of the next six presidents won a second term but passed on a third. The last of that group, Andrew Jackson, was the first president not to have worked with Washington or have known him. Yet by the time Jackson endorsed his own successor, Martin Van Buren, two terms had become the standard.

A few pushed against the Washington rule – and failed

Historians have debated whether Abraham Lincoln might have pursued a third term after the Civil War had he not been assassinated in 1865 at the outset of his second term.

Ulysses S. Grant, Lincoln’s victorious Civil War general and president from 1869 to 1877, led Republican delegates’ initial voting at their 1880 convention. But he could not win a majority.

Theodore Roosevelt, elected vice president in 1901, served nearly a full presidential term after William McKinley’s death in 1901. When Roosevelt was elected in his own right in 1904, he promised he would not run for what he called a third term.

Delegates at the 1908 GOP convention chanted “four more years,” but Roosevelt kept his word. He backtracked in 1912 but lost the nomination to his successor, incumbent William Howard Taft. Roosevelt launched a failed third-party campaign and lost, pilloried by critics for his broken third-term promise. One scathing political cartoon depicted the ghost of George Washington chiding Roosevelt.

FDR used World War II to win additional terms

In 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the only president to successfully win a third election, doing so as World War II raged in Europe ahead of the eventual U.S. entry.

Biographer H.W. Brands reasoned that FDR saw the global conflict as a “chance to write his name in bold letters across the history of the world.” But the 32nd president carefully couched his decision as one of necessity, not ambition. “Precisely when he determined to try for a third term is unclear,” Brands wrote. “He never revealed his thinking on the subject.”

Roosevelt sidestepped reporters’ questions about his plans in 1940. At that year’s Democratic convention, his ally Sen. Alben Barkley of Kentucky told delegates, with FDR’s blessing: “The president has never had and has not today any desire or purpose to continue in the office. … He wishes in all earnestness and sincerity to make it clear that all delegates to this convention are free to vote for any candidate.”

But at the same time, and also with FDR’s blessing, Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly was working delegates for the president. After securing a third nomination that had eluded Grant and his distant cousin, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR accepted it in a radio address:

“I have had to admit to myself, and now to state to you, that my conscience will not let me turn my back upon a call to service,” he said. “The right to make that call rests with the people through the American method of a free election. Only the people themselves can draft a president.”

Voters reelected Roosevelt twice more – but decided never again

FDR won two more terms, though not without critics. His first vice president, John Nance Garner, sought the 1940 nomination in Chicago. Some Capitol Hill allies quietly grumbled as well about a figure they saw as holding power too tightly.

And while Roosevelt won Electoral College landslides in each of his four victories, his share of the popular vote dwindled from his 60.8% peak in 1936 to 54.7% in 1940 and 53.4% in 1944.

Roosevelt died in April 1945. Vice President Harry Truman replaced him.

Not long after Roosevelt’s death, Congress began earnest consideration of what became the 22nd Amendment, limiting presidents to two elections. Without naming Truman, lawmakers exempted the president serving at the time while also carving out a narrow way for someone to serve more than eight years: Someone who ascends from the vice presidency for less than half of one term could still win and serve two full terms of their own.

Truman, who served nearly all of FDR’s last term plus his own, did not immediately swear off another term in 1952. But in a stinging defeat for a sitting president, he lost the New Hampshire primary — and quickly declared would not seek another term.

Every future president has been bound by the 22nd Amendment

Lyndon Johnson met a similar fate 16 years later. Because he served less than half of the slain John F. Kennedy’s term, Johnson was still eligible to be elected twice. He won a 1964 landslide for a full term. But the Vietnam War chipped away at his popularity thereafter.

Johnson performed poorly in the New Hampshire primary on March 12, 1968. On March 31, he told a national television audience, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

There has been occasional talk of repealing the 22nd Amendment since.

President Ronald Reagan, another two-term president, publicly supported repeal, telling an interviewer, according to The New York Times, that he “wouldn’t do that for myself, but for presidents from here on.”

Trump, on the other hand, makes clear that any changes in law or tradition would be for his benefit.

“I’m not joking,” he told NBC News. “There are methods which you could do it.”

Bill Barrow, The Associated Press




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BRANTFORD, Ontario (AP) — John Davidson has difficulty remembering the last time Wayne Gretzky visited his childhood home across the street in this small city a couple hours’ drive southwest of Toronto.

The modest home with a one-car garage in a quiet residential neighborhood remains in the family, but the Great One’s visits have been fewer and farther between, especially since his beloved father Walter died in 2021. The backyard ice rink where Gretzky developed his generational talent has since been replaced by a pool.

Now 85, Davidson still chases away the occasional curiosity seeker, a far cry from the days when busloads of children would pull up, or the time Wayne and his wife Janet showed up with an entourage, three limousines strong. The retired steelworker then lowered his hand to his knee to indicate how long he’s known Gretzky, before saying: “Wayne’s changed a lot since he went down to the States.”

Like many in this city of 105,000 and across a nation of 39 million, Davidson has difficulty squaring the child he once knew, the player who won four Stanley Cups in Edmonton and re-wrote the NHL’s scoring records, and the person he sees now.

At 64, Gretzky is now the subject of a once-unimaginable debate over his loyalty to his native Canada due to his ties to President Donald Trump, whose brazen comments about the nation’s sovereignty have angered Canadians.

Pictures of Gretzky celebrating Trump’s election night victory at Mar-a-Lago and attending his inauguration don’t sit well at a time Canadians face an existential crisis in the wake of rising tariffs and the president’s comments about turning its northern neighbor into a 51st state. Many find it unsettling that Gretzky is silent on the topic, even with Trump suggesting Gretzky run for office for the eventuality of becoming the nation’s governor once it joins the U.S.

“I always thought the hell out of him,” Davidson said of Gretzky. “Hate is a terrible word. Dislike is a better word.”

Growing up

Gretzky’s on-ice exploits remain legendary and they begin at an early age. When he was 11, he scored 378 goals and 517 points in 85 games for the atom division Brantford Nadrofsky Steelers. His parents relocated him to play in Toronto, before Gretzky made the jump to the Ontario Hockey League, where in his only full season in 1977-78 he scored 70 goals and piled up 182 points, which still ranks second on the league’s list.

Though he played on four NHL teams, ending his career with the New York Rangers in 1999, befitting his No. 99, Gretzky is best known for his 10 seasons in Edmonton, including his first when the Oilers played in the World Hockey Association. Gretzky became an icon in Alberta’s capital for the championships and attention; his marriage to American actor Janet Jones in July 1988 was broadcast live across Canada.

Gretzky’s influence abounds in Brantford. His charitable foundation provides for numerous local causes, including Special Olympics and distributing free hockey sticks to children. Outside the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre is a statue of Gretzky raising the Stanley Cup with three smaller statues looking on, representing his parents and a young Gretzky wearing a Red Wings’ Gordie Howe jersey.

All this in honor of a person who has been gone for a majority of his life, and makes his home in the U.S. Of his five children, daughter Paulina is best known for her marriage to top golfer Dustin Johnson. And while the Gretzkys are a far cry from the Kardashians, there is a Hollywood shine to the family that previously served as a mild curiosity to most Canadians until the turmoil of today.

Trump and Gretzky

Recently, CTV reported, the face of Gretzky’s statue outside of the Edmonton Oilers arena had been smeared with feces, part of a polarizing debate that’s raised ire among his detractors and eye-rolls from his defenders.

“He’s done so many good things in both of these countries, he doesn’t need to explain himself to anybody,” said Brantford councilor Dan McCreary, whose ward includes Gretzky sports complex. He referred to Gretzky’s critics as being part of a “cancel culture” movement.

Not lost on McCreary is how Brantford sits in the crosshairs of the cross-border dispute. The city serves as a transportation hub — a two-and-a-half-hour drive from three border crossings — and with a manufacturing base linked to the auto industry, now facing potential fallout from U.S. tariffs.

“You might suggest that to him,” McCreary said when asked if Gretzky could put in a good word to Trump about his hometown. Gretzky did not respond to messages seeking comment from The Associated Press for this story.

Being Canadian

A sense of national pride led to Kat Philp launching a petition to rename Brantford’s Wayne Gretzky Parkway after Walter, who held the honorary title of Brantford’s Lord Mayor for his extensive community work.

The issue is not whose Wayne Gretzky’s friends are — “You do you,” Philp said. Instead, she feels betrayed by his failure to voice support for Canada.

“We always felt he was still Canadian. We don’t feel that way anymore,” said Philp, 50, who grew up playing hockey, attended Gretzky’s celebrity slow-pitch tournaments as a teenager and was proud in telling people she was from Gretzky’s hometown.

Peter Pocklington, the former Edmonton Oilers owner, is stunned by the backlash directed at someone he’s known since purchasing the 17-year-old player’s rights in 1978 and bringing him to Edmonton to usher in the franchise’s heyday before trading him to Los Angeles.

“Wayne is not a politician. He’s a hockey player. Period. And his heart has always been in Canada, with Canada,” Pocklington said from his home in Desert Palm, California. “I’m not sure he’d stand up in his own defense but I think he probably feels sorry for them more than anything.”

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

John Wawrow, The Associated Press









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ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge has declined to block the use of Georgia’s electronic voting system in a long-running lawsuit that alleged that the system is vulnerable to attack and has operational issues that could deprive voters of their constitutional rights.

U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg found that the activists and individual voters who challenged the state’s voting system did not prove that the problems they identified prevented them from voting, diluted their votes or kept their votes from being counted. She wrote in a ruling Monday that they lack standing to sue and she is unable to consider the merits of their claims.

Georgia election officials have consistently said the system is secure and reliable and that it is up to the state to decide how it conducts elections.

The ruling follows several years of intense focus on Georgia’s elections in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s narrow loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Trump claimed without evidence that election fraud cost him victory, and his allies spread wild conspiracy theories about the Dominion Voting Systems machines used in Georgia.

But the lawsuit at issue long precedes those claims. It was originally filed in 2017 by several individual voters and the Coalition for Good Governance, which advocates for election integrity, and targeted the outdated, paperless voting system used at the time. After Georgia purchased a new voting system in 2019, the suit was amended to target that system.

The election system used statewide by nearly all in-person voters includes touch screen voting machines that print ballots with a human-readable summary of voters’ selections and a QR code that a scanner reads to count the votes. The human-readable summary only lists the voter’s choice, not the names of other candidates or the details of a ballot question.

The activists and voters who filed the lawsuit argued that since people can’t read a QR code, they are unable to ensure that what the scanners are reading accurately reflects their selections. They also asserted that it is burdensome for voters to have to check their selections twice — once on the voting machine screen and again using the limited information on the printed ballot.

They asked Totenberg to stop the state from using the touch screen voting machine system as the standard method for in-person voting.

“Although Plaintiffs have not ultimately prevailed on their legal claims, their work has identified substantial concerns about the administration, maintenance, and security of Georgia’s electronic in-person voting system,” Totenberg wrote. “These investigative and educational efforts have prompted meaningful legislative action to bolster the transparency and accountability of Georgia’s voting systems.”

In addition to other changes, a law passed by Georgia lawmakers last year requires QR codes to be removed from ballots by July 2026, though she noted that funding and government action would be required to implement that change.

The judge outlined the evidence presented at trial in early 2024, including the findings of University of Michigan computer scientist and professor J. Alex Halderman. He testified that an attacker could potentially alter the QR codes to change voter selections, install malware on the voting machines and obtain county-wide passwords, among other issues, she wrote.

A report Halderman wrote in 2021 as part of this lawsuit prompted the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in 2022 to put out advisory recommending steps that should be taken by election officials in places that use the voting machines that Georgia uses. Georgia election officials in 2023 said they planned to wait until after the 2024 election to install a software update to address some of the security flaws, saying they had taken other measures to protect the state’s voting system.

Totenberg’s ruling puts an end to a long and twisting path. Throughout the process she has repeatedly raised concerns about the state’s voting system and practices and, early on, accused state officials of ignoring problems. In an August 2019 ruling, she prohibited the state from using its antiquated paperless voting machines beyond that year. The state had agreed to purchase new voting machines from Dominion a few weeks earlier and scrambled to deploy them ahead of the 2020 election cycle.

Conspiracy theorists and people looking to give credence to Trump’s claims of a stolen election have seized on Totenberg’s intermediate rulings in the case, as well as on Halderman’s findings. But Halderman has always made clear that his mission was to identify vulnerabilities in the system, that he was not tasked with looking for and had not found any evidence that those weaknesses had been exploited.

Kate Brumback, The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Seven years ago, when a joint bid by the United States, Canada and Mexico was awarded the 2026 World Cup, rifts created by tariffs — yes, back then, too! — and a proposed border wall were glossed over because of the neighbors’ longstanding political and economic alliances.

“The unity of the three nations″ was the overriding theme articulated by Carlos Cordeiro, then-president of the U.S. Soccer Federation. “A powerful message,” he called it.

Well, here we are now, with the soccer showcase arriving in North America in about 15 months, and President Donald Trump back in office — inciting trade wars between the neighbors, not to mention across the globe, by levying tariffs that come, then go, then return, with more promised, including what the Republican calls “ reciprocal tariffs ” starting Wednesday.

It’s hard to know how, exactly, the current geopolitical fissures, made all the more stark every time Trump or those in his administration talk provocatively about making Canada the 51st state, might affect the World Cup, its organization and coordination, fans’ travel plans and more.

“Oh, I think it’s going to make it more exciting,” was Trump’s take during an Oval Office appearance with FIFA President Gianni Infantino last month. “Tension’s a good thing.”

Will the world come to the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics?

Given that the U.S. also is preparing to welcome the world for FIFA’s Club World Cup in June, golf’s Ryder Cup in September and the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, the question becomes: Will the world want to come?

And, taking Trump’s border and visa policies into account, will the world be able to?

Alan Rothenberg, who ran the 1994 World Cup and successfully oversaw the bid to host the 1999 Women’s World Cup as then-president of U.S. Soccer, thinks the answers to those questions are “Yes.” Pointing to concerns about the last two World Cups, in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022, he noted those still attracted attendance totals above 3 million apiece.

“People love the United States around the world — frankly, we wouldn’t have the immigration issue that we’re dealing with if that weren’t the case — so a lot of this is government-to-government,” Rothenberg said. “A passionate soccer fan is not going to be held up by that.”

He doesn’t think one of the host nations would drop out of the World Cup, say, or that other countries might boycott, as happened at the 1976, 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics.

“More than anything, they’ll see it as an opportunity for, perhaps, rapprochement, rather than escalating the tensions,” Rothenberg said.

“Besides, from an organizing standpoint, if either Canada or Mexico withdrew” from the World Cup, he said, “the U.S. would pick up the games in a heartbeat.”

Spectators booing the U.S. national anthem

Still, as the White House stance on tariffs and Russia’s war in Ukraine have put Europe on edge, and relations with other countries have become fraught, it might not be a surprise if soccer stadiums for the U.S. games at the World Cup offer the same sort of anti-American sentiment heard when spectators in Canada booed “The Star-Spangled Banner” during hockey’s 4 Nations Face-Off in February.

FIFA, soccer’s governing body, did not respond to Associated Press requests for comment, but Infantino has never hidden his admiration for Trump, which he often demonstrates via social media. They have met at least five times since the U.S. election in November.

Last week, when Kirsty Coventry was elected president of the International Olympic Committee — becoming the first woman in that position — she was asked how she would work with Trump and what she would tell athletes about traveling to the U.S. for the next Games.

“I have been dealing with, let’s say, difficult men, in high positions since I was 20 years old,” Coventry said with a chuckle, “and first and foremost, what I have learned is that communication will be key. That is something that will happen early on. And my firm belief is that President Trump is a huge lover of sports. He will want these Games to be significant. He will want them to be a success.”

Referring to concerns about whether the administration might deny some athletes visas, she added: “We will not waiver from our values … of solidarity in ensuring that every athlete that qualifies for the Olympic Games has the possibility to attend the Olympic Games and be safe during the Olympic Games.”

The overriding assumption among those involved in the Olympics is that Trump will assure the 2028 Games are a success.

As U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee chairman Gene Sykes put it: “I can’t speak for him, but I think he’s the kind of person who probably believes that having these go very, very well is a reflection of his leadership.”

Will Trump’s tariffs and other policies affect soccer’s World Cup?

“The most likely outcome is that Trump’s nonsense won’t have an impact,” said Smith College professor Andrew Zimbalist, an expert on the economics of sports.

“My guess is that if relations between Canada and the U.S. deteriorate to the point that there are travel restrictions and spending restrictions,” Zimbalist said, “Trump would — just like he’s making exceptions all the time on his tariffs policies — make an exception for a month or six weeks.”

The U.S. and Canadian soccer federations declined AP requests for comment on how White House policies might affect the 2026 World Cup.

Gabriela Cuevas, who represents Mexico’s government in meetings with FIFA, said she considers the tariffs and the soccer event “separate issues,” adding that she believes “the World Cup could be a route to engage in a conversation.”

Observers tend to agree, saying logistics such as security cooperation or team transportation from city to city — or country to country — should not be hampered when it comes to the World Cup, scheduled to take place in 16 cities across the U.S., Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19, 2026.

The borders might become an issue, though.

“The main thing FIFA needs to move for this event is not car parts, and it’s not wheat, and it’s not electricity. It’s people. That’s your real concern,” said Victor Matheson, an economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

“What were previously pretty reasonable border crossings could become much more challenging, simply because both sides amp up their level of inspections and the United States, in particular, cuts down government services that allow people to move effectively between countries.”

As for the fans, 29-year-old Mexican businessman German Camacho Pacheco said “soccer is religion” in his country, so when it comes to the World Cup, “I don’t think they care about tariffs.”

Camacho, wearing the Monterrey club jersey of defender Sergio Ramos while on the way to watch a game at a sports bar in Mexico City, said he doesn’t expect there to be any effect at all on the World Cup “unless this goes from a trade war to an actual war.”

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AP writers Greg Beacham in Inglewood, California; Nancy Benac in Washington; Ronald Blum in New York; Graham Dunbar in Costa Navarino, Greece; Eddie Pells in Denver; Anne M. Peterson in Portland, Oregon, and Carlos Rodriguez in Mexico City contributed.

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Howard Fendrich is an AP national writer. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

Howard Fendrich, The Associated Press






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MONTREAL — As Quebec becomes the last province in Canada that hasn’t abandoned carbon pricing, the provincial government could start feeling pressure to align itself with the rest of the country.

There has long been a broad consensus in Quebec on the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the province’s cap-and-trade system, launched in 2013, has never been especially controversial.

But some say Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to scrap the federal consumer carbon price could change that — especially once Quebecers notice the difference at the pump.

As of Tuesday, the federal carbon price, which applied in most provinces and territories, has officially been scrapped. British Columbia, which was the first province to impose its own carbon price in 2008, has also repealed its tax.

Asked Monday about whether he should act in kind, Premier François Legault said he would wait to see the outcome of the April 28 federal election. “We definitely have to be competitive,” he told reporters during a trip to Germany.

He added that Quebec’s cap-and-trade system “ultimately costs less for the consumer” than the federal carbon price did.

With the federal measure now gone, however, critics of carbon pricing say it’s only a matter of time before Quebecers start to feel pain at the pump. “When we compare prices between Gatineau or Montreal and Ottawa … that difference is going to be striking,” said Carol Montreuil, a vice-president with the Canadian Fuels Association.

“I think a lot of people are going to be questioning whether maybe it’s time to put a pause on that (cap-and-trade) system.”

He said many Quebecers will be “looking at the government for a break,” especially with the added burden of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

It’s hard to predict exactly how Quebec gas prices will compare to the rest of the country in the absence of the carbon price. In 2024, the federal levy accounted for 17.6 cents per litre of gas. Quebec’s cap-and-trade system, which is linked to California’s, currently costs around 10 cents per litre.

But Pierre-Olivier Pineau, chair of energy sector management at HEC Montréal, the business school of Université de Montréal, cautioned that people outside Quebec won’t necessarily see gas prices drop by a full 18 cents on Tuesday. “At least for a transitional period, the distributors and the service stations will keep a larger profit margin,” he said.

On March 31, the website GasBuddy.com showed Quebec as having an average gas price of around $1.53 per litre — among the lowest in the country. The average price in B.C. was a full 25 cents higher, around $1.78 per litre.

One thing is clear, said Nicolas Gagnon, Quebec director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Quebec will be going from one of the places where gas is relatively affordable right now to one of the places where the price is the highest in the country,” he said.

Gagnon is hoping to seize this “window of opportunity” to pressure the Quebec government to abolish its carbon price.

But Normand Mousseau, a physics professor at the Université de Montréal and scientific director of an energy institute at the university, pointed out that no major political party in Quebec has come out against the cap-and-trade system. He said it’s unlikely Quebecers will pay much attention to gas prices in neighbouring provinces.

“There’s a consensus in Quebec that climate issues are real and we must do something,” he said. “So I find it hard to see it becoming a political issue right now.”

Pineau said if the government does start to feel pressure on carbon pricing, it could always choose to redirect some of the revenue from the carbon market to taxpayers. Currently, the money goes to Quebec’s electrification and climate change fund, to be spent on programs that reduce emissions.

That’s another way Quebec’s carbon price is distinct from the federal system, which returned most of the revenue directly to households.

But Pineau added that one of the reasons Quebec’s cap-and-trade system hasn’t become a political lightning rod may just be that it’s more complicated than a carbon levy, and the cost is less obvious.

“If you don’t understand something,” he said, “it’s difficult to be against it.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 1, 2025.

Maura Forrest, The Canadian Press

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VICTORIA — British Columbians are waking to a future without a consumer carbon tax for the first time in 17 years, after the late-night approval of a bill to end the long-standing policy.

The NDP government fast-tracked legislation to kill off the tax on Monday, in time to coincide with today’s demise of the federal version of the tax.

B.C. became the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce a broad-based carbon tax in 2008.

Premier David Eby says it played an important role for many years, but it became a “toxic” issue as a result of campaigns by the B.C. and federal Conservative parties.

Eby says he expects gas prices to fall by about 17 cents a litre today as the impact of the tax’s repeal kicks in.

He says the province’s utilities commission has the authority to uncover price gouging and British Columbians expect the price difference to show up at the pumps.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 1, 2025.

The Canadian Press

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego announced Tuesday he will block the confirmation of top leaders at the Department of Veterans Affairs, raising the stakes in Democrats’ bid to get the Trump administration to back off plans to cut jobs from the sprawling agency that serves millions of military veterans.

Gallego, a Democrat and Marine Corps veteran, made the announcement just hours before the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs was scheduled to hear testimony from three nominees for the VA who are military veterans themselves. It marked a significant escalation in the Democrat’s effort to counter President Donald Trump’s plans to slash federal agencies and a sharply partisan move on a committee that has often been marked by cooperation between Republicans and Democrats.

“Talking to veterans, people that I served with as well as seeing some of what’s happening in Arizona, I decided that whatever tool I have to fix the situation, I’m going to use it. And this is one of the few tools I have at this point,” Gallego told The Associated Press.

The holds — a maneuver used on occasion in the Senate — means that it is impossible for the chamber to move quickly to confirm the nominees and would potentially have to tie up hours or days of floor time to advance each nominee.

There are 13 Senate-confirmed positions at the VA, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Two of those — VA Secretary Doug Collins and deputy secretary Paul Lawrence — have already been confirmed. Trump has made nominations for five other positions, while six have not yet received a nominee.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, in 2023 put a hold on the promotions of hundreds of top military officers to protest Pentagon policy on abortions, but under pressure from his own party, eventually dropped most of his blockade.

Gallego acknowledged that his decision carried some risk. He said that he had hoped for collaboration with Collins, the Cabinet secretary, and even voted for his confirmation. But since then, he said he has struggled to get answers from the VA’s leadership.

The VA is in the midst of plans to cut its workforce by over 80,000 people. That would take it to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000 — before it had to provide benefits to veterans impacted by burn pits and exposure to other toxins under the 2022 PACT Act.

While Collins has pledged that veterans’ benefits won’t be affected, Democrats are pushing back on the plans and warning that it comes at the expense of care for those who served in the military. Gallego pointed to one VA hospital in Arizona that he said had received a directive to cut 15% of its staff.

“As someone who actually has used that VA, you know I had services there done in the past. There’s no way they’re going to be able to cut 15% of the workforce, and it’s not going to impact veterans’ benefits,” he said.

Stephen Groves, The Associated Press

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TORONTO — Canada’s literary institutions are banding together on the eve of an expected announcement about counter-tariffs on U.S. imports that could include books.

Booksellers big and small, libraries and publishers are advocating for books to be left off the list of American-made items subject to tariffs from the Canadian government.

The executive director of the Association of Canadian Publishers says the majority of books sold in Canada are imported, so tariffs would have a big effect on an industry where margins are already slim.

Jack Illingworth says Canadian books and other cultural goods are not currently subject to U.S. tariffs, but Congress could change that if Canada imposes its own levy on book imports.

Meanwhile a joint letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney from the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association and Indigo Inc. CEO Heather Reisman says the effects of these tariffs would be “devastating.”

The letter says Canadian booksellers would be uniquely disadvantaged by the tariffs because “American competitors — such as Amazon — would likely evade them by leveraging their North American fulfilment network and print-on-demand capabilities.”

The Canadian Urban Libraries Council also called on the government to exempt books.

In a letter to the Department of Finance, CULC Executive Director Mary Chevreau says a 25 per cent tariff would “collectively cost Canadian libraries millions of dollars and represent at minimum a 10 per cent reduction to budgets that are already under pressure.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 1, 2025.

Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press

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