NEW YORK — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s motto is “ Make America Healthy Again,” but government cuts could make it harder to know if that’s happening.

More than a dozen data-gathering programs that track deaths and disease appear to have been eliminated in the tornado of layoffs and proposed budget cuts rolled out in the Trump administration’s first 100 days.

The Associated Press examined draft and final budget proposals and spoke to more than a dozen current and former federal employees to determine the scope of the cuts to programs tracking basic facts about Americans’ health.

Among those terminated at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were experts tracking abortions, pregnancies, job-related injuries, lead poisonings, sexual violence and youth smoking, the AP found.

“If you don’t have staff, the program is gone,” said Patrick Breysse, who used to oversee the CDC’s environmental health programs.

Federal officials have not given a public accounting of specific surveillance programs that are being eliminated.

Instead, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman pointed the AP to a Trump administration budget proposal released Friday. It lacked specifics, but proposes to cut the CDC’s core budget by more than half and vows to focus CDC surveillance only on emerging and infectious diseases.

Kennedy has said some of the CDC’s other work will be moved to a yet-to-be-created agency, the Administration for a Healthy America. He also has said that the cuts are designed to get rid of waste at a department that has seen its budget grow in recent years.

“Unfortunately, this extra spending and staff has not improved our nation’s health as a country,” Kennedy wrote last month in The New York Post. “Instead, it has only created more waste, administrative bloat and duplication.”

Yet some health experts say the eliminated programs are not duplicative, and erasing them will leave Americans in the dark.

“If the U.S. is interested in making itself healthier again, how is it going to know, if it cancels the programs that helps us understand these diseases?” said Graham Mooney, a Johns Hopkins University public health historian.

The core of the nation’s health surveillance is done by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. Relying on birth and death certificates, it generates information on birth rates, death trends and life expectancy. It also operates longstanding health surveys that provide basic data on obesity, asthma and other health issues.

The center has been barely touched in layoffs, and seems intact under current budget plans.

But many other efforts were targeted by the cuts, the AP found. Some examples:

The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, which surveys women across the country, lost its entire staff — about 20 people.

It’s the most comprehensive collection of data on the health behaviors and outcomes before, during and after childbirth. Researchers have been using its data to investigate the nation’s maternal mortality problem.

Recent layoffs also wiped out the staffs collecting data on in vitro fertilizations and abortions.

Those cuts are especially surprising given that President Donald Trump said he wants to expand IVF access and that the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 playbook for his administration called for more abortion surveillance.

The CDC eliminated its program on lead poisoning in children, which helped local health departments — through funding and expertise — investigate lead poisoning clusters and find where risk is greatest.

Lead poisoning in kids typically stems from exposure to bits of old paint, contaminated dust or drinking water that passes through lead pipes. But the program’s staff also played an important role in the investigation of lead-tainted applesauce that affected 500 kids.

Last year, Milwaukee health officials became aware that peeling paint in aging local elementary schools was endangering kids. The city health department began working with CDC to test tens of thousands of students. That assistance stopped last month when the CDC’s lead program staff was terminated.

City officials are particularly concerned about losing expertise to help them track the long-term effects.

“We don’t know what we don’t know,” said Mike Totoraitis, the city’s health commissioner.

Also gone is the staff for the 23-year-old Environmental Public Health Tracking Program, which had information on concerns including possible cancer clusters and weather-related illnesses.

“The loss of that program is going to greatly diminish the ability to make linkages between what might be in the environment and what health might be affected by that,” Breysse said.

In some cases, it’s not a matter of staffers leaving, but rather the end of specific types of data collection.

Transgender status is no longer being recorded in health-tracking systems, including ones focused on violent deaths and on risky behaviors by kids.

Experts know transgender people are more likely to be victims of violence, but now “it’s going to be much more challenging to quantify the extent to which they are at higher risk,” said Thomas Simon, the recently retired senior director for scientific programs at the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention.

The staff and funding seems to have remained intact for a CDC data collection that provides insights into homicides, suicides and accidental deaths involving weapons.

But CDC violence-prevention programs that acted on that information were halted. So, too, was work on a system that collects hospital data on nonfatal injuries from causes such as shootings, crashes and drownings.

Also going away, apparently, is the CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. The system is designed to pick up information that’s not found in law enforcement statistics. Health officials see that work as important, because not all sexual violence victims go to police.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which tracks job-related illnesses and deaths and makes recommendations on how to prevent them, was gutted by the cuts.

Kennedy has said that 20% of the people laid off might be reinstated as the agency tries to correct mistakes.

That appeared to happen last month, when the American Federation of Government Employees said that NIOSH workers involved in a black lung disease program for coal miners had been temporarily called back.

But HHS officials did not answer questions about the reinstatement. The AFGE’s Micah Niemeier-Walsh later said the workers continued to have June termination dates and “we are concerned this is to give the appearance that the programs are still functioning, when effectively they are not.”

There’s been no talk of salvaging some other NIOSH programs, including one focused on workplace deaths in the oil and gas industries or a research project into how common hearing loss is in that industry.

The HHS cuts eliminated the 17-member team responsible for the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, one of the main ways the government measures drug use.

Also axed were the CDC staff working on the National Youth Tobacco Survey.

There are other surveys that look at youth smoking and drug use, including the University of Michigan’s federally funded “Monitoring the Future” survey of schoolkids.

But the federal studies looked at both adults and adolescents, and provided insights into drug use by high school dropouts. The CDC also delved into specific vaping and tobacco products in the ways that other surveys don’t, and was a driver in the federal push to better regulate electronic cigarettes.

“There was overlap among the surveys, but each one had its own specific focus that the other ones didn’t cover,“ said Richard Miech, who leads the Michigan study.

Work to modernize data collection has been derailed. That includes an upgrade to a 22-year-old system that helps local public health departments track diseases and allows CDC to put together a national picture.

Another casualty was the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, which tries to predict disease trends.

The center, created during the COVID-19 pandemic, was working on forecasting the current multi-state measles outbreak. That forecast hasn’t been published partly because of the layoffs, according to two CDC officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss it and fear retribution for speaking to the press.

Trump hasn’t always supported widespread testing of health problems.

In the spring of 2020, when COVID-19 diagnoses were exploding, the president groused that the nation’s ability to do more testing was making the U.S. look like it had a worse problem than other countries. He called testing “a double-edged sword.”

Mooney, the Johns Hopkins historian, wonders how interested the new administration is in reporting on health problems.

“You could think it’s deliberate,” he said. “If you keep people from knowing, they’re less likely to be concerned.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida is poised to ban fluoride in public drinking water, over the concerns of dentists and public health advocates who say the mineral is a safe, effective way to protect people of all ages from developing cavities.

Florida lawmakers gave final approval to the bill Tuesday. The measure now goes to the desk of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose administration has advocated against the fluoridation of community water systems, arguing high levels could pose a risk to children’s intellectual development.

Fluoride strengthens teeth by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water is considered among the greatest public health achievements of the last century.

“As dentists, we see the direct consequences fluoride removal has on our patients and it’s a real tragedy when policymakers’ decisions hurt vulnerable kids and adults in the long term,” Brett Kessler, president of the American Dental Association, said in a statement earlier this month. “Blindly calling for a ban on fluoridated water hurts people, costs money, and will ultimately harm our economy.”

While Florida’s bill doesn’t specifically reference fluoride, it will require the mineral and some other additives be removed from water sources across the state, said bill sponsor Republican state Rep. Kaylee Tuck.

“Anything that relates to water quality, removing contaminants, things like that, we’re not touching that,” Tuck said. “It’s anything that has to do with health. So fluoride, vitamins, whatever else it is.”

Utah became the first state to pass a ban last month, approving legislation that bars cities and communities from deciding whether to add the mineral to their water systems.

Fluoride has come under increased scrutiny under the influence of U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is setting the gears of government in motion to stop fluoridating water.

Some local officials in Florida have already voted to remove the mineral from their community water systems, ahead of state lawmakers’ push to ban fluoride.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Tuesday she is “deeply disappointed” by the passage of the bill, adding that it disregards “the overwhelming consensus of dentists, doctors and medical experts and will end a practice that has been in place for decades to protect our health.”

Levine Cava said that ending fluoridation, which is a safe and cost-effective way to prevent tooth decay, will have “long-lasting health consequences, especially for our most vulnerable families.”

The mayor said the decision should be left to local communities.

About one-third of community water systems, serving more than 60% of the U.S. population, fluoridated their water, according to a 2022 analysis by the CDC.

___ Associated Press writer Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida contributed to this report. Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s effort to impose new requirements on Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine — the nation’s only traditional protein-based option for the coronavirus — is sowing uncertainty about updates to other vaccines, too.

Novavax said Monday that the Food and Drug Administration was asking the company to run a new clinical trial of its vaccine after the agency grants full approval. The company said it had responded and that it believed its shot remains “approvable.”

But a weekend post on social media by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary suggested the prospect of needing a new trial before the shots’ yearly strain update — something unlikely to be possible before fall. That’s raised questions about whether other vaccines will be caught in the turmoil.

“I don’t think because there’s a strain change that this is a new product,” said Dr. Jesse Goodman of Georgetown University, a former FDA vaccine chief. If that’s the new policy, “you’d always be doing clinical trials and you’d never have a vaccine that was up to date.”

The unusual move at FDA come shortly after the agency’s longtime vaccine chief was forced out over disagreements with Makary’s boss, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy won Senate confirmation to his job, in part, by promising not to change the nation’s vaccine schedule. Since taking office, he’s promised to “investigate” children’s shots, canceled meetings of expert vaccine advisers and directed officials to look again for connections between vaccines and autism, a link long-ago debunked.

The Novavax vaccine, which originally showed effectiveness in a nearly 30,000-person clinical trial, is still being sold under emergency use authorization in the U.S. The nation’s other two options, mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, have earned full FDA approval for certain age groups.

Because the coronavirus continually mutates, manufacturers follow instructions from FDA to make one change each year to their recipe — which strain to target — just like flu vaccines.

The FDA was on track to grant Novavax full approval by its April 1 target date, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential agency matters. But Trump appointees directed FDA scientists to pause their decision, according to one of the people. Since that highly unusual move, Novavax and the agency have been discussing additional requirements for approval.

In his weekend tweet, FDA’s Makary referred to the Novavax vaccine as “a new product,” presumably because it had been updated to match last year’s common coronavirus strain.

“New products require new clinical studies,” Makary added.

An administration spokesman didn’t respond to specific questions about Pfizer and Moderna but suggested all COVID-19 vaccines could face stricter requirements.

“It’s now been years since COVID has presented the threat it once did, and the urgency to rush approval of boosters without normal oversight no longer exists,” said Andrew Nixon, a Health and Human Services spokesman, in a statement.

The FDA had been treating the annual COVID-19 strain updates exactly as it’s done for decades with flu vaccines — not as new products, but existing ones that are merely adjusted to protect against the latest strains, said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Offit said the companies still must perform tests in small numbers of people that show these updated vaccines produce levels of virus-fighting antibodies known to be protective, and they’re closely monitored for safety.

Nixon, the HHS spokesman, suggested the policy might not apply to the flu shot, “which has been tried and tested for more than 80 years.”

Under federal law, the FDA is required to follow established procedures when issuing requirements to drugmakers for approval. If the agency skips certain steps or imposes additional requirements for political reasons, experts say, it could be sued by drugmakers — or even patients, such as those who prefer the Novavax vaccine over its competitors because of an allergy or some other reason.

In addition to large clinical trials conducted before all three COVID-19 vaccines were cleared for use, there’s data on real-world use, said former Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, who oversaw COVID-19 vaccine policy during the Biden administration.

“At the point where I had left, we had put some 700 million COVID vaccines into the arms of Americans,” he said. “That’s a pretty good size clinical trial.”

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AP writer Amanda Seitz contributed to this story

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Authorities released more videos Friday related to their investigation of the deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, including images of agents returning to the couple’s Santa Fe home days after they were found to look for more evidence.

The bodies of Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, 65, were discovered Feb. 26 after maintenance and security workers called police.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office has been releasing redacted records on a rolling basis since a recent court order allowing them to be made public as long as any images of the dead couple are obscured. More are expected.

The latest release includes hours of police body camera video and builds on what has already been made public, including a lengthy investigative report, photos and hours of body camera and security video showing the initial police response.

The new videos show authorities interviewing workers and returning to the home to search for more evidence early on in the investigation before they knew how Hackman and Arakawa died.

An hourlong video shows detectives searching the home in early March for Arakawa’s laptop and any other clues. Representatives of Arakawa’s family let them inside the house and led them to the bathroom where her body was found.

In another video, detectives are reviewing security videos at a pharmacy for any footage of Arakawa in mid-February.

The employee helping them asks what they’re looking for, and one of the detectives says a woman is dead.

“We’re trying to see her last moments,” the detective says.

Another video shows a man who does pest control on the property telling officers that he has not seen Hackman in at least a month, but that it is normal to not see or talk to the couple during his monthly visits.

The last time he saw Hackman, he says, they waved to each other but did not speak.

“He was looking frail,” the worker says. “He was bent over with a cane. His hair was sort of wild.”

Authorities say Arakawa died of the rare hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rodent-borne disease that can cause a range of symptoms including flu-like illness, headaches, dizziness and severe respiratory distress. Hackman is believed to have died about a week later of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

One of the couple’s three dogs also was found dead in a crate near Arakawa’s body, while two other dogs were found alive. A state veterinary lab attributed the dog’s death to dehydration and starvation.

VATICAN CITY — Key events in the life of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who became Pope Francis and died on Monday:

Dec. 17, 1936: Jorge Mario Bergoglio is born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the eldest of five children to Mario Jose Bergoglio, an accountant from Italy, and Regina María Sívori, the daughter of Italian immigrants.

Dec. 13, 1969: Ordained a priest with the Jesuit religious order, which he would lead as Argentina provincial superior during the country’s murderous dictatorship that began in the 1970s.

May 20, 1992: Named auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires and in 1998 succeeds Cardinal Antonio Quarracino as archbishop of the Argentine capital.

Feb. 21, 2001: Elevated to cardinal by St. John Paul II.

May 2007: Helps draft the final document of the fifth meeting of the Latin American bishops conference in Aparecida, Brazil, synthesizing what would eventually become his concerns as pope for the poor, Indigenous peoples and the environment and the need for a missionary church.

March 13, 2013: Elected 266th pope, the first from the Americas, the first Jesuit and the first to take the name of Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi.

April 13, 2013: Creates a kitchen cabinet of eight cardinals from around the globe to help him govern the church and reorganize its bureaucracy.

May 12, 2013: Canonizes the “Martyrs of Otranto,” 813 Italians slain in 1480 for defying demands by Turkish invaders to convert to Islam. With one ceremony, Francis nearly doubled the 480 saints made by St. John Paul II over his quarter-century pontificate, which at the time was more than all his predecessors combined for 500 years.

July 8, 2013: Makes first trip outside Rome to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa to meet with newly arrived migrants and denounces the “globalization of indifference” shown to would-be refugees.

July 30, 2013: Declares “Who am I to judge?” when asked about a gay priest during a news conference, signaling a more welcoming stance toward LGBTQ+ community.

Nov. 26, 2013: Issues mission statement for his papacy in Evangelii Gaudium, (“The Joy of the Gospel”), denouncing the world financial system that excludes the poor and declaring the Eucharist is “not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”

May 25, 2014: Makes an unscheduled stop to pray at wall separating Israel from West Bank town of Bethlehem, in a show of support for the Palestinian cause.

June 8, 2014: Hosts Israeli and Palestinian presidents for peace prayers in the Vatican gardens.

March 20, 2015: Accepts the resignation of the “rights and privileges” of Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien after adult men accuse him of sexual misconduct.

June 18, 2015: Issues his environmental manifesto “Laudato Si” (“Praised Be”), calling for a cultural revolution to correct the “structurally perverse” global economic system that exploits the poor and has turned Earth into “an immense pile of filth.”

July 10, 2015: Apologizes in Bolivia for the sins and crimes of the Catholic Church against Indigenous peoples during the colonial-era conquest of the Americas.

Sept. 8, 2015: Overhauls the annulment process to make it faster, cheaper and simpler so divorced Catholics can remarry in the church.

Sept. 24, 2015: Challenges Congress to rediscover America’s ideals by acting on climate change, immigration and poverty reduction in the first speech by a pope at the U.S. Capitol.

Nov. 29, 2015: Inaugurates the Jubilee of Mercy by opening the Holy Door of the cathedral in Bangui, Central African Republic, rather than at the Vatican.

Feb. 12, 2016: Meets Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill during a stopover in Havana and declares “We are brothers,” in first such meeting between a pope and patriarch in over 1,000 years.

Feb. 18, 2016: Prays for dead migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, later says then-presidential candidate Donald Trump is “not a Christian” for wanting to build a border wall.

April 8, 2016: Opens the way to letting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics receive Communion in a footnote to the document “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”).

April 16, 2016: Visits a refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, and brings 12 Syrian Muslims to Rome aboard his papal plane in an appeal for solidarity toward migrants.

Sept. 19, 2016: Is questioned in a letter by four conservative cardinals seeking clarification of his opening to divorced and remarried Catholics.

Dec. 1, 2017: Declares at a meeting in Bangladesh with Myanmar Rohingya refugees that, “The presence of God today is also called Rohingya.”

Jan. 19, 2018: Accuses sex abuse victims of slander during a visit to Chile, further undermining Catholic Church’s credibility. Subsequently orders a Vatican investigation into Chile’s abuse crisis.

April 12, 2018: Admits to “grave errors” in judgment in Chile’s sex abuse scandal. Later summons Chilean bishops to Rome to secure their resignations and invites abuse victims to Vatican to apologize.

Aug. 3, 2018: Declares capital punishment “inadmissible” under all circumstances in a change to official church teaching.

July 28, 2018: Accepts the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick from the College of Cardinals, orders him to penance and prayer pending an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct with minors and adults.

Aug. 26, 2018: Retired Vatican ambassador Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano publishes bombshell accusation claiming U.S. and Vatican officials for two decades covered up McCarrick’s sexual misconduct, demands Francis resign.

Sept. 22, 2018: Vatican and China sign landmark agreement over bishop nominations.

Oct. 14, 2018: Canonizes slain Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero after his saint-making process was held up for decades by conservative cardinals.

Feb. 4, 2019: Signs the “Human Fraternity” document with the imam of Al Azhar, establishing collaborative relations between Catholics and Muslims.

Feb. 16, 2019: Defrocks McCarrick after Vatican investigation finds he sexually abused minors and adults.

Feb. 21, 2019: Opens first Vatican summit on child protection, warns bishops the faithful demand action, not just condemnation of clergy sexual abuse.

May 9, 2019: Issues new church law requiring clergy sex abuse to be reported in-house, although not to police; establishes procedures for investigating accused bishops, cardinals and religious superiors.

Oct. 25, 2019: Apologizes to Amazonian bishops, tribal leaders after conservative activists steal Indigenous statues from Vatican-area church and throw them into Tiber River in show of opposition to the pope.

Nov. 24, 2019: Declares the use and possession of nuclear weapons “immoral” during a visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

Dec. 17, 2019: Abolishes use of “pontifical secret” in clergy sex abuse cases, allowing bishops to share internal documentation about abusers with law enforcement.

Feb. 12, 2020: Declines to approve ordination of married men as priests after appeals from Amazonian bishops, sidestepping issue in document “Querida Amazonia” (“Beloved Amazon”).

March 27, 2020: Delivers solitary evening prayer to the world facing the coronavirus pandemic from the promenade of St. Peter’s Square.

Oct. 4, 2020: Issues encyclical “Fratelli Tutti” (“Brothers All,”), arguing the pandemic proves theories of market capitalism failed and a new type of politics is needed to promote human fraternity.

Nov. 10, 2020: Vatican report into McCarrick finds Vatican, U.S. bishops, cardinals and popes played down or dismissed reports of sexual misconduct but spares Francis.

March 5-8, 2021: Becomes first pope to visit Iraq, meeting with its top Shiite Muslim cleric.

July 4, 2021: Undergoes intestinal surgery at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, has 33 centimeters (13 inches) of colon removed.

Jan. 5, 2023: Presides at funeral Mass for Pope Benedict XVI.

Jan. 24, 2023: Declares in an Associated Press interview that “Being homosexual is not a crime.”

March 29, 2023: Is admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital for respiratory infection; is released April 1.

June 7, 2023: Undergoes surgery to remove intestinal scar tissue and repair a hernia in the abdominal wall.

Oct. 4, 2023: Opens a synod on making the church more responsive to ordinary faithful during which women are allowed to vote alongside bishops for the first time.

Nov. 28, 2023: Cancels visit to Dubai to address U.N. climate conference and outline a new ecological manifesto “Laudate Deum” (“Praise God”) because of a new case of acute bronchitis.

Dec. 16, 2023: Vatican tribunal convicts Cardinal Angelo Becciu of embezzlement and sentences him to 5½ years in prison in one of several verdicts in a complicated financial trial that aired the city state’s dirty laundry and tested its justice system.

Dec. 19, 2023: Approves blessings for same-sex couples provided they don’t resemble marriage, sparking fierce opposition from conservative bishops in Africa, Asia and elsewhere.

July 5, 2024: Vatican excommunicates leading Francis critic Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano for schism.

Sept. 10, 2024: Some 600,000 people, half of East Timor’s population, attend Francis’ Mass in Dili in what is believed to be the biggest turnout for a papal event in terms of the proportion of the population.

Dec. 26, 2024: Opens the holy door of Rome’s Rebibbia prison, two days after formally inaugurating the 2025 Jubilee.

Jan. 16, 2025: Appears wearing a sling after a fall that bruised his right arm, just weeks after another apparent fall bruised his chin.

Feb. 14, 2025: Is hospitalized after a bout of bronchitis worsens and then develops into a complex lung infection and double pneumonia.

Feb. 28, 2025: His doctors briefly consider suspending treatment after a breathing crisis but decides instead on an aggressive course that risks organ damage.

March 13, 2025: Marks the 12th anniversary of his election as pope while hospitalized.

March 23, 2025: Is released from the hospital after 38 days of treatment but looked weak and frail earlier that day when appearing on a balcony to greet the crowd below.

April 17, 2025: Still recovering from double pneumonia, Francis keeps his Holy Thursday tradition of spending time with the least fortunate, visiting inmates at Rome’s Regina Caeli prison. Although he says he couldn’t perform the ritual of washing the feet of 12 people in a gesture of humility, he adds he wanted to be with them and “do what Jesus did on Holy Thursday.”

WASHINGTON — First the nation’s top law firms. Then its premier universities. Now, President Donald Trump is leaning on the advocacy groups that underpin U.S. civil society.

Trump said Thursday that the administration is looking at the tax-exempt status not just of Harvard, but environmental groups and specifically the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. It could be a devastating financial blow to the nonprofit organizations — and his perceived political foes.

The president’s remarks, during an event at the White House, began to confirm what advocacy groups have been quietly warning: Trump’s campaign of retribution is coming next for them.

“It’s supposed to be a charitable organization,” Trump said about CREW, in particular. “The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that. We’re looking at a lot of things.”

Trump and his team have been working their way through the nation’s institutions, threatening to chisel away at the independence and autonomy of the law firms, college campuses and now advocacy groups — or putting them at risk of losing their federal funds or professional livelihood.

It’s all coming quickly, not yet 100 days into the new administration, and in ways historically unheard of in this country for their speed and scope. And it’s sending shock waves reverberating throughout the American system.

“It’s a sad day in this country when organizations that provide critical services to their communities are under attack from their government,” said Cole Leiter, executive director of the advocacy group Americans Against Government Censorship. “No administration, Republican or Democratic, should be able to weaponize the weight of the government against their political enemies.”

On their own, Trump’s actions are an almost daily list of executive pronouncements from the White House. The Trump administration has issued orders against the law firms that had cases or attorneys perceived to be against him, and it has made demands of the universities over their rules around campus activism.

Thursday brought potentially more to the stack: Trump singled out CREW, the watchdog group whose founder, Norm Eisen, played a pivotal role in Trump’s first impeachment, and the environmental groups that largely stand at odds with his “drill baby drill” agenda.

“Tax exempt status — I mean, it’s a privilege. It’s really a privilege, and it’s been abused by a lot more than Harvard,” Trump said. “We’ll be making some statements. It’s a big deal.”

But taken together, the executive orders and actions and memos are making one thing clear: The Trump administration is eager to test new ways to flex executive power, and dare the courts and Congress to intervene. And there’s more expected to come.

Environmental, immigration and civil society advocacy groups have been bracing for potential threats to their tax-exempt status, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it. The person said some expect Trump might start taking action against the environmental groups on Earth Day, which is Tuesday.

These are the largely nonprofit organizations and groups, many based in Washington, advocating for various communities, constituencies and causes.

Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said environmental groups have heard that the Trump administration is preparing executive orders targeting the tax status of environmental groups that work on climate change, as well as that of any foundations that fund their work.

“Trump is marshaling all the power of government to punish his perceived enemies,” Suckling said. “We’ve got a crack legal team and will have him in court within 24 hours. We’re ready and waiting for him to come at us.”

CREW has been a leading ethics group in Washington, with Trump long the subject of its probes.

Ahead of the 2024 election, the group was part of the legal effort to disqualify Trump from regaining the White House under the 14th Amendment, in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. More recently, CREW sued over the firing of federal workers by Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency.

“For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government,” said Jordan Libowitz, the organization’s vice president.

Trump’s attacks on civil society have created a climate that is potentially chilling for the organizations in question — but they have had mixed results.

Five of the major law firms and Trump reached a deal in which they agreed to provide a combined hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono counsel to causes the administration says it supports. The firms are trying to avoid various sanctions, including terminated federal contracts, federal employment investigations over diversity hiring and others.

While Columbia University agreed to the Trump administration’s demands to overhaul its rules for public protests rather than risk billions of dollars in lost federal funds, Harvard rebuffed the administration and now faces a $2 billion federal funding freeze and the threat to its tax-exempt status.

The tax-exempt status allows nonprofit organizations to receive donations that are crucial to their financial bottom line. Changing that could, in some situations, lead to calamity.

“Good governance groups are the heart of a healthy democracy,” Libowitz said. “We will continue to do our work to ensure Americans have an ethical and accountable government.”

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Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump is undergoing his annual physical on Friday, potentially giving the public its first details in years about the health of a man who in January became the oldest in U.S. history to be sworn in as president.

“I have never felt better, but nevertheless, these things must be done!” Trump, 78, posted on his social media site.

Despite long questioning predecessor Joe Biden ‘s physical and mental capacity, Trump himself has routinely kept basic facts about his own health shrouded in secrecy — shying away from traditional presidential transparency on medical issues.

If history is any indication, his latest physical is likely to produce a flattering report that’s scarce on details. It will be conducted at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and will be the first public information on Trump’s health since an assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July.

Rather than release medical records at that time, Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson — a staunch supporter who served as his White House physician and once joked in the White House briefing room that Trump could live to be 200 if he had a healthier diet — wrote a memo describing a gunshot wound to Trump’s right ear.

In a subsequent interview with CBS last August, Trump said he’d “very gladly” release his medical records but never did.

Trump is three years younger than Biden. But on Inauguration Day of his second term in January, Trump was five months older than Biden was during his 2021 inauguration — making Trump the nation’s oldest president to be sworn into office.

Before Jackson’s memo, Americans hadn’t seen key details about Trump’s health since November 2023, when Dr. Bruce A. Aronwald released a letter to coincide with Biden’s 81st birthday, saying Trump was in “excellent” physical and mental health.

The letter, posted on Trump’s social media platform, contained no details — including Trump’s weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, or the results of any test. Instead, Aronwlad wrote that he’d examined Trump that fall and found his “physical exams were well within the normal range and his cognitive exams were exceptional,” while also noting that Trump had “reduced his weight.”

Trump was treated at Walter Reed for his serious bout with the coronavirus in 2020. During that, Trump’s physician offered a rosy prognosis on his condition, though his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said some of Trump’s vital signs were “very concerning.”

After he recovered, more details emerged that Trump had been sicker than he’d let on.

But Trump largely refused to say more about his health at the time, instead submitting to a pretaped, remote medical “evaluation” and interview on Fox News Channel. That was conducted by Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor who had questioned Hillary Clinton’s physical ability to serve as president in 2016 and later urged the Biden White House to test the then-president’s cognitive acuity.

In November 2019, meanwhile, Trump’s trip to Walter Reed for a physical was omitted from his public schedule, breaking the White House protocol of giving advance public notice of them.

The visit was revealed three days later, with Trump disclosing that he’d had a “ very routine physical.” The White House released a subsequent statement from the president’s then-personal physician, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, saying it had been a “planned interim checkup” kept “off the record” due to scheduling uncertainties.

Arguably, Trump’s most famous past comments about his own health came during a television interview in July 2020, when he listed off “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV” while attempting to demonstrate his cognitive abilities.

Trump said that a collection of those five nouns, or ones like them, stated in order, demonstrated mental fitness — and were part of a cognitive test he had aced.

SALT LAKE CITY — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday said he plans to tell the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention soon to stop recommending fluoridation in communities nationwide. Kennedy also said he’s assembling a task force to focus on the issue.

Also on Monday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it is reviewing “new scientific information” on potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water.

Kennedy told The Associated Press of his plans after a news conference in Salt Lake City.

Utah last month became the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water, pushing past opposition from dentists and national health organizations who warned the move would lead to medical problems that disproportionately affect low-income communities.

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation barring cities and communities from deciding whether to add the cavity-preventing mineral to their water systems. Water systems across the state must shut down their fluoridation systems by May 7.

Kennedy praised Utah for emerging as “the leader in making America healthy again.” He was flanked by Utah legislative leaders and the sponsor of the state’s fluoride law. “I’m very, very proud of this state for being the first state to ban it, and I hope many more will,” he said.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who appeared with Kennedy at the news conference, said his agency was launching a renewed examination of scientific studies on the potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water to help inform any changes to the national standards.

“When this evaluation is completed, we will have an updated foundational scientific evaluation that will inform the agency’s future steps,” Zeldin said. “Secretary Kennedy has long been at the forefront of this issue. His advocacy was instrumental in our decision to review fluoride exposure risks and we are committed to working alongside him, utilizing sound science as we advance our mission of protecting human health and the environment.”

Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the CDC. In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and in 1962 set guidelines for how much should be added to water.

Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer, has called fluoride a “dangerous neurotoxin” and said also it’s been associated with arthritis, bone breaks, and thyroid disease. Some studies have suggested such links might exist, usually at higher-than-recommended fluoride levels, though some reviewers have questioned the quality of available evidence and said no definitive conclusions can be drawn.

Fluoride can come from a number of sources, but drinking water is the main one for Americans, researchers say. Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population gets fluoridated drinking water, according to CDC data. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water was long considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.

About one-third of community water systems — 17,000 out of 51,000 across the U.S. — serving more than 60% of the population fluoridated their water, according to a 2022 CDC analysis. The agency currently recommends 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water.

But over time, studies have documented potential problems. Too much fluoride has been associated with streaking or spots on teeth. Studies also have traced a link between excess fluoride and brain development.

A report last year by the federal government’s National Toxicology Program, which summarized studies conducted in Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Mexico, concluded that drinking water with more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter — more than twice the recommended level in the U.S. — was associated with lower IQs in kids.

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Stobbe reported from New York.

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with a truck driver who wants to sue for triple damages over a CBD hemp product he says was falsely advertised as being free from marijuana’s active ingredient and resulted in him getting fired.

The 5-4 opinion clears the way for the trucker to seek triple damages under an anti-mob law. It doesn’t decide his underlying claims that the product’s THC content got him fired.

Douglas Horn said he wanted to treat chronic shoulder and back pain after a serious accident. He chose the product because it was advertised as being free from THC, which gives marijuana its high. CBD is a generally legal hemp compound that is widely sold as a dietary supplement.

But lab tests taken after Horn was fired for failing a routine drug test confirmed the product did have THC, he claimed.

Horn sued the Vista, California-based Medical Marijuana Inc. and sought triple damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, often known as RICO.

The company pushed back, disputing Horn’s account and saying he can’t sue for higher damages because he’s claiming a personal injury rather than harm to his business.

Horn says his firing was a business injury and he’s been financially ruined, and an appeals court allowed Horn’s claim to go forward.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

FRANKFORT, Ky. — A Republican-backed bill touted as an attempt to bring clarity to Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban was vetoed Tuesday by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who said it would do the opposite by undermining the judgment of doctors while further imperiling the lives of pregnant women in emergency situations.

Beshear, an abortion-rights supporter who is seen as a potential candidate for the White House in 2028, followed the advice of abortion-rights supporters who urged the governor to reject the measure.

Kentucky’s GOP supermajority legislature will have a chance to override Beshear’s veto when lawmakers reconvene Thursday for the final two days of this year’s 30-day session.

The bill’s supporters said it’s meant to offer clarity to doctors now fearful of breaking Kentucky law for terminating pregnancies while treating expectant mothers with grave complications. Delving into potential life-or-death situations, the bill aims to provide clear guidelines for doctors in such emergencies while maintaining Kentucky’s strict prohibitions against abortion, supporters said.

“Although supporters of House Bill 90 claim it protects pregnant women and clarifies abortion law in Kentucky, it actually does the opposite,” Beshear said in his veto message Tuesday evening.

The governor said the bill would block access to health care and put the lives of women facing crisis pregnancies at even more risk.

Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban has been in place since a so-called trigger law took effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The Bluegrass State bans abortions except when carried out to save a mother’s life. Efforts to add exceptions for cases of rape or incest or when pregnancies are nonviable have made no headway in Kentucky’s legislature.

The new legislation would create a list of emergency situations in which abortions could be done to save the mother’s life, but Beshear said it was flawed.

“The bill is silent on any other emergency situations,” the governor said in his message. “No one, including legislators, can possibly create an exhaustive list of emergency situations that may occur in a hospital or medical facility. Gaps in the law are literally a matter of life and death.”

A House Republican spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to enforce abortion bans, exceptions have been a legal and political battleground.

The Kentucky bill says doctors exercising reasonable medical judgment may take action “separating a pregnant woman from her unborn child” in such cases as: lifesaving miscarriage management; emergency intervention for sepsis and hemorrhaging; procedures necessary to prevent the death or substantial risk of death of the pregnant woman; removal of an ectopic pregnancy; treatment of a molar pregnancy.

“It’s not meant to be an exhaustive list but it is the most common issues that physicians and mothers, who are facing a crisis pregnancy, are facing,” Republican state Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser said during a House debate on the measure.

In touting the bill, GOP state Rep. Jason Nemes said it would ensure that women “facing life-threatening situations receive timely, appropriate medical care, and gives providers the legal certainty they need to act decisively.”

Beshear faulted the bill for not containing language used by medical professionals.

“It also substitutes a physician’s best clinical judgment with an ambiguous, unworkable ‘reasonable medical judgment’ standard that will make doctors hesitant to provide life-saving care for fear someone other than the treating doctor, like a prosecutor or a court, may after the fact find it ‘unreasonable,’” Beshear said. “These barriers to treatment could delay access to evidence-based and lifesaving care.”

Addia Wuchner, executive director of Kentucky Right to Life, was among the bill’s advocates, telling a legislative panel: “This is medical care that needs to take place in the commonwealth.”

David Walls, executive director of The Family Foundation, a socially conservative group, said the veto showed that Beshear is a “mouthpiece” for abortion-rights groups. Walls called it “pro-mom and pro-baby” bill meant to add clarity to Kentucky law to protect maternal health.

Abortion-rights supporter Tamarra Wieder, Kentucky State director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said Beshear “put patients over politics” with his veto.

“HB 90 was never about clarity or compassion,” she said in a statement. “It ignored medical standards, used anti-abortion rhetoric like ‘maternal-fetal separation’ and would have forced doctors to delay care during medical emergencies.”