AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Embattled Fed Governor Lisa Cook’s lawyer says she’ll sue Trump to keep her job

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook will sue President Donald Trump’s administration to try to prevent him from firing her, her lawyer said Tuesday.

The announcement makes it more likely that a high-stakes legal battle will ensue that will probably end up at the Supreme Court, and could redefine the limits of the president’s legal authority over the central bank. Increasingly at issue is the Fed’s independence from day-to-day politics, which most economists consider a key factor in keeping long-term inflation and interest rates low.

“President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook,” said Abbe Lowell, Cook’s lawyer and a longtime Washington figure who has represented prominent people from both major political parties. “His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action.”

Trump, meanwhile, underscored in remarks at the White House that his goal is to seize more power over the Fed to get it to lower interest rates. He has previously said he would only appoint people to the Fed’s board who will support lower borrowing costs.

“We’ll have a majority very shortly, so that’ll be good,” Trump said, referring to the Fed’s governing board. “Once we have a majority, housing will swing,” he added, blaming slow housing sales on high mortgage rates.

___

Court tosses lawsuit by Trump against Maryland federal judges, calling it ‘potentially calamitous’

BALTIMORE (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday threw out the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Maryland’s entire federal bench in an emphatic ruling that underscored the extraordinary nature of the suit, slamming it as “potentially calamitous.”

U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, also criticized the administration’s attacks on the judiciary, highlighting in a footnote that White House officials in recent months had described judges as “rogue,” “unhinged” and “crooked,” among other epithets.

“Although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system, this concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate,” he wrote.

The Trump administration filed a notice of appeal.

At issue in the lawsuit is an order by the chief judge of the Maryland district court that stopped the immediate deportation of migrants challenging their removals. The Justice Department said the automatic pause impeded the president’s authority to enforce immigration laws, and it sought a court order blocking it.

___

Democratic governors look to derail Trump’s plan to send National Guard to Chicago and other cities

WASHINGTON (AP) — JB Pritzker took a water taxi along the Chicago Riverwalk, past one of Donald Trump’s famous downtown towers. The gleaming and heavily trafficked tourist district was a deliberate backdrop on the day the Illinois governor directed a defiant message toward the White House: “Mr. President, do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here.”

The governor’s protests, however, may not matter. After Trump’s National Guard deployments to Los Angeles in June and Washington, D.C. this month, the Republican says his next targets for federal intervention may be two of the nation’s most Democratic cities: Chicago and Baltimore.

Trump’s possible move — targeting states whose governors are among potential White House contenders in 2028 — would be another escalation of presidential power, directly challenging the rights of states and cities to govern themselves. It also would intensify a partisan scramble for voters’ trust on matters of public safety.

For Trump, militarizing U.S. streets is the latest tactic to support his “law and order” branding and mass deportation agenda. It’s a way to cast Democratic leaders in affected locales as weak and ineffective, even as Trump exaggerates the violence he’s ostensibly trying to stop. Pritzker “should be calling me, and he should be saying ‘Can you send over the troops please?’” Trump said Tuesday at the White House. “It’s out of control.”

Democrats see a dangerous overreach by an aspiring authoritarian and have said they will challenge Trump in court if necessary. They also see in the political fight a way to persuade voters, especially moderates and independents, that Republicans bluster on crime while Democrats are better able to protect citizens and keep the peace.

___

Trump’s threat to deploy troops to Chicago sparks fear and defiance in a city on edge

CHICAGO (AP) — President Donald Trump’s threats to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago sent ripples through America’s third-largest city as many residents defended their home against Trump’s escalating rhetoric toward its violent crime, including claims it is a “killing field.”

The threat of federal troops stirred a mix of fear, frustration and defiance for residents as they pointed to historic drops in violent crime. Groups constantly pressing for police reform said sending troops who lack training in de-escalating violence or any knowledge about the nuances of neighborhoods still grappling with violent crime would undo progress made in recent years.

The sentiment was echoed by people going about their day — commuters heading to work, cyclists weaving through traffic, and friends pausing to take photos along Michigan Avenue — who said the presence of troops would only heighten tensions, not ease them.

“It’s a direct affront to the progress our communities have made,” said Bradly Johnson, who leads BUILD Chicago. The anti-violence organization focuses its efforts on neighborhoods on the city’s West Side that have seen persistent crime, even as rates overall have fallen.

“It’s not a war zone,” Johnson said. “They’re vibrant resilient communities where young people deserve opportunities and not intimidation.”

___

Spate of hoax calls about active shooters stir fear at college campuses around the US

Miceala Morano scrambled for cover behind a green screen in the University of Arkansas broadcast room after she received a campuswide alert about an active shooter.

As officers outside donned bullet proof vests and searched for an intruder, the 21-year-old journalism student called her grandmother, telling her, “As of right now, I’m safe. I love you.”

Monday’s threat turned out to be part of a rash of hoax calls about active shooters on college campuses — some featuring gunshots sounding in the background — that have sent waves of fear among students around the nation as the school year begins.

The calls prompted universities to issue texts to “run, hide, fight.” Students and teachers rushed for cover, often cowering in classrooms and under desks for safety. Officers swarmed over campuses, seeking out any threat.

That the threats turned out to be false doesn’t much matter in the moment for terrified students.

___

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in jail and facing deportation. Here’s what to know

NASHVILLE (AP) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who has become the face of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, is in a Virginia detention center facing deportation to the east African country of Uganda.

The Maryland construction worker, 30, was detained Monday in Baltimore by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement after leaving a Tennessee jail on Friday. Administration officials have said he’s part of the dangerous MS-13 gang, an allegation Abrego Garcia denies.

The Salvadoran national’s lawyers are fighting the deportation efforts in court, arguing he has the right to express fear of persecution and torture in Uganda. Abrego Garcia has also told immigration authorities he would prefer to be sent to Costa Rica if he must be removed from the U.S.

It’s the latest twist in a long and complicated legal saga under the administration’s hardline deportation policies.

As his deportation proceedings and a related lawsuit move forward, here’s what to know:

___

Utah enters the redistricting battle for 2026, but not by choice. Here’s what to know

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah is being thrust into a national battle over redistricting because of a court order to redraw its congressional map for the 2026 midterm elections, while President Donald Trump is pushing other Republican-led states to add winnable U.S. House seats for the GOP.

The new district boundaries could make one of Utah’s four congressional seats competitive for Democrats as the party fights to topple the GOP’s slim majority in the House. Nationally, Democrats need to net three seats next year to take control of the chamber.

The current map divides heavily populated Salt Lake County — an island of Democratic support in an otherwise red state — among all four congressional districts. Before the map was adopted in 2021, one district had traded hands between Democrats and Republicans. All have since elected Republicans by wide margins.

Here’s what to know about Utah’s place in the redistricting fight.

A judge on Monday ordered Utah’s Republican-controlled Legislature to toss its congressional map and quickly adopt a new one. District Court Judge Dianna Gibson declared the map unlawful because the Legislature had circumvented an independent redistricting commission established by voters to ensure districts don’t deliberately favor a party, a practice known as gerrymandering.

___

Israeli military says strikes on Gaza hospital targeted a Hamas camera, without providing evidence

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military said Tuesday that its double strike on a Gaza hospital that killed 20 people targeted what it believed was a Hamas surveillance camera. But the first strike killed a cameraman from the Reuters news agency doing a live television shot, according to witnesses and health officials.

The military released its initial findings into the strike, offering no immediate explanation for striking twice and no evidence for an assertion that six of the dead were militants, including two who were identified by their employers as a health care worker at the hospital and an emergency services driver. The dead also included five journalists.

The military said the back-to-back strikes on southern Gaza’s largest hospital were ordered because soldiers believed militants were using the camera to observe Israeli forces. But its account appeared to contradict witnesses at the scene of Monday’s attack on Nasser Hospital.

A senior Hamas official denied that Hamas was operating a camera at the hospital.

“If this claim was true, there are many means to neutralize this camera without targeting a health care facility with a tank shell,” Bassem Naim, a member of the group’s political bureau, told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

___

Study says AI chatbots need to fix suicide response, as family sues over ChatGPT role in boy’s death

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A study of how three popular artificial intelligence chatbots respond to queries about suicide found that they generally avoid answering questions that pose the highest risk to the user, such as for specific how-to guidance. But they are inconsistent in their replies to less extreme prompts that could still harm people.

The study in the medical journal Psychiatric Services, published Tuesday by the American Psychiatric Association, found a need for “further refinement” in OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude.

It came on the same day that the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman alleging that ChatGPT coached the California boy in planning and taking his own life earlier this year.

The research — conducted by the RAND Corporation and funded by the National Institute of Mental Health — raises concerns about how a growing number of people, including children, rely on AI chatbots for mental health support, and seeks to set benchmarks for how companies answer these questions.

“We need some guardrails,” said the study’s lead author, Ryan McBain, a senior policy researcher at RAND.

___

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — It’s a love story and, baby, she said yes: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged, they announced Tuesday.

In a five-photo joint post on Instagram, the superstar singer and football player revealed their engagement, the fairytale culmination of a courtship that for two years has thrilled and fascinated millions around the world, but especially Swifties, the pop star’s enormous and ardent fan base.

“Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” the caption read, accompanied by an emoji of a dynamite stick.

Kelce was a famous football player when they met — a star tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs and a Super Bowl champion — but Swift’s unique level of fame catapulted him into a different orbit entirely. Their relationship was documented in countless shots of Swift celebrating at Chiefs games and fan videos of Kelce dancing along at Swift’s Eras concert tour as it traveled the globe.

There were those who speculated, with no evidence, that the relationship was not genuine but a cynical ploy for more fame, while some even theorized it was a plot to influence the U.S. elections. In the end, those voices were quieted by a happy couple who simply looked in love — now with an engagement ring rivaling the size of Kelce’s three Super Bowl rings.