A doctor advising … sleepaway camp? That’s how a 12-year-old diagnosed with lupus found himself laughing on a high-ropes course as fellow campers hoisted him into the air.
“It’s really fun,” said Dylan Aristy Mota, thrilled that he got a chance at the rite of childhood — thanks to doctors reassuring his mom that they’d be at this upstate New York camp, too. Dylan felt good knowing if “anything else pops up, they can catch it faster than if we had to wait til we got home.”
It may sound surprising but diseases like lupus, myositis and some forms of arthritis — when your immune system attacks your body instead of protecting it — don’t just strike adults. With the exception of Type 1 diabetes, these autoimmune diseases are more rare in kids but they do happen.
People often ask, “Can kids have arthritis? Can kids have lupus?” said Dr. Natalia Vasquez-Canizares, a pediatric rheumatologist at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, which partnered with Frost Valley YMCA last summer so some of those youngsters could try a traditional sleepaway camp despite a strict medicine schedule and nervous parents.
“Imagine for an adult, it’s difficult. If you have that disease since you’re young, it’s very difficult to, you know, cope with,” she said.
Special challenges for kids
Dylan Aristy Mota, 12, of New York City, who has lupus, plays a game of Gaga Ball with fellow campers at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Dylan Aristy Mota, 12, of New York City, who has lupus, plays a game of Gaga Ball with fellow campers at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
The younger that someone is when certain illnesses hit, especially before puberty, the more severe symptoms may be. And while genes can make people of any age more vulnerable to autoimmune conditions, usually it takes other factors that stress the immune system, such as infections, to cause the disease to develop.
But genes are more to blame when disease strikes early in life, said Dr. Laura Lewandowski of the National Institutes of Health who helps lead international research into genetic changes that fuel childhood lupus.
Symptoms among children can be sneaky and hard to pinpoint. Rather than expressing joint pain, a very young child might walk with a limp or regress to crawling, Vasquez-Canizares said.
“Before, I looked like everybody else, like normal,” Dylan said. Then, “my face turned like the bright pink, and it started to like get more and more red.”
His family thought it must be allergies, and Dylan recalled many doctor appointments before being diagnosed with lupus last January.
Treatment has unique challenges, too. Medicines that tamp down symptoms do so by suppressing young immune systems — just as they’re learning to fend off germs. They can also can affect whether kids build strong bones.
Research underway to help kids
Ethan Blanchfield-Killeen, 11, center right, of Yonkers, N.Y., who has a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, plays a game of paint tag at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Ethan Blanchfield-Killeen, 11, center right, of Yonkers, N.Y., who has a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, plays a game of paint tag at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
But there are promising treatments in development. Seattle Children’s Hospital recently opened the first clinical trial of what’s called CAR-T therapy for pediatric lupus. Those “living drugs” are made by reprogramming some of patients’ own immune soldiers, T cells, to find and kill another type, B cells, that can run amok. Tests in adults with lupus and a growing list of other autoimmune diseases are showing early promise, putting some people in long-term, drug-free remission.
And occasionally a mother’s autoimmune disease can harm her child, such as a rare fetal heart defect that requires a lifelong pacemaker if the baby survives. Dr. Jill Buyon at NYU Langone Health is studying how to block that defect — and just reported a healthy girl born to a mom with mild lupus.
“This is a rare example where we know the exact point in time at which this is going to happen,” allowing a chance at prevention, said Dr. Philip Carlucci, an NYU rheumatology fellow and study co-author.
What happens: A kind of antibody, found in lupus, Sjögren’s and certain other autoimmune diseases, can damage the heart’s ability to beat properly if enough crosses the placenta during key cardiac development. Some treatments can lower but not eliminate the risk. Buyon’s team is testing if a drug used to treat a different autoimmune disease could better shield the fetus.
Dylan Aristy Mota, 12, of New York City, who has lupus, walks out of the water doing an evening swim at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Dylan Aristy Mota, 12, of New York City, who has lupus, walks out of the water doing an evening swim at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Kelsey Kim jumped at the experimental treatment in her last pregnancy, “partly in the hopes of saving my own baby and partly in the hopes of saving other people’s babies and saving them from the pain that I had experienced.”
Her first daughter was born healthy although doctors didn’t mention the baby’s temporary lupus-related rash was a warning that future pregnancies might be at risk. Kim then lost a son to congenital heart block at 22 weeks of pregnancy. Her second daughter’s heart sustained milder damage, and she’s now a thriving 2-year-old thanks to a pacemaker.
A third daughter was born healthy in June after Kim got the experimental drug in weekly visits, spanning about three months, to NYU from her northern Virginia home. A single case isn’t proof, and Buyon has NIH funding to start a clinical trial for other high-risk pregnancies soon.
Helping kids be kids
Dr. Natalia Vasquez-Canizares, right, examines Ethan Blanchfield-Killeen, 11, of Yonkers, N.Y., who has a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Thursday, July 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Dr. Natalia Vasquez-Canizares, right, examines Ethan Blanchfield-Killeen, 11, of Yonkers, N.Y., who has a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, at the Frost Valley YMCA sleepaway camp in Claryville, N.Y., Thursday, July 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Back at the New York sleepaway camp, the goal was some normalcy for kids ruled by strict medication schedules that can make it difficult to be away from family.
“I do kind of get to forget about it,” Ethan Blanchfield-Killeen, 11, said of the form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis — similar to rheumatoid arthritis in adults — that can leave his joints stiff and achy.
One day a doctor examined his hands at camp. Another day, he was running across the lawn splattered in a fierce game of paint tag.
“Just seeing them in a different perspective” than the sterile doctor’s office “almost brings tears to my eyes,” said Vasquez-Canizares, the Montefiore rheumatologist.
Dotted Line with Center Square
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WASHINGTON (AP) — National Public Radio will receive approximately $36 million in grant money to operate the nation’s public radio interconnection system under the terms of a court settlement with the federal government’s steward of funding for public broadcasting stations.
The settlement, announced late Monday, partially resolves a legal dispute in which NPR accused the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of bowing to pressure from President Donald Trump to cut off its funding.
On March 25, Trump said at a news conference that he would “love to” defund NPR and PBS because he believes they are biased in favor of Democrats.
NPR accused the CPB of violating its First Amendment free speech rights when it moved to cut off its access to grant money appropriated by Congress. NPR also claims Trump, a Republican, wants to punish it for the content of its journalism.
On April 2, the CPB’s board initially approved a three-year, roughly $36 million extension of a grant for NPR to operate the “interconnection” satellite system for public radio. NPR has been operating and managing the Public Radio Satellite System since 1985.
But corporation officials reversed course and announced that the federal funds would go to a entity called Public Media Infrastructure. NPR claimed the CPB was under mounting pressure from the Trump administration when the agency redirected the money to PMI, a media coalition that didn’t exist and wasn’t statutorily authorized to receive the funds.
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CPB attorneys denied that the agency retaliated against NPR to appease Trump. They had argued that NPR’s claims are factually and legally meritless.
On May 1, Trump issued an executive order that called for federal agencies to stop funding for NPR and PBS. The settlement doesn’t end a lawsuit in which NPR seeks to block any implementation or enforcement of Trump’s executive order. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss is scheduled to preside over another hearing for the case on Dec. 4.
The settlement says NPR and CPB agree that the executive order is unconstitutional and that CPB won’t enforce it unless a court orders it to do so.
NPR, meanwhile, agreed to drop its request for a court order blocking CPB from disbursing funds to PMI under a separate grant agreement.
Katherine Maher, NPR’s president and CEO, said the settlement is “a victory for editorial independence and a step toward upholding the First Amendment rights of NPR and the public media system.”
Patricia Harrison, the corporation’s CEO, said CPB is pleased that the litigation is over “and that our investment in the future through PMI marks an exciting new era for public media.”
On Aug. 1, CPB announced it would take steps toward closing itself down after being defunded by Congress.
CLEVELAND (AP) — Shedeur Sanders finally got the opportunity to show what he could do as an NFL quarterback.
In one half of action, the Cleveland Browns rookie showed he still faces a steep learning curve.
The highly publicized son of Deion Sanders entered with 12:43 remaining in the third quarter against the Baltimore Ravens after Cleveland announced that Dillon Gabriel was being evaluated for a concussion. Gabriel was ruled out later in the quarter.
“I don’t think I played good at all. They gave me an opportunity. I didn’t do up to my expectations to get us a win. I have to take it on the chin,” said Sanders, who also scrambled three times for 16 yards.
With Sanders behind center, Cleveland gained 44 yards on 28 plays with four first downs in six second-half possessions, going three-and-out twice.
“We trust our guys to perform. He’s no different, you know, and playing a backup quarterback role, as we’ve talked about over the years, that’s tough to come in there, but we trust him,” coach Kevin Stefanski said. “I know there’s things that he’s going to want to do better, but that’s why we work.”
Deion Sanders, a Pro Football Hall of Famer who coached Shedeur in college at Jackson State and Colorado, was quiet on social media Sunday night after his son’s debut.
Sanders became Cleveland’s backup behind fellow rookie Gabriel after Joe Flacco was traded to the Cincinnati Bengals on Oct. 7. However, Sunday was the first time he led the huddle with the first-team offense or threw passes to Jerry Jeudy, Harold Fannin Jr. and Cedric Tillman.
“I think I have heard his cadence like two or three times. I think going out of halftime, we all got on the line, and he said his cadence and we kind of got through it,” guard Wyatt Teller said. “Again, a lot of learning, but he played his heart off, put his heart out.”
On his first snap, Sanders threw a 5-yard pass to Tillman. He completed both of his passes for 12 yards on his first drive but struggled with his footwork. He was sacked for an 11-yard loss by Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton and fumbled, with Teller recovering.
Sanders threw his first interception on his second series. On third-and-10 at the Browns 17, Ravens linebacker Kyle Van Noy got pressure up the middle and hammered Sanders as he released the ball. The throw was off target and picked off at the 30 by Nate Wiggins, who returned it 14 yards.
There was a four-series stretch where Sanders was 0 of 7 with an interception and took a sack.
After Mark Andrews’ 35-yard touchdown run with 2:31 remaining put the Ravens on top, Sanders tried to lead a tying drive. He completed a 25-yard pass to Fannin on the first play. Three plays later, he connected with Jeudy for 10 yards to the Ravens 30.
Sanders and the Browns drove to the Ravens 25 before the drive stalled. Sanders’ final pass intended for tight end David Njoku on fourth-and-5 was short as the Browns (2-8) dropped their third straight.
Sanders did take one shot at the end zone on second-and-5, but missed a throw to Isaiah Bond.
“He just kind of got thrown out there but I think he handled it well. We know what type of player he is and it was good to see him out there,” Tillman said.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh said his team didn’t deviate much from its plan when Sanders came in, although they blitzed more often in an attempt to rattle him.
“The game plan was going to be good for their offensive system and what they’re doing. We were not going to change that,” he said. “You don’t know how the quarterback’s going to look exactly, but you just have to take care of your own business.”
A fifth-round pick by the Browns after some projected him to go in the first round, Sanders was inactive for Cleveland’s first five games as the emergency third quarterback after going 17 of 29 for 152 yards and two touchdowns in two preseason games.
Sanders should get his first extensive practice with the first-team offense this week, depending on how long Gabriel remains in the concussion protocol. Stefanski said Sanders would get his first NFL start next Sunday at Las Vegas if Gabriel can’t play. Gabriel completed 7 of 10 passes for 68 yards in the first half in his sixth NFL start.
The Browns have lost three straight.
“I think it’s a lot of things, you know, we need to look at, during the week and go and just get comfortable, even throwing routes, you know, with Jerry (Jeudy) and throwing routes with all those guys,” Sanders said. “So I think that was my first ball to him all year. But other than that, I just think overall we just got to go next week and understand so then we have a week to prepare stuff I like to do.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When Jennifer Austin met Molly in second grade, they quickly became best friends. They giggled through classes until the teacher separated them, inspiring them to come up with their own language. They shared sleepovers and went on each other’s family vacations.
But they gradually drifted apart after Austin’s family moved to Germany before the girls started high school. Decades passed before they recently reconnected as grown women.
“Strong friendships really do stay for the long haul,” Austin, 51, said. “Even if there are pauses in between and they fade, that doesn’t mean they completely dissolve or they go forgotten. They’re always there kind of lingering like a little light in the back.”
Early friendships are some of the deepest: the schoolmates who shared bike rides and their favorite candy. The roommates who offered comfort after breakups. The ones who know us, sometimes better than we know ourselves.
But as adults take on jobs and the responsibilities of homes and families, it can be challenging to stay connected with everyone we’ve loved.
Technology plays a role, too. Loneliness has increased since the television was invented and intensified with the introduction of smartphones, according to psychologist Marisa Franco, a University of Maryland assistant clinical professor and author of “Platonic,” a book about the science of attachment.
Once they’ve lost touch with friends, some people are reluctant to reach out, fearing rejection. But most of those on the receiving end appreciate the effort more than we expect, Franco said.
This article is part of AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health. Read more Be Well.
“People are delighted to hear from their old friends and open to connections,” she said.
Franco suggests reminiscing about a shared memory to span the time and distance. It can be something as simple as, “This pic came up and I just realized I wanted to check in on you,” she said. Propose a meetup. If the friend lives far away, try scheduling a phone date to catch up.
Below, six people who tried to rekindle lost friendships reflect on distance, loss and reconnection.
A missing piece
Heather Robb and Laine DiPasquantonio were nearly inseparable in their 20s, when they both lived in Boston. They went to concerts and vacationed together. DiPasquantonio was there when Robb met her future husband and attended their wedding as a bridesmaid.
But sometime after Robb married and DiPasquantonio moved to Colorado, their circle of friends scattered. They became busy raising children, juggling jobs and caring for aging parents.
“It’s terrible because you don’t know it’s happening,” Robb, 60, said in a joint interview. “I think it was simply space and time. We were all in different cities, we were all in that busy time of toddlers.”
Years passed with occasional holiday cards and texts but few meaningful interactions. DiPasquantonio saw photos on social media of Robb skiing and traveling with other friends. “I wasn’t sure there was so much room for me, from a distance,” she said.
“Aww, I feel badly about that,” Robb replied. “I would argue that’s the bad side of social media.”
The women found their way back to each other when Robb, president of Heather Robb Communications, had a business trip to Denver in April. She called to see if DiPasquantonio wanted to get dinner. “I didn’t know if she was going to be that happy to hear from me. I actually had some trepidation in reaching out,” Robb said.
When she did, Robb learned her friend was about to undergo surgery for breast cancer. Instead of meeting for dinner, DiPasquantonio, a placement specialist at Harmony Senior Referrals, invited Robb to stay for the weekend. A mutual friend flew out to join them.
“I was so tickled that you called and wanted to get together. It was awesome,” DiPasquantonio, 63, said during their interview. “What took us so long, right?”
They’ve remained close since.
“It just feels so good. It feels like there was a missing piece,” Robb said.
Just do it
Reyna Dominguez, 18, had the same best friend since first grade. But when Dominguez moved from Long Island to Brooklyn, her friend began college. Dominguez started working in a salon and their schedules didn’t align. About six months passed without communication.
After graduating cosmetology school, Dominguez texted her friend to share the news.
“I was a bit anxious that she was not going to respond. But she did, and I was so relieved and happy,” Dominguez said.
Now they’re in touch about once a month and planning to get together.
“It’s important to stay in touch because sometimes I do get lonely, like I have no one to really talk to,” Dominguez said. “But with her, she knows all about my life.”
Dominguez encourages anyone considering reaching out to an old friend to go ahead. “I say just do it. You have nothing to lose,” she said. “I guess the worst they could do is not respond to you, but I feel like you’ll still be happy with the thought, ‘I tried.’”
Staying close
Andrew Snyder’s best friend since 5th grade lives a plane ride away, but that hasn’t stopped them from keeping in touch. They call or email each other at least once a month and see each other several times per year.
At key points in their lives, they’ve visited each others’ homes “so when we talk about things, we actually can understand,” said Snyder, 50, who teaches philosophy and economics in New York City.
Living in different cities means it requires work to stay connected, but it’s important to Snyder, who feels that friendships are thinning out as people spend more time looking at cellphone screens.
“Friendship and cooking your own food, and exercising and being outside, these are the things that used to be real life, and now I think they’re all fading,” Snyder said. “I don’t think the real issue is time anymore. I think the real issue is a sense of overwhelm and a sense of depletion that we all feel.”
No regrets
Kim Ventresca, 22, drifted from her best friend while attending college. She reached out a few times and they reconnected when the friend was having a rough time. But they stopped talking again when Ventresca was going through mental health and relationship challenges. Eventually, the other young woman told Ventresca she no longer wanted to be friends.
“I’ve got some new friends now, and I feel like it’s probably better because some things happen for a reason,” she said. “I’m hoping that she’s alright and that she is doing OK.”
Ventresca, who works as a social media manager and receptionist in New Jersey, said she still recommends reaching out to missed friends, even if it’s awkward.
“The worst thing that happens is you get ‘left on read’ or delivered or declined,” she said.
Secret language
After Austin’s family moved to Germany, she didn’t see her childhood best friend again for 20 years, through a chance meeting on a New York City subway platform. They reconnected briefly, but contact lapsed again.
Molly’s 2021 visit with one of her children to a college near Austin’s home provided another chance to restore the friendship. They’ve remained close since.
“Something at that point just shifted,” Austin, owner of KindPoint Communications, said. “Things really picked up and we just basically outright said, ’Let’s just keep this momentum going. Let’s not wait another 20 years.’”
NEW YORK (AP) — If there’s been one uniting theme of all the blockbuster fashion exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it’s the simple idea that fashion is art.
“Costume Art,” announced Monday as the next big show at the museum’s Costume Institute — launched by the starry Met Gala in 2026 — aims to make that connection more literal than ever, pairing garments with objects from across the museum to show how fashion has long been intertwined with different art forms.
Max Hollein, CEO and director of the Met, said in an interview ahead of Monday’s announcement that he hopes the exhibit will take visitors to the New York museum on a (very fashionable) journey through art history, where they will see connections throughout.
“It’s a show that can really live in fascinating ways at the museum and can pull from all different areas of our collection — paintings, sculpture, drawings,” Hollein said.
“I hope we all agree that fashion is art,” Hollein added. “But actually I think the exhibition … will make it obvious how fashion is actually happening, so to say, all across the museum and in all different mediums already.”
The new show will examine the dressed body, and will be organized thematically by different body types, according to the Costume Institute’s curator in charge, Andrew Bolton. It will include the “Naked Body” and the “Classical Body,” for example, but also less expected themes like the “Pregnant Body” and the “Aging Body.”
“Bustle” by Charles James, right, is displayed at the announcement. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
“Bustle” by Charles James, right, is displayed at the announcement. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A spandex bodysuit by Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck from a 2009 collection, right, is displayed during the announcement. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A spandex bodysuit by Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck from a 2009 collection, right, is displayed during the announcement. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The connections that will be drawn between artworks and garments will range, curators said in a statement, “from the formal to the conceptual, the aesthetic to the political, the individual to the universal, the illustrative to the symbolic, and the playful to the profound.”
One example: in the “Naked Body” section, a 1504 print from German artist Albrecht Dürer will be paired with spandex bodysuits by Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck from a 2009 collection that revisits the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
On hand for Monday’s announcement was Misty Copeland, who recently retired from American Ballet Theatre after a trailblazing career that saw her become the company’s first Black female principal dancer. In her remarks, she spoke of the interplay between fashion and dance and said the show makes a “powerful case for the body, in all its forms, as a work of art, worthy of being seen, elevated, and celebrated.”
Michael Kors, Anna Wintour and Misty Copeland listen during the announcement. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Michael Kors, Anna Wintour and Misty Copeland listen during the announcement. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
“Of course, both fashion and dance have long held up an ‘ideal’ body, one that has historically meant thin, white, and female. That bias shaped my own experience,” she said. “Early in my career, I was made to feel that my body didn’t fit the mold. My skin was too dark, my muscles too defined. Being a Black woman and a ballerina was presented almost as a contradiction.”
Copeland said she fought to challenge that idea and stood “firmly in the value and beauty of my body, and of the many Black and brown dancers whose bodies have so often been overlooked.” The new exhibit — following the lauded “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” which focused on Black menswear — adds to that conversation, Copeland said.
It’s also a show that will have a new home. “Costume Art,” which opens to the public May 10, will inaugurate new gallery space occupying some 12,000 square feet (1,115 square meters), right off the museum’s Great Hall.
Misty Copeland speaks during the announcement. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Misty Copeland speaks during the announcement. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
That means that when the A-listers come up the main steps on May 4 at the Met Gala — perhaps dressed to channel famous objects of art — they will be only feet from the exhibit, making it easier to view the art before sipping and socializing. (Gala details — such as the celebrity hosts and specific dress code — will be shared later.)
Hollein said the museum was mainly concerned with giving fashion a more prominent home — and giving regular visitors a smoother experience. In past years, long lines for fashion exhibits would snake through other galleries and create bottlenecks in inconvenient places.
The new Conde M. Nast galleries — created from what was formerly the museum’s retail store — will house not only all spring Costume Institute exhibits to come, but other shows from different parts of the museum.
Bolton said in a statement that the gallery space “will mark a pivotal moment for the department, one that acknowledges the critical role fashion plays not only within art history but also within contemporary culture.”
“Costume Art” opens to the public May 10, 2026, and runs until Jan. 10, 2027.
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This story has been updated to correct the date of the 2026 Met Gala. It’s May 4, not May 5.
Surveillance video shows Tennessee Titans cornerback L’Jarius Sneed driving a Lamborghini Urus at a suburban Dallas dealership and nearby gas station minutes before two men allege that shots were fired at them from that vehicle last December.
Sneed, 28, was indicted Tuesday by a Dallas County grand jury on a misdemeanor charge of failing to report felony aggravated assault to law enforcement. The indictment does not include details of the alleged incident on Dec. 6.
In the video, Sneed can be seen getting out of the Lamborghini, then using crutches to walk past the men and up stairs into the dealership at 3:22 p.m. on that date. Sneed walks out about a minute later in the video, which was shared Thursday with The Associated Press by attorney Levi McCathern, who represents the two men in a civil lawsuit against Sneed over the shooting.
The Titans cornerback, who was on injured reserve, also can be seen in separate surveillance video at a gas station at the same time as the two men. In the video, Sneed walks in from a gas pump, goes to a register and then walks back to the same car when Christian Nshimiyimana and Avi Ahmed were inside.
Minutes later, Nshimiyimana and Ahmed say in their lawsuit that they were shot at while sitting in a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon at the dealership. The surveillance video shows a vehicle driving past with four loud pops heard and an arm out the passenger side window at 3:42 p.m. That vehicle then speeds off.
A probable cause affidavit from the Carrollton Police Department dated Dec. 11 said Ahmed asked employees about two men he had seen earlier and that Sneed was identified as one of those men. The dealership also provided Sneed’s phone number.
Detectives also confirmed Sneed’s identity from surveillance video from several locations.
“It was apparent that Sneed was the only person they had seen getting out of and into the driver seat of the Lamborghini. He also was the last person seen getting into the driver seat at the RaceTrac (gas station) approximately eight minutes before the shooting,” according to the affidavit.
The police affidavit also noted: “Combined with the rapid acceleration away from the scene proved that Sneed knew what he was doing when assisted the shooter in fleeing the scene.”
Nshimiyimana and Ahmed allege that Sneed and another man, Tekonzae Williams, were inside the Lamborghini when the shots were fired. Williams was indicted Tuesday on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Court records did not list an attorney for Williams.
McCathern, of McCathern Law, said Thursday his clients were pleased that Sneed and his associate were indicted.
“Hopefully, this will be the beginning of getting justice for my clients,” McCathern said. “As the video clearly shows, they are very lucky to be alive after Mr. Sneed’s actions.”
Sneed’s attorney, Michael J. Todd, did not return a message left by the AP on Thursday. Sneed’s agent had no comment Wednesday.
No people were hit by bullets, though the lawsuit says bullets did hit the Mercedes-Benz as well as a building at the car lot. The lawsuit against Sneed and Williams seeks at least $1 million in damages.
The Titans said in a statement they were aware of the “legal matter” with Sneed and are in contact with NFL security per league protocol. The statement says the team had no further comment.
Sneed was placed on injured reserve last month with a quadriceps injury, and he was in the Titans’ locker room Thursday. Players on injured reserve do not talk to reporters.
This is the second straight season the Titans have put him on injured reserve. He played only five games in 2024 after Tennessee traded with Kansas City for him, giving Sneed a contract that made him the NFL’s fifth-highest-paid cornerback at the time.
Sneed was drafted from Louisiana Tech in the fourth round in 2020 by Kansas City. He won back-to-back Super Bowls with the Chiefs in 2022 and 2023.
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Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — A Texas trooper who had an altercation with South Carolina’s Nyck Harbor after his touchdown on Saturday was sent home from the game, according to the state Department of Public Safety.
Harbor scored on an 80-yard reception in the second quarter and ran into the tunnel limping following the score. As he and three other players were walking back to the field, the trooper walked in between Harbor and another player and bumped into them as they passed each other.
The trooper and Harbor turned around and the trooper pointed at Harbor with both hands and said something to him. Harbor was quickly pushed away by his teammate and they continued to the field.
The public safety department issued a statement saying the trooper was sent home.
“Our Office of Inspector General (OIG) is also aware of the incident and will be further looking into the matter. No additional information will be released at this time,” the statement reads.
The video was widely shared on social media with many commenting on it, including Lakers star LeBron James.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The forecasts are eye-popping: utilities saying they’ll need two or three times more electricity within a few years to power massive new data centers that are feeding a fast-growing AI economy.
But the challenges — some say the impossibility — of building new power plants to meet that demand so quickly has set off alarm bells for lawmakers, policymakers and regulators who wonder if those utility forecasts can be trusted.
One burning question is whether the forecasts are based on data center projects that may never get built — eliciting concern that regular ratepayers could be stuck with the bill to build unnecessary power plants and grid infrastructure at a cost of billions of dollars.
Meanwhile, consumer advocates are finding that ratepayers in some areas — such as the mid-Atlantic electricity grid, which encompasses all or parts of 13 states stretching from New Jersey to Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C. — are already underwriting the cost to supply power to data centers, some of them built, some not.
“There’s speculation in there,” said Joe Bowring, who heads Monitoring Analytics, the independent market watchdog in the mid-Atlantic grid territory. “Nobody really knows. Nobody has been looking carefully enough at the forecast to know what’s speculative, what’s double-counting, what’s real, what’s not.”
Suspicions about skyrocketing demand
There is no standard practice across grids or for utilities to vet such massive projects, and figuring out a solution has become a hot topic, utilities and grid operators say.
Uncertainty around forecasts is typically traced to a couple of things.
One concerns developers seeking a grid connection, but whose plans aren’t set in stone or lack the heft — clients, financing or otherwise — to bring the project to completion, industry and regulatory officials say.
Another is data center developers submitting grid connection requests in various separate utility territories, PJM Interconnection, which operates the mid-Atlantic grid, and Texas lawmakers have found.
Often, developers, for competitive reasons, won’t tell utilities if or where they’ve submitted other requests for electricity, PJM said. That means a single project could inflate the energy forecasts of multiple utilities.
The effort to improve forecasts got a high-profile boost in September, when a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member asked the nation’s grid operators for information on how they determine that a project is not only viable, but will use the electricity it says it needs.
“Better data, better decision-making, better and faster decisions mean we can get all these projects, all this infrastructure built,” the commissioner, David Rosner, said in an interview.
The Edison Electric Institute, a trade association of for-profit electric utilities, said it welcomed efforts to improve demand forecasting.
Real, speculative, or ‘somewhere in between’
The Data Center Coalition, which represents tech giants like Google and Meta and data center developers, has urged regulators to request more information from utilities on their forecasts and to develop a set of best practices to determine the commercial viability of a data center project.
The coalition’s vice president of energy, Aaron Tinjum, said improving the accuracy and transparency of forecasts is a “fundamental first step of really meeting this moment” of energy growth.
“Wherever we go, the question is, ‘Is the (energy) growth real? How can we be so sure?’” Tinjum said. “And we really view commercial readiness verification as one of those important kind of low-hanging opportunities for us to be adopting at this moment.”
Igal Feibush, the CEO of Pennsylvania Data Center Partners, a data center developer, said utilities are in a “fire drill” as they try to vet a deluge of data center projects all seeking electricity.
The vast majority, he said, will fall off because many project backers are new to the concept and don’t know what it takes to get a data center built.
States also are trying to do more to find out what’s in utility forecasts and weed out speculative or duplicative projects.
In Texas, which is attracting large data center projects, lawmakers still haunted by a blackout during a deadly 2021 winter storm were shocked when told in 2024 by the grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, that its peak demand could nearly double by 2030.
They found that state utility regulators lacked the tools to determine whether that was realistic.
Texas state Sen. Phil King told a hearing earlier this year that the grid operator, utility regulators and utilities weren’t sure if the power requests “are real or just speculative or somewhere in between.”
Lawmakers passed legislation sponsored by King, now law, that requires data center developers to disclose whether they have requests for electricity elsewhere in Texas and to set standards for developers to show that they have a substantial financial commitment to a site.
Electricity bills are rising, too
PPL Electric Utilities, which delivers power to 1.5 million customers across central and eastern Pennsylvania, projects that data centers will more than triple its peak electricity demand by 2030.
Vincent Sorgi, president and CEO of PPL Corp., told analysts on an earnings call this month that the data center projects “are real, they are coming fast and furious” and that the “near-term risk of overbuilding generation simply does not exist.”
The data center projects counted in the forecast are backed by contracts with financial commitments often reaching tens of millions of dollars, PPL said.
Still, PPL’s projections helped spur a state lawmaker, Rep. Danilo Burgos, to introduce a bill to bolster the authority of state utility regulators to inspect how utilities assemble their energy demand forecasts.
Ratepayers in Burgos’ Philadelphia district just absorbed an increase in their electricity bills — attributed by the utility, PECO, to the rising cost of wholesale electricity in the mid-Atlantic grid driven primarily by data center demand.
That’s why ratepayers need more protection to ensure they are benefiting from the higher cost, Burgos said.
“Once they make their buck, whatever company,” Burgos said, “you don’t see no empathy towards the ratepayers.”
As America’s aging roads fall further behind on much-needed repairs, cities and states are turning to artificial intelligence to spot the worst hazards and decide which fixes should come first.
Hawaii officials, for example, are giving away 1,000 dashboard cameras as they try to reverse a recent spike in traffic fatalities. The cameras will use AI to automate inspections of guardrails, road signs and pavement markings, instantly discerning between minor problems and emergencies that warrant sending a maintenance crew.
“This is not something where it’s looked at once a month and then they sit down and figure out where they’re going to put their vans,” said Richard Browning, chief commercial officer at Nextbase, which developed the dashcams and imagery platform for Hawaii.
After San Jose, California, started mounting cameras on street sweepers, city staff confirmed the system correctly identified potholes 97% of the time. Now they’re expanding the effort to parking enforcement vehicles.
Texas, where there are more roadway lane miles than the next two states combined, is less than a year into a massive AI plan that uses cameras as well as cellphone data from drivers who enroll to improve safety.
Other states use the technology to inspect street signs or build annual reports about road congestion.
Every guardrail, every day
Hawaii drivers over the next few weeks will be able to sign up for a free dashcam valued at $499 under the “Eyes on the Road” campaign, which was piloted on service vehicles in 2021 before being paused due to wildfires.
Roger Chen, a University of Hawaii associate professor of engineering who is helping facilitate the program, said the state faces unique challenges in maintaining its outdated roadway infrastructure.
“Equipment has to be shipped to the island,” Chen said. “There’s a space constraint and a topography constraint they have to deal with, so it’s not an easy problem.”
Although the program also monitors such things as street debris and faded paint on lane lines, the companies behind the technology particularly tout its ability to detect damaged guardrails.
“They’re analyzing all guardrails in their state, every single day,” said Mark Pittman, CEO of Blyncsy, which combines the dashboard feeds with mapping software to analyze road conditions.
Hawaii transportation officials are well aware of the risks that can stem from broken guardrails. Last year, the state reached a $3.9 million settlement with the family of a driver who was killed in 2020 after slamming into a guardrail that had been damaged in a crash 18 months earlier but never repaired.
In October, Hawaii recorded its 106th traffic fatality of 2025 — more than all of 2024. It’s unclear how many of the deaths were related to road problems, but Chen said the grim trend underscores the timeliness of the dashboard program.
Building a larger AI database
San Jose has reported strong early success in identifying potholes and road debris just by mounting cameras on a few street sweepers and parking enforcement vehicles.
But Mayor Matt Mahan, a Democrat who founded two tech startups before entering politics, said the effort will be much more effective if cities contribute their images to a shared AI database. The system can recognize a road problem that it has seen before — even if it happened somewhere else, Mahan said.
“It sees, ‘Oh, that actually is a cardboard box wedged between those two parked vehicles, and that counts as debris on a roadway,’” Mahan said. “We could wait five years for that to happen here, or maybe we have it at our fingertips.”
San Jose officials helped establish the GovAI Coalition, which went public in March 2024 for governments to share best practices and eventually data. Other local governments in California, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas and Washington, as well as the state of Colorado, are members.
Some solutions are simple
Not all AI approaches to improving road safety require cameras.
Massachusetts-based Cambridge Mobile Telematics launched a system called StreetVision that uses cellphone data to identify risky driving behavior. The company works with state transportation departments to pinpoint where specific road conditions are fueling those dangers.
Ryan McMahon, the company’s senior vice president of strategy & corporate development, was attending a conference in Washington, D.C., when he noticed the StreetVision software was showing a massive number of vehicles braking aggressively on a nearby road.
The reason: a bush was obstructing a stop sign, which drivers weren’t seeing until the last second.
“What we’re looking at is the accumulation of events,” McMahon said. “That brought me to an infrastructure problem, and the solution to the infrastructure problem was a pair of garden shears.”
Texas officials have been using StreetVision and various other AI tools to address safety concerns. The approach was particularly helpful recently when they scanned 250,000 lane miles (402,000 kilometers) to identify old street signs long overdue for replacement.
“If something was installed 10 or 15 years ago and the work order was on paper, God help you trying to find that in the digits somewhere,” said Jim Markham, who deals with crash data for the Texas Department of Transportation. “Having AI that can go through and screen for that is a force multiplier that basically allows us to look wider and further much faster than we could just driving stuff around.”
Autonomous vehicles are next
Experts in AI-based road safety techniques say what’s being done now is largely just a stepping stone for a time when a large proportion of vehicles on the road will be driverless.
Pittman, the Blyncsy CEO who has worked on the Hawaii dashcam program, predicts that within eight years almost every new vehicle — with or without a driver — will come with a camera.
“How do we see our roadways today from the perspective of grandma in a Buick but also Elon and his Tesla?” Pittman said. “This is really important nuance for departments of transportation and city agencies. They’re now building infrastructure for humans and automated drivers alike, and they need to start bridging that divide.”
Shohei Ohtani likes winning Most Valuable Player awards. He loves winning the World Series even more.
The two-way Japanese star did both for a second season in a row for the Los Angeles Dodgers, earning his fourth career MVP on Thursday night while unanimously earning the National League honor. He’s just the second to win four MVPs after Barry Bonds with seven and the only player to win unanimously more than once.
Considering Ohtani is 31, overtaking Bonds doesn’t seem out of the question. Especially if it leads to more Fall Classic opportunities.
“If I’m playing well as an individual that means I’m helping the team win, so in that sense, hopefully I can end up with a couple more MVPs,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “But at the end of the day, it’s all about winning games.”
In the American League, Aaron Judge became the New York Yankees’ fourth three-time winner, edging Seattle’s Cal Raleigh with 17 first-place votes to 13 for the switch-hitting catcher. The vote was the closest for an MVP since the Los Angeles Angels’ Mike Trout topped Houston’s Alex Bregman by 17-13 in 2019.
Judge, who won the AL award in 2022 and 2024, joined Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle as three-time MVPs with the Yankees. The 33-year-old outfielder led the majors with a .331 batting average and 1.144 OPS while hitting 53 homers.
When asked about his place in MLB and Yankees lore, Judge acknowledged he’s in rare company.
“It’s tough for me to wrap my head around,” Judge said. “It’s mind blowing from my side of things, because I play this game to win, I play this game for my teammates, my family, all the fans in New York.”
Later he added: “You’ve got to pinch yourself every single day. It’s truly an incredible honor.”
Ohtani won a MVP for the third straight year, his second in the NL with the Dodgers after two in the AL with the Angels. He became the first to win in each league twice after getting the AL honor in 2021 and 2023. Ohtani signed with the crosstown Dodgers the following offseason and won NL MVP in 2024 during his first season in Chavez Ravine. He’s also won the World Series in both his seasons with the Dodgers.
Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber finished second in the NL with 23 second-place votes and New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto was third with four.
Ohtani hit .282 and led the NL with a 1.014 OPS. He also had 55 homers, 102 RBIs and 20 stolen bases.
The right-hander returned to pitching in June after missing 1 1/2 seasons on the mound because of an elbow injury. He struck out 62 batters over 47 innings, slowly increasing his workload while preparing for the postseason.
Ohtani continued to shine in October with arguably the greatest single game in MLB history. He hit three homers while striking out 10 over six dominant innings on Oct. 17, leading the Dodgers over Milwaukee to finish an NL Championship Series sweep.
Schwarber, who earned a $50,000 bonus for finishing second, hit an NL-best 56 homers and led the big leagues with 132 RBIs for Philadelphia.
Soto overcame a slow start to the season to have his typically stellar offensive output. The four-time All-Star — who signed a $765 million, 15-year deal last December — had 43 homers, 105 RBIs and an NL-best 38 stolen bases. He received a $150,000 bonus for finishing third in the MVP voting.
Judge is the first AL player to win back-to-back MVPs since Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera it in 2012 and 2013.
Raleigh, nicknamed “Big Dumper,” led the big leagues with 60 homers, the most for a player primarily a catcher. He started 119 games behind the plate and another 38 at designated hitter.
The 28-year-old also had a career-high 125 RBIs, leading the Mariners to one of their best seasons in franchise history. Judge said he got to know Raleigh a little during the All-Star break and the catcher asked for some leadership tips.
“Cal’s a special player,” Judge said. “I could sit here and talk all night about the player he is, but really the kind of leader and person he is really stuck out to me at the All-Star Game.”
Cleveland’s José Ramírez finished third in the AL.
Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo was fourth in the NL voting, earning him $2.5 million annual salary increases in 2028 and 2029 along with the price of Arizona’s 2030 club option.
BELLEAIR, Fla. (AP) — Kai Trump shot a 13-over 83 on Thursday in her LPGA Tour debut in The Annika, leaving President Donald Trump’s granddaughter last in the 108-player field.
In breezy afternoon conditions at Pelican Golf Club, the high school senior bogeyed the first four holes and finished the birdie-less round with nine bogeys and two double bogeys.
“I was definitely more nervous than I expected, but I thought I hit a lot of great shots out there,” she said. “I hit a lot of good shots just to the wrong spots.”
“It was pretty cool because I know I hit it far, but kind of playing with the best players in the world and being literally right there or even outdriving on some of the holes, it felt pretty good,” said Trump, the daughter of Donald Trump Jr. “Felt like my game is in a good spot, and especially only being a senior in high school.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When he first came to the United States after escaping civil war in Sierra Leone and spending almost a decade in a refugee camp, Dauda Sesay had no idea he could become a citizen. But he was told that if he followed the rules and stayed out of trouble, after some years he could apply. As a U.S. citizen, he would have protection.
It’s what made him decide to apply: the premise — and the promise — that when he became a naturalized American citizen, it would create a bond between him and his new home. He would have rights as well as responsibilities, like voting, that, as he was making a commitment to the country, the country was making one to him.
“When I raised my hand and took the oath of allegiance, I did believe that moment the promise that I belonged,” said Sesay, 48, who first arrived in Louisiana more than 15 years ago and now works as an advocate for refugees and their integration into American society.
But in recent months, as President Donald Trump reshapes immigration and the country’s relationship with immigrants, that belief has been shaken for Sesay and other naturalized citizens. There’s now fear that the push to drastically increase deportations and shift who can claim America as home, through things like trying to end birthright citizenship, is having a ripple effect.
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What they thought was the bedrock protection of naturalization now feels more like quicksand.
Illinois State Police stand guard as people including members of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL) gather outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File)
Illinois State Police stand guard as people including members of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL) gather outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Adam Gray, File)
What happens if they leave?
Some are worried that if they leave the country, they will have difficulties when trying to return, fearful because of accounts of naturalized citizens being questioned or detained by U.S. border agents. They wonder: Do they need to lock down their phones to protect their privacy? Others are hesitant about moving around within the country, after stories like that of a U.S. citizen accused of being here illegally and detained even after his mother produced his birth certificate.
There has been no evidence of an uptick in denaturalizations so far in this Trump administration. Yet that hasn’t assuaged some. Sesay said he doesn’t travel domestically anymore without his passport, despite having a REAL ID with its federally mandated, stringent identity requirements.
Immigration enforcement roundups, often conducted by masked, unidentifiable federal agents in places including Chicago and New York City, have at times included American citizens in their dragnets. One U.S. citizen who says he was detained by immigration agents twice has filed a federal lawsuit.
Adding to the worries, the Justice Department issued a memo this summer saying it would ramp up efforts to denaturalize immigrants who’ve committed crimes or are deemed to present a national security risk. At one point during the summer, Trump threatened the citizenship of Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City, who naturalized as a young adult.
The atmosphere makes some worried to speak about it publicly, for fear of drawing negative attention to themselves. Requests for comment through several community organizations and other connections found no takers willing to go on the record other than Sesay.
In New Mexico, state Sen. Cindy Nava says she’s familiar with the fear, having grown up undocumented before getting DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that protected people brought to the U.S. as children from being deported — and gaining citizenship through her marriage. But she hadn’t expected to see so much fear among naturalized citizens.
“I had never seen those folks be afraid … now the folks that I know that were not afraid before, now they are uncertain of what their status holds in terms of a safety net for them,” Nava said.
What citizenship has meant, and who was included, has expanded and contracted over the course of American history, said Stephen Kantrowitz, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said while the word “citizen” is in the original Constitution, it is not defined.
“When the Constitution is written, nobody knows what citizenship means,” he said. “It’s a term of art, it comes out of the French revolutionary tradition. It sort of suggests an equality of the members of a political community, and it has some implications for the right to be a member of that political community. But it is … so undefined.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents escort a detained immigrant into an elevator after he exited an immigration courtroom, Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova, File)
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents escort a detained immigrant into an elevator after he exited an immigration courtroom, Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova, File)
American immigration and its obstacles
The first naturalization law passed in 1790 by the new country’s Congress said citizenship was for any “free white person” of good character. Those of African descent or nativity were added as a specific category to federal immigration law after the ravages of the Civil War in the 19th century, which was also when the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution to establish birthright citizenship.
In the last years of the 19th century and into the 20th century, laws were put on the books limiting immigration and, by extension, naturalization. The Immigration Act of 1924 effectively barred people from Asia because they were ineligible for naturalization, being neither white nor Black. That didn’t change until 1952, when an immigration law removed racial restrictions on who could be naturalized. The 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act replaced the previous immigration system with one that portioned out visas equally among nations.
American history also includes times when those who had citizenship had it taken away, like after the 1923 Supreme Court ruling in U.S. vs. Bhagat Singh Thind. That ruling said that Indians couldn’t be naturalized because they did not qualify as white and led to several dozen denaturalizations. At other times, it was ignored, as in World War II, when Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps.
“Political power will sometimes simply decide that a group of people, or a person or a family isn’t entitled to citizenship,” Kantrowitz said.
In this moment, Sesay says, it feels like betrayal.
“The United States of America — that’s what I took that oath of allegiance, that’s what I make commitment to,” Sesay said. “Now, inside my home country, and I’m seeing a shift. … Honestly, that is not the America I believe in when I put my hand over my heart.”
___
This story has been corrected to reflect that Dauda Sesay is 48 years old, not 44.
NEW YORK (AP) — When Kristen Wiig steps out of a vintage Rolls-Royce in the opening scene of Season 2 of “Palm Royale,” she’s sporting a tall, yellow, fringed hat, gold platform sandals and sunny bell bottoms, with fabric petals that sway with every determined step. It’s the first clue that the costumes on the female-driven comedy are taking center stage.
The Apple TV show made a splash in its first season with the starry cast, high production values and ubiquitous grasshopper cocktail. Wiig’s character, Maxine, tries to break into Palm Beach high society in 1969 and bumps heads with co-stars Carol Burnett, Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb and Laura Dern. But also playing a starring role are the vintage designer frocks that reflect each character.
Kristen Wiig in “Palm Royale.” (Erica Parise/Apple TV via AP)
Kristen Wiig in “Palm Royale.” (Erica Parise/Apple TV via AP)
For Season 2, which premiered this week, Emmy-winning costume designer Alix Friedberg says she and her team coordinated “thousands” of looks that reflect the characters’ jet-setting style. She says 50-60% of the brightly colored and graphic print costumes are original vintage designer pieces, sourced by shoppers and costume designers.
“The looks are so iconic. Sometimes Kristen will walk in in something, and it brings tears to my eyes,” Kaia Gerber — who plays Mitzi — told The Associated Press in a recent interview.
The creative process entails more than shopping
If not original vintage, Friedberg’s team builds the costumes, and if a character has to wear an outfit in multiple scenes or in big dance numbers, the team may create duplicates to preserve continuity. Friedberg says she was lucky to find so many vendors with vintage designer pieces in great condition.
“(Bibb’s character) Dinah wears a few original Oscar de la Renta pieces that are really so perfect. Bill Blass was a big one, Oleg Cassini,” Friedberg says. “There’s a dress that (Janney’s character) Evelyn wears that’s this all emerald green jersey, it’s an original Halston and it’s so stunning on her and it really does sort of evoke what’s to come in the ‘70s.”
Allison Janney in “Palm Royale.” (Erica Parise/Apple TV via AP)
Allison Janney in “Palm Royale.” (Erica Parise/Apple TV via AP)
Janney calls Friedberg “brilliant” and marveled at her talent at finding pieces that are like works of art. Some of her favorites were the characters’ après-ski looks in the Swiss Alps — but she finds it hard to pick an ultimate favorite.
“All of them just make me feel divine. And the hair is just a masterpiece, and the makeup — it all goes together to just create Evelyn and I barely have to do anything,” Janney says.
Costumes can be funny
The costumes also help heighten the comedy. Friedberg says Evelyn’s stoic and deadpan character elicits laughs with some of her over-the-top getups.
“She’s delivering this dialogue, these lines with, like, seven wigs on top of her,” Friedberg says. “The absurdity comes out really in how these women present themselves time and time again. … It was just so much fun to get to laugh and wink at the audience.”
Carol Burnett in “Palm Royale.” (Erica Parise/Apple TV via AP)
Carol Burnett in “Palm Royale.” (Erica Parise/Apple TV via AP)
Burnett called costume fittings on the show “great fun” and said they helped her find her character, the scheming Norma. “I work from the outside in. I have to know what I’m going to look like,” she says.
Norma’s signature turban started as a practical idea to help Burnett save time in hair and makeup. “The first time she put it on, we were both like, ‘Oh, that’s really so fabulous,’ and every time she came out as Norma without the turban, I really missed it,” Friedberg says. “Each time we built her a dress, we always had to sort of think about what the turban would be, and then it started to switch, and we started designing the turbans before the dress!”
Season 2 of Apple TV’s “Palm Royale” features fabulous costumes and sets, lots of laughs and an undercurrent theme of feminism and female friendship. (Nov. 10)
Many looks go deeper than sparkly sequins
The costumes also help set the tone for the female empowerment theme that permeates this season. “Evelyn wore a lot more pants — which seems ridiculous to say today — but back then that was a real power move,” Friedberg says.
Leslie Bibb in “Palm Royale.” (Erica Parise/Apple TV via AP)
Leslie Bibb in “Palm Royale.” (Erica Parise/Apple TV via AP)
Bibb had ideas to show how Dinah evolves from her trophy wife persona. “I knew this season was about her finding sort of her own wealth without a man … and what that looked like. I always have been obsessed with Sharon Stone in ‘Casino,’” Bibb says — and so they “stole” a bit of that look. “We really have Dinah going into pantsuits and just a different sense of her and she’s really becoming her most modern self.”
Friedberg conveyed the privilege and simplicity of the rich men in the series through clothing as well. Josh Lucas plays Douglas, who suffers some disappointments this season, reflected in his costumes.
“What if we approach Douglas where he’s always been dressed by women in his life? He’s always been dressed by someone else. He’s never shopped,” Lucas says he posed to Friedberg (who happens to be his sister-in-law in real life). “And for the first time, (his wife’s) character is not doing that, so he only has three hole-filled Hawaiian shirts.”
He’s in fact the rare character who repeats outfits, Friedberg notes. “You can kind of see them, as the series goes along, getting a little bit more and more threadbare,” she says.
Kaia Gerber in “Palm Royale.” (Erica Parise/Apple TV via AP)
Kaia Gerber in “Palm Royale.” (Erica Parise/Apple TV via AP)
Gerber’s character gets a major makeover this season after coming into money. The actor gushed about Friedberg’s intentional designs as Mitzi finds her “womanhood and her power.”
“It was so fun to be able to be wearing these expensive gowns and jewelry and the hair and the makeup, and how that really sort of parallels Mitzi’s inner journey as well,” she says.
The costumes may be eye candy, but Friedberg says each look also carries deeper meaning.
“Maxine wears this dress that was an original Oscar de la Renta dress,” Friedberg says. “It’s very much something that Norma would wear, and it is saying to the audience without saying to the audience that she’s arrived, it’s her time, it’s time for her to rule.”
More than 1,000 unionized Starbucks workers went on strike at 65 U.S. stores Thursday to protest a lack of progress in labor negotiations with the company.
The strike was intended to disrupt Starbucks’ Red Cup Day, which is typically one of the company’s busiest days of the year. Since 2018, Starbucks has given out free, reusable cups on that day to customers who buy a holiday drink. Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing baristas, said Thursday morning that the strike had already closed some stores and was expected to force more to close later in the day.
Starbucks Workers United said stores in 45 cities would be impacted, including New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Diego, St. Louis, Dallas, Columbus, Ohio, and Starbucks’ home city of Seattle. There is no date set for the strike to end, and more stores are prepared to join if Starbucks doesn’t reach a contract agreement with the union, organizers said.
Starbucks emphasized that the vast majority of its U.S. stores would be open and operating as usual Thursday. The coffee giant has 10,000 company-owned stores in the U.S., as well as 7,000 licensed locations in places like grocery stores and airports.
As of noon Thursday on the East Coast, Starbucks said it was on track to meet or exceed its sales expectations for the day at its company-owned stores.
“The day is off to an incredible start,” the company said in a statement.
Around 550 company-owned U.S. Starbucks stores are currently unionized. More have voted to unionize, but Starbucks closed 59 unionized stores in September as part of a larger reorganization campaign.
Here’s what’s behind the strike.
A stalled contract agreement
Striking workers say they’re protesting because Starbucks has yet to reach a contract agreement with the union. Starbucks workers first voted to unionize at a store in Buffalo in 2021. In December 2023, Starbucks vowed to finalize an agreement by the end of 2024. But in August of last year, the company ousted Laxman Narasimhan, the CEO who made that promise. The union said progress has stalled under Brian Niccol, the company’s current chairman and CEO. The two sides haven’t been at the bargaining table since April.
Workers want higher pay, better hours
Workers say they’re seeking better hours and improved staffing in stores, where they say long customer wait times are routine. They also want higher pay, pointing out that executives like Niccol are making millions and the company spent $81 million in June on a conference in Las Vegas for 14,000 store managers and regional leaders.
Dochi Spoltore, a barista from Pittsburgh, said in a union conference call Thursday that it’s hard for workers to be assigned more than 19 hours per week, which leaves them short of the 20 hours they would need to be eligible for Starbucks’ benefits. Spoltore said she makes $16 per hour.
“I want Starbucks to succeed. My livelihood depends on it,” Spoltore said. “We’re proud of our work, but we’re tired of being treated like we’re disposable.”
The union also wants the company to resolve hundreds of unfair labor practice charges filed by workers, who say the company has fired baristas in retaliation for unionizing and has failed to bargain over changes in policy that workers must enforce, like its decision earlier this year to limit restroom use to paying customers.
Starbucks stands by its wages and benefits
Starbucks says it offers the best wage and benefit package in retail, worth an average of $30 per hour. Among the company’s benefits are up to 18 weeks of paid family leave and 100% tuition coverage for a four-year college degree. In a letter to employees last week, Starbucks’ Chief Partner Officer Sara Kelly said the union walked away from the bargaining table in the spring.
Kelly said some of the union’s proposals would significantly alter Starbucks’ operations, such as giving workers the ability to shut down mobile ordering if a store has more than five orders in the queue.
Kelly said Starbucks remained ready to talk and “believes we can move quickly to a reasonable deal.” Kelly also said surveys showed that most employees like working for the company, and its barista turnover rates are half the industry average.
Limited locations with high visibility
Unionized workers have gone on strike at Starbucks before. In 2022 and 2023, workers walked off the job on Red Cup Day. Last year, a five-day strike ahead of Christmas closed 59 U.S. stores. Each time, Starbucks said the disruption to its operations was minimal. Starbucks Workers United said the new strike is open-ended and could spread to many more unionized locations.
The number of non-union Starbucks locations dwarfs the number of unionized ones. But Todd Vachon, a union expert at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said any strike could be highly visible and educate the public on baristas’ concerns.
Unlike manufacturers, Vachon said, retail industries depend on the connection between their employees and their customers. That makes shaming a potentially powerful weapon in the union’s arsenal, he said.
Improving sales
Starbucks’ same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, rose 1% in the July-September period. It was the first time in nearly two years that the company had posted an increase. In his first year at the company, Niccol set new hospitality standards, redesigned stores to be cozier and more welcoming, and adjusted staffing levels to better handle peak hours.
Starbucks also is trying to prioritize in-store orders over mobile ones. Last week, the company’s holiday drink rollout in the U.S. was so successful that it almost immediately sold out of its glass Bearista cup. Starbucks said demand for the cup exceeded its expectations, but it wouldn’t say if the Bearista will return before the holidays are over.
NEW YORK (AP) — As workers face frozen salaries, inflation and fear of layoffs, some have decided to branch out from their traditional careers. They’re taking on side jobs to bring in additional income and provide a backup plan should they find themselves out of work, or adding second, third and sometimes fourth jobs — what some call “polyworking” — to the mix.
Take Katelyn Cusick, 29. She beautifies displays as a visual merchandiser for Patagonia at her full-time job. Then she works a side gig managing social media influencers for a German shoe brand for 10 to 15 hours per week. She also has an Etsy shop where she sells paintings. If that wasn’t enough, she ushers at concerts in the San Francisco Bay Area — a way to see live shows for free.
“Every day is different and every day feels like a new day,” Cusick said. “That is ultimately why I started doing all these side hustles, just because I wanted to switch it up. I don’t want to just do the same thing every day.”
Some are drawn to side jobs because of instability in their workplace, or the perception that they may lose their income. Still others, reluctant to trust one employer to provide a steady job that lasts, are supplementing their main roles with gig work on apps such as Uber and Grubhub.
This article is part of AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health. Read more Be Well.
“We have seen stagnant salaries, we’ve seen inflation, we’ve seen the cost of living overall increasing, even beyond our inflation measures,” said Alexandrea Ravenelle, sociologist and gig economy researcher at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “So people are looking for ways to supplement and to build themselves a little bit of a safety net.”
Some are creating “portfolio careers” where they work a variety of jobs, each building different valuable skills. In Cusick’s case, side work keeps her social media marketing skills current.
“Rather than having one job that you can have for many, many years and thinking about your career progression as a linear pathway, some people are putting together multiple side hustles based on their skills and interests and making the money work by having multiple revenue streams,” said Elaine Chen, director of the Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts University.
Career experts and those with side jobs share tips on how to get started and what to avoid if you’re considering branching out from your 9-to-5.
Follow a passion
If you’re embarking on a side business on top of a full-time job, consider picking something you’re naturally interested in, since you’ll spend a lot of free time on the venture.
“You have to love it,” Chen said. “Usually it is something that the person is really passionate about.”
For Josie White, 31, that passion was mental health. After struggling with schizoaffective disorder and finding effective treatment, she wanted to help others who have mental health challenges feel less alone.
While working full-time as a fundraiser for Shelter the Homeless, a nonprofit organization in Salt Lake City, White decided to pursue public speaking on the side and began looking for opportunities to address groups and conferences where she could share her own experiences with mental illness “to reassure people that there is hope and a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Be realistic about money
Launching a side hustle may require initial investment, and it can take a considerable amount of time before it generates income.
When White started her side business, she began by offering her speaking services as an unpaid volunteer. She landed some gigs training nonprofit staff and speaking about fundraising, which wasn’t her original goal, but those opportunities helped her gain experience.
Over the past year she’s booked 10 speaking engagements, and four of those will be paid, she said. She’s taken the money she earned so far and re-invested it into developing her public speaking skills.
“The goal is ultimately to get paid, but right now I’m putting in the legwork to reach that,” White said. “It’s starting to snowball.”
Know the risks of gig work
Some side jobs, such as gig work delivering groceries or driving passengers, may generate income right away.
Tom Ritter of Syracuse, New York, was supplementing his income as a workforce management specialist at a nonprofit by making deliveries for Instacart and Spark, Walmart’s delivery platform, on top of his full-time job. The side work helped him pay his bills, especially when he recently lost his day job.
“For me, even that extra couple hundred dollars a month went a long way, and it still does,” Ritter, 39, said.
Ravenelle cautioned against relying too heavily on gig work for income. It can be hard to transition back to full-time, permanent jobs, where workers typically wait two weeks or more for a first paycheck, and gig work carries a stigma among some employers, she said.
Plus, if gig workers are earning good wages, the platforms will typically change the algorithms so they earn less money, Ravenelle said. “The house always wins when it comes to the gig platforms,” she said.
Be skeptical
Once people are looking for side jobs, they should be cautious if an opportunity found online seems too good to be true. Some online influencers promote business ideas that are more akin to scams.
In Ravanelle’s research she’s spoken with people who saw online videos about making money selling microgreens.
“They thought they could make thousands of dollars a month, working from home, growing microgreens in their kitchen, and then selling them to high-end restaurants,” Ravenelle said. “No. The person who sells you the grow lights and gives you the classes is the person who’s making the money.”
Finding the time
Starting a second job or career can dig into personal time, reducing opportunities to exercise or be with family and friends.
White works Monday through Thursday at Shelter the Homeless, clocking 40 to 45 hours per week. With Fridays off, she spends that day practicing speaking skills or generating new business.
“I wouldn’t describe my life as balanced,” she said. “But am I enjoying it? Yes. And I think that matters.”
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Share your stories and questions about workplace wellness at [email protected]. Follow AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health at https://apnews.com/hub/be-well
Vital federal funding is on the way for Head Start centers that were thrown into crisis by the government shutdown, but it could take time before some children who rely on the federal program can return to preschool.
Some centers that missed out on federal payments had to furlough staff. Others had to shut down entirely, destabilizing thousands of needy families around the country. And operators fear it could take weeks more for overdue payments to be processed.
Even when agencies receive long-delayed grant money, centers will have to rehire staff members and bring back families — both of which may have grown wary of instability in the program, which relies almost entirely on federal grants.
“The damage has been done in a lot of ways,” Massachusetts Head Start Association Executive Director Michelle Haimowitz said. “We know that it’s going to take some time to fill back up.”
Head Start serves children from low-income families from birth to age 5. The program offers a variety of services to families, such as early learning, support for children with disabilities, free meals and health screenings.
With the shutdown over, the federal Office of Head Start will expedite funding and contact affected Head Start programs to share when they can expect federal money, said Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the program.
Head Start operators anticipate that could take weeks.
Federal workers are returning to “a mountain of work” that will take time to process, Haimowitz said. That doesn’t just include sending out missed grant awards — other paperwork for a range of technical issues has been delayed since layoffs at the Office of Head Start earlier this year, she said.
“Those delays have just been piling up since April, with no fault to the existing civil servants at the Office of Head Start,” Haimowitz said. “They just have half the capacity that they had just a few months ago.”
Families prepare for the worst-case scenario
Depending on how quickly federal workers can send out funds, the backlog in grant renewals could spill over and affect Head Start agencies that are supposed to receive funding in December, operators said. Some of the families who attend those centers are already making preparations for that worst-case scenario.
Gena Storer, who works as a home health aide in Xenia, Ohio, is trying to “make as much money as I possibly can” in case her daughter’s Head Start center closes. The center staff told parents hours before the government reopened that they still expect to shutter temporarily on Dec. 1 if funding is delayed, Storer said.
If the center closes, Storer’s 4-year-old daughter, Zarina, will stay at home until it reopens. Storer will then need to adjust her work hours to make sure she can be home with Zarina while her fiance works 12-hour shifts at a Target distribution center.
Uncertainty about SNAP federal food aid payments has also added stress for Storer’s family. Storer had been working extra hours through the shutdown to help provide for her 72-year-old mother, who also uses SNAP benefits.
“If my mom didn’t have us to help her, what would she do?” the 31-year-old said.
For Storer, Head Start has been more than a reliable option for child care. Zarina used to receive speech therapy to address her lack of speaking. But since starting Head Start in September, Storer said she’s noticed her daughter becoming more talkative and outgoing because she learns from having conversations with her classmates.
Programs pay out-of-pocket to keep doors open
Programs that stayed open without a guarantee of reimbursement by the federal government could also face further financial strains. At Louis Russ’ home day care in Knox County, Indiana, he and his wife are planning a pop-up toy shop out of their garage to offset money they might lose by staying open.
Russ and his wife started operating a day care out of their home in April and partnered soon after with East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, a nonprofit that serves children of migrant farmworkers across 10 states. Six out of the eight children in Russ’ home day care are Head Start-funded.
East Coast Migrant Head Start Project was one of the programs affected by a funding lapse, which resulted in more than 1,000 children being shut out of their centers. Russ and his wife also stopped receiving their Head Start payments at the end of October, but the decision to keep their home open was a “no brainer,” Russ said. Offering the children consistency during an otherwise unpredictable time was important to them, he said.
“Staying open and keep taking the children we have, that was the easy part,” he said. “Figuring out how we’re going to stay open if this goes on too long, that’s the tricky part.”
It’s been tense operating the program without knowing when funding will be released. Russ and his wife already took a pay cut, and they have another employee on the payroll. About three-quarters of their budget is payroll, Russ said, but other expenses like groceries and maintenance needs can stack up quickly without an income.
“Our program, being so new, we were running pretty bare bones as is,” Russ said. “And especially in child care, which doesn’t have a huge profit margin, there’s only so much wiggle room when things like this happen.”
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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.
ATLANTA (AP) — When families are evicted, it can lead to major disruptions to their children’s schooling.
Federal law includes provisions to help homeless and evicted kids stay at their schools, but families don’t always know about them — and schools don’t always share the information. Beyond the instability that comes with losing their home, relocating also can deprive kids of networks they rely on for support.
AP followed the year-long quest of one Atlanta mother, Sechita McNair, to find new housing after an eviction. The out-of-work film industry veteran drove extra hours for Uber and borrowed money, eventually securing a lease in the right neighborhood so her eldest son could stay at his high school. At $2,200 a month, it was the only “semi-affordable” apartment in the rapidly gentrifying Old Fourth Ward that would rent to a single mom with a fresh eviction on her record.
Even so, her son was not thriving. McNair considered a homeschooling program before re-enrolling him at the coveted high school. Despite continuing challenges, McNair is determined to provide her three children with better educational opportunities.
Evictions often lead families to schools with fewer resources
Like many evicted families, McNair and her kids went from living in a school district that spends more money on students to one that spends less.
Atlanta spends nearly $20,000 per student a year, $7,000 more than the suburban district the family moved to after they were evicted from their apartment last year. More money in schools means smaller classrooms and more psychologists, guidance counselors and other support.
Thanks to federal laws protecting homeless and evicted students, McNair’s kids were able to keep attending their Atlanta schools, even though the only housing available to them was in another county 40 minutes away. They also had the right to free transportation to those schools, but McNair says the district didn’t tell her about that until the school year ended. Once they found new housing, their eligibility to remain in those schools expired at the end of last school year.
Support systems matter, too
The suburban neighborhood where the family landed after the eviction is filled with brick colonials and manicured lawns. McNair knows it’s the dream for some families, but not hers. “It’s a support desert,” she said.
McNair, who grew up in New Jersey near New York City, sees opportunities in the wider city of Atlanta. She wants to use its libraries, e-scooters, bike paths, hospitals, rental assistance agencies, Buy Nothing groups and food pantries.
“These are all resources that make it possible to raise a family when you don’t have support,” she said. “Wouldn’t anyone want that?”
It’s tough to find safe, affordable housing after an eviction
It took months for McNair to scrape together funds and find a landlord in her gentrifying neighborhood who would rent to her in spite of her recent eviction.
On Zillow, the second-floor apartment, built in 2005, looked like a middle-class dream with its granite countertops, crown molding and polished wood floors. But up close, the apartment looked abused. Her tour of the apartment was rushed, and the lease was full of errors. She signed anyway.
Shortly after — while she was still waiting for the landlord to install more smoke detectors and fix the oven and fridge — McNair’s keys stopped working. The apartment had been sold in a short sale.
The new owners wanted McNair to leave, but she consulted with attorneys, who reassured her she could stay. Eventually, she even moved some of the family’s belongings to the apartment.
But a new apartment in their preferred neighborhood doesn’t solve everything. At night, McNair’s 15-year-old son, Elias, has been responsible for his younger brothers while she heads out to drive for Uber. That’s what is necessary to pay $450 a week to rent the car and earn enough to pay her rent and bills.
While McNair is out, she can’t monitor Elias. And a few days after he started school, Elias’s all-night gaming habit had already drawn teachers’ attention. As she drove for Uber one night, she couldn’t stop thinking about emails from his teachers. “I should be home making sure Elias gets to bed on time,” she says, crying. “But I have to work. I’m the only one paying the bills.”
Consistency is important for a teen’s learning
McNair attributed some of Elias’s lack of motivation at school to personal trauma. His father died after a heart attack in 2023, on the sidelines of Elias’s basketball practice. Wounded by that loss and multiple housing displacements, Elias failed two classes last year, his freshman year. His mother feared switching schools would jeopardize any chance he had of recovering his academic life.
But after Elias started skipping school this fall, McNair filed papers declaring her intention to homeschool him.
It quickly proved challenging. Elias wouldn’t do any schoolwork when he was home alone. And when the homeschooling group met twice a week, McNair discovered, they required parents to pick up their children afterward instead of allowing them to take public transit or e-scooters. That was untenable.
McNair considered enrolling her son in the suburban school district, but an Atlanta schools official advised against transferring if possible. He needs to be in school — preferably the Atlanta school he has attended — studying for midterms, the official said.
Now, with Elias back in school every day, McNair can deliver food through Uber Eats without worrying about a police officer asking why her kid isn’t in school. If only she had pushed harder, sooner, for help with Elias, she thought.
But it was easy for her to explain why she hadn’t. “I was running around doing so many other things just so we have a place to live, or taking care of my uncle, that I didn’t put enough of my energy there.”
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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.
ATLANTA (AP) — As an education reporter, I’ve heard teachers worry that the most pernicious challenges their students face, like poverty or housing insecurity, are beyond the realm of what schools can fix.
I wanted to understand better how the rising cost of housing and the prevalence of eviction could undermine a young person’s ability to thrive in school and in life.
Research shows schoolchildren threatened with eviction are more likely to transfer to another school, often one with less funding, more poverty and lower test scores. They’re more likely to miss school, and those who end up transferring are suspended more often.
I’ve seen this firsthand through my own reporting. A few years ago, when I was writing about students who missed school for months or longer, many of them said a housing disruption had first kept them out of class. They lost their home, ended up staying with a relative, and didn’t get back in school for weeks or longer.
So I called up a parent organizer in Atlanta who had introduced me to other families struggling with that city’s rapid gentrification.
McNair was one of the easiest people I’ve ever written about because she was a film-industry veteran. She understood my desire to document or understand every step in the process of getting evicted or advocating for her children. I never had to explain why I was asking a question, why I wanted so much detail about where she was when she received a certain phone call, or why I wanted her to send me emails or documents. She’s an open book and sincerely thought others might benefit from reading about her perseverance and resourcefulness.
She also was challenging to write about because her life was extremely complicated. McNair has immense family responsibilities, without support from other relatives, yet she holds a deep belief that things will work out if she just keeps moving. Her situation and plans would change rapidly. Sometimes I struggled to keep up.
I traveled to Atlanta three times over several months to visit McNair, and in between we were in constant touch. I often spoke to her while she drove the kids to and from school or while she picked up orders for Uber Eats. The result is a close-up portrait of life as a single mother trying to swim upstream while carrying three boys on her back.
This is the hardest part: Everything McNair was working toward — getting her kids back into Atlanta — is exactly what researchers would say she should do. She should keep her kids in the same school so they can be in a stable environment.
But so far, it hasn’t been enough.
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Bianca Vázquez Toness covers the intersection of education and children’s well-being. She led the nation in showing how many students were missing school after the pandemic, and her work was honored as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
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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.
ATLANTA (AP) — It was the worst summer in years. Sechita McNair’s family took no vacations. Her younger boys didn’t go to camp. Her van was repossessed, and her family nearly got evicted — again.
But she accomplished the one thing she wanted most. A few weeks before school started, McNair, an out-of-work film industry veteran barely getting by driving for Uber, signed a lease in the right Atlanta neighborhood so her eldest son could stay at his high school.
As she pulled up outside the school on the first day, Elias, 15, stepped onto the curb in his new basketball shoes and cargo pants. She inspected his face, noticed wax in his ears and grabbed a package of baby wipes from her rental car. She wasn’t about to let her eldest, with his young Denzel Washington looks, go to school looking “gross.”
He grimaced and broke away.
“No kiss? No hugs?” she called out.
Elias waved and kept walking. Just ahead of him, at least for the moment, sat something his mother had fought relentlessly for: a better education.
The link between where you live and where you learn
Sechita McNair, center, and sons Derrick McNair-White, left, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, right, walk to catch a city bus in Jonesboro, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair, center, and sons Derrick McNair-White, left, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, right, walk to catch a city bus in Jonesboro, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Last year, McNair and her three kids were evicted from their beloved apartment in the rapidly gentrifying Old Fourth Ward neighborhood of Atlanta. Like many evicted families, they went from living in a school district that spends more money on students to one that spends less.
Thanks to federal laws protecting homeless and evicted students, her kids were able to keep attending their Atlanta schools, even though the only housing available to them was in another county 40 minutes away. They also had the right to free transportation to those schools, but McNair says the district didn’t tell her about that until the school year ended. Their eligibility to remain in those schools expired at the end of last school year.
Still wounded by the death of his father and multiple housing displacements, Elias failed two classes last year, his freshman year. Switching schools now, McNair fears, would jeopardize any chance he has of recovering his academic life. “I need this child to be stable,” she says.
Bianca Vázquez Toness covers the intersection of education and children’s well-being. She led the nation in showing how many students were missing school after the pandemic — work that was honored as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
With just one week before school started, McNair drove extra Uber hours, borrowed money, secured rental assistance and ignored concerns about the apartment to rent a three-bedroom in the Old Fourth Ward. At $2,200 a month, it was the only “semi-affordable” apartment in the rapidly gentrifying ward that would rent to a single mom with a fresh eviction on her record.
On Zillow, the second-floor apartment, built in 2005, looked like a middle-class dream with its granite countertops, crown molding and polished wood floors. But up close, the apartment looked abused and held secrets McNair was only beginning to uncover.
The first sign something was wrong came early. When she first toured the apartment, it felt rushed, like the agent didn’t want her to look too closely. Then, even as they told her she was accepted, the landlord and real estate agent wouldn’t send her a “welcome letter” laying out the agreement, the rent and deposit she would pay. It seemed like they didn’t want to put anything in writing.
When the lease came, it was full of errors. She signed it anyway. “We’re back in the neighborhood!” she said. Elias could return to Midtown High School.
But even in their triumph, no one in the family could relax. Too many things were uncertain. And it fell to McNair — and only McNair — to figure it out.
The first day back
Sechita McNair, left, talks to her oldest son, Elias Washington, before he walks into Midtown High School for the first day of school on Aug. 4 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair, left, talks to her oldest son, Elias Washington, before he walks into Midtown High School for the first day of school on Aug. 4 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Midtown is a high school so coveted that school administrators investigate student residency throughout the year to keep out kids from other parts of Atlanta and beyond. For McNair, the day Elias returned to the high school was a momentous one.
“Freedom!” McNair declared after Elias disappeared into the building. Without child care over the summer, McNair had struggled to find time to work enough to make ends meet. Now that the kids were back in class, McNair could spend school hours making money and resolving some of the unsettled issues with her new apartment.
McNair, the first person in her family to attend college, studied theater management. Her job rigging stage sets was lucrative until the writers’ and actors’ strike and other changes paralyzed the film industry in 2023. The scarcity of work on movie sets, combined with her tendency to take in family and non-family alike, wrecked her home economy.
The family was evicted last fall when McNair fell behind on rent because of funeral expenses for her foster daughter. The teen girl died from an epileptic seizure while McNair and everyone else slept. Elias found her body.
McNair attributes some of Elias’s lack of motivation at school to personal trauma. His father died after a heart attack in 2023, on the sidelines of Elias’s basketball practice.
Elias Washington talks to a friend on the phone as he walks to Midtown High School in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Elias Washington talks to a friend on the phone as he walks to Midtown High School in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
On his first day back at school this August, Elias appeared excited but tentative. He watched as the seniors swanned into school wearing gold cardboard crowns, a Midtown back-to-school tradition, and scanned the sidewalk for anyone familiar.
If Elias had his way, his mom would homeschool him. She’s done it before. But now that he’s a teenager, it’s harder to get Elias to follow her instructions. As the only breadwinner supporting three kids and her disabled uncle, she has to work.
Elias hid from the crowds and called up a friend: “Where you at?” The friend, another sophomore, was still en route. Over the phone, they compared outfits, traded gossip about who got a new hairdo or transferred. When Elias’s friend declared this would be the year he’d get a girlfriend, Elias laughed.
When it was time to go in, Elias drifted toward the door with his head down as other students flooded past.
The after-school pickup
Hours later, he emerged. Despite everything McNair had done to help it go well — securing the apartment, even spending hundreds of dollars on new clothes for him — Elias slumped into the backseat when she picked him up after class.
“School was so boring,” he said.
“What happened?” McNair asked.
“Nothing, bro. That was the problem,” Elias said. “I thought I was going to be happy when school started, since summer was so horrible.”
Of all of the classes he was taking — geometry, gym, French, world history, environmental science — only gym interested him. He wished he could take art classes, he said. Elias has acted in some commercials and television programs, but chose a science and math concentration, hoping to study finance someday.
After dinner at Chick-fil-A, the family visited the city library one block from their new apartment. While McNair spoke to the librarian, the boys explored the children’s section. Malachi, 6, watched a YouTube video on a library computer while Derrick, 7, flipped through a book. Elias sat in a corner, sharing video gaming tips with a stranger he met online.
“Those people are learning Japanese,” said McNair, pointing to a group of adults sitting around a cluster of tables. “And this library lets you check out museum passes. This is why we have to be back in the city. Resources!”
McNair wants her children to go to well-resourced schools. Atlanta spends nearly $20,000 per student a year, $7,000 more than the district they moved to after the eviction. More money in schools means smaller classrooms and more psychologists, guidance counselors and other support.
But McNair, who grew up in New Jersey near New York City, also sees opportunities in the wider city of Atlanta. She wants to use its libraries, e-scooters, bike paths, hospitals, rental assistance agencies, Buy Nothing groups and food pantries.
“These are all resources that make it possible to raise a family when you don’t have support,” she said. “Wouldn’t anyone want that?”
Support is hard to come by
Sechita McNair, right, and sons Derrick McNair-White, center, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, left, ride an escalator to take the MARTA train on June 11 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair, right, and sons Derrick McNair-White, center, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, left, ride an escalator to take the MARTA train on June 11 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
On the way home, the little boys fall asleep in the back seat. Elias asks, “So, is homeschooling off the table?”
McNair doesn’t hesitate. “Heck yeah. I’m not homeschooling you,” she says lightly. “Do you see how much of a financial bind I’m in?”’
McNair pulls into the driveway in Jonesboro, the suburb where the family landed after their eviction. Even though the family wants to live in Atlanta, their stuff is still here. It’s a neighborhood of brick colonials and manicured lawns. She realizes it’s the dream for some families, but not hers. “It’s a support desert.”
As they get out of the car, Elias takes over as parent-in-charge. “Get all of your things,” he directs Malachi and Derrick, who scowl as Elias seems to relish bossing them around. “Pick up your car seats, your food, those markers. I don’t want to see anything left behind.” Elias would be responsible for making the boys burritos, showering them and putting them to sleep.
McNair heads out to drive for Uber. That’s what is necessary to pay $450 a week to rent the car and earn enough to pay her rent and bills.
But while McNair is out, she can’t monitor Elias. And a few days after he starts school, Elias’s all-night gaming habit has already drawn teachers’ attention.
“I wanted to check in regarding Elias,” his geometry teacher writes during the first week of school. “He fell asleep multiple times during Geometry class this morning.”
Elias had told the teacher he went to bed around 4 a.m. the night before. “I understand that there may be various reasons for this, and I’d love to work together to support Elias so he can stay focused and successful in class.”
A few days later, McNair gets a similar email from his French teacher.
That night, McNair drives around Atlanta, trying to pick up enough Uber trips to keep her account active. But she can’t stop thinking about the emails. “I should be home making sure Elias gets to bed on time,” she says, crying. “But I have to work. I’m the only one paying the bills.”
Obstacles keep popping up
Sechita McNair arrives at her new Atlanta apartment on Aug. 1 to find a door that she says looks like it was forced open. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair arrives at her new Atlanta apartment on Aug. 1 to find a door that she says looks like it was forced open. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Ever since McNair rented the Atlanta apartment, her bills had doubled. She wasn’t sure when she’d feel safe giving up the house she’d been renting in Clayton County, given the problems with the Atlanta apartment. For starters, she was not even sure it was safe to spend the night there.
A week after school started in August, McNair dropped by the apartment to check whether the landlords had made repairs. At the very least, she wanted more smoke detectors.
She also wanted them to replace the door, which looked like someone had forced it open with a crowbar. She wanted a working fridge and oven. She wanted them to secure the back door to the adjoining empty apartment, which appeared to be open and made her wonder if there were pests or even people squatting there.
But on this day, her keys didn’t work.
She called 911. Had her new landlords deliberately locked her out?
When the police showed up outside the olive-green, Craftsman-style fourplex, McNair scrolled through her phone to find a copy of her lease. Then McNair and the officer eyed a man walking up to the property. “The building was sold in a short sale two weeks ago,” he told McNair. The police officer directed the man to give the new keys to McNair.
The next day, McNair started getting emails from an agent specializing in foreclosures, suggesting the new owners wanted McNair to leave. “The bank owns the property and now you are no longer a tenant of the previous owner,” she wrote. The new owner “might” offer relocation assistance if McNair agreed to leave.
McNair consulted attorneys, who reassured her: It might be uncomfortable, but she could stay. She needed to try to pay rent, even if the new owner didn’t accept it.
So McNair messaged the agent, asking where she should send the rent, and requested the company make necessary repairs. Eventually, the real estate agent stopped responding.
Some problems go away, but others emerge
Finally, McNair moved her kids and a few items from the Jonesboro house to the Atlanta apartment. She didn’t allow Elias to bring his video game console to Atlanta. He started going to bed around 11 p.m. most nights. But even as she solved that problem, others emerged.
It was at Midtown’s back-to-school night in September that McNair learned Elias was behind in most of his classes. Some teachers said maybe Midtown wasn’t the right school for Elias.
Perhaps they were right, McNair thought. She’d heard similar things before.
Sechita McNair, center, rests in the summer heat as she works to repair her family van, while adopted son Derrick McNair-White, 6, right, plays in the driveway of their rented home in Jonesboro, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair, center, rests in the summer heat as she works to repair her family van, while adopted son Derrick McNair-White, 6, right, plays in the driveway of their rented home in Jonesboro, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Elias also didn’t want to go to school. He skipped one day, then another. McNair panicked. In Georgia, parents can be sent to jail for truancy when their kids miss five unexcused days.
McNair started looking into a homeschooling program run by a mother she follows on Facebook. In the meantime, she emailed and called some Midtown staff for advice. She says she didn’t get a response. Finally, seven weeks after the family’s triumphant return to Midtown, McNair filed papers declaring her intention to homeschool Elias.
It quickly proved challenging. Elias wouldn’t do any schoolwork when he was home alone. And when the homeschooling group met twice a week, she discovered, they required parents to pick up their children afterward instead of allowing them to take public transit or e-scooters. That was untenable.
Elias wanted to stay at home and offered to take care of McNair’s uncle, who has dementia. “That was literally killing my soul the most,” said McNair. “That’s not a child’s job.”
Hell, no, she told him — you only get one chance at high school.
Elias Washington watches a video on his phone as he rests on a bed left by a previous tenant in his family’s new apartment in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Elias Washington watches a video on his phone as he rests on a bed left by a previous tenant in his family’s new apartment in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Then, one day, while she was loading the boys’ clothes into the washing machine at the Atlanta apartment, she received a call from an unknown Atlanta number. It was the woman who heads Atlanta Public Schools’ virtual program, telling her the roster was full.
McNair asked the woman for her opinion on Elias’s situation. Maybe she should abandon the Atlanta apartment and enroll him in the Jonesboro high school.
Let me stop you right there, the woman said. Is your son an athlete? If he transfers too many times, it can affect his ability to play basketball. And he’d probably lose credits and take longer to graduate. He needs to be in school — preferably Midtown — studying for midterms, she said. You need to put on your “big mama drawers” and take him back, she told McNair.
The next day, Elias and his mother pulled up to Midtown. Outside the school, Elias asked if he had to go inside. Yes, she told him. This is your fault as much as it’s mine.
Now, with Elias back in school every day, McNair can deliver food through Uber Eats without worrying about a police officer asking why her kid isn’t in school. If only she had pushed harder, sooner, for help with Elias, she thought. “I should have just gone down to the school and sat in their offices until they talked to me.”
Sechita McNair, center, and sons Derrick McNair-White, right, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, left, have breakfast on the steps of Midtown High School in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair, center, and sons Derrick McNair-White, right, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, left, have breakfast on the steps of Midtown High School in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
But it was easy for her to explain why she hadn’t. “I was running around doing so many other things just so we have a place to live, or taking care of my uncle, that I didn’t put enough of my energy there.”
She wishes she could pay more attention to Elias. But so many things are pulling at her. And as fall marches toward winter, her struggle continues. After failing to keep up with the Jonesboro rent, she’s preparing to leave that house before the landlord sends people to haul her possessions to the curb.
As an Uber driver, she has picked up a few traumatized mothers with their children after they got evicted. She helped them load the few things they could fit into her van. As they drove off, onlookers scavenged the leftovers.
She has promised herself she’d never let that happen to her kids.
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