NEW HOPE, Pa. (AP) — Mark Houck makes a potent appeal to conservative Republicans in this corner of eastern Pennsylvania when he describes his arrest and subsequent acquittal on federal charges that he pushed a Planned Parenthood volunteer outside a Philadelphia abortion clinic.

The account has become a staple of Houck’s first-time bid for the U.S. House in suburban Philadelphia, a central battleground of the 2024 election, from the presidency on down.

“I’m telling you this because this is how I became a target of the federal government — the weaponization of the government,” he said at a meeting last week of the New Hope Solebury Republican Club.

Houck’s campaign to unseat fourth-term Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in Tuesday’s primary could offer hints about swing-district Republican sentiment in one of the most volatile White House races in years.

With few truly competitive House seats in play, the 1st Congressional District that Fitzpatrick represents is one of 16 districts nationwide that Democrat Joe Biden carried in the 2020 presidential election where voters also sent Republicans to Washington. By comparison, five seats won that year by Donald Trump, then the incumbent and now his party’s presumptive 2024 nominee, are now held occupied by a Democrat.

The Republicans’ House majority is so slim that Democrats need to flip just four seats in November to retake control. That makes the “Biden 16” a significant group of competitive seats and they could go a long way in determining whether the next president has a friendly or hostile House next year.

Fifteen of those seats are in states that Biden won in 2020. The exception is Nebraska’s 2nd District, represented by GOP Rep. Don Bacon. There are five seats in California, four in New York, two in Arizona and one apiece in New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Several of the “Biden 16” are like Fitzgerald, winning year after year by tightrope-walking between challengers in primaries and general elections. Nine of them won a first term in in 2022, when Republicans took control of the House for the first time in four years.

In the fall, many will face the same Democrat they beat last time, sometimes narrowly.

The Fitzpatrick-Houck winner will face Democrat Ashley Ehasz, a former Army helicopter pilot who is uncontested in her primary. Fitzpatrick, a former FBI supervisory agent who beat Ehasz by 10 percentage points in 2022, is outraising Houck and Ehasz by millions of dollars, combined.

Before November, several others among the “Biden 16” must beat back primary challenges from the conservative wing of the GOP.

In Nebraska, Bacon is facing perhaps his strongest primary test yet. If he wins, he will take on the same Democratic opponent, state Sen. Tony Vargas, whom he defeated two years ago by fewer than 3 percentage points.

Bacon has been a vocal supporter of sending more military aid to Ukraine, something opposed by his primary opponent, second-time congressional candidate Dan Frei.

Frei, who contends the GOP base is fed up with Bacon, accuses the incumbent of flouting campaign promises by voting to increase spending and for bills that do nothing to stem the flow of immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

Nearly all of the 16 races are considered toss-ups.

Republicans intend to hammer home a message about lax border security and high inflation under Biden. Democrats are warning that Republicans will pursue a national abortion ban as Democrats invoke an issue that has consistently worked in their favor at the ballot box since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in 2022.

North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the House Republicans’ campaign arm, said the “Biden 16” have formed strong identities in their districts and are emphasizing local issues.

Hudson said Biden’s unpopularity and presidential turnout models are increasingly giving an edge to Republicans, with the GOP attracting more working-class voters who more likely to vote in presidential elections and help flip these districts to Trump.

“The presidential turnout dynamics actually favor Republicans,” Hudson said in an interview. “And then if you look, state by state, where our battlegrounds are, the presidential turnout is going to help us.”

Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene, who leads the House Democrats’ campaign arm, said Democrats will highlight what they say is the chaos at the highest levels of government when Republicans are charge of the House and Trump is in the White House. They will say Trump is a threat to democracy and Republicans are extremists and hypocrites who voted against major spending bills under Biden and then tried to take credit for the projects that landed in their districts.

Voters “want folks who are there to govern,” DelBene said in an interview. “They’re not looking for extremism. And so all we have to do is make sure that voters are aware of what they’re doing. … Holding them accountable for their actual votes, even though their rhetoric sometimes tries to be more moderate.”

In Pennsylvania, Houck’s bid to unseat Fitzpatrick, who is backed by some labor unions and business groups, has a visceral feel that some Republicans say resonates with them.

At the Solebury Republicans’ meeting on the grounds of a luxury hotel and wedding venue, Houck unwound the story of his arrest, describing federal agents with guns drawn as they descended on his Bucks County home in 2022.

They arrested him, in connection with the incident outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia. Houck defended his actions, saying he acted to protect his 12-year-old son from abusive comments made by the clinic volunteer. The trial ended in an acquittal in 2023, and Houck, who runs a Catholic ministry group, said he began fielding requests to run for office.

Houck’s story struck a chord with Rose Cipriano, who came to hear him speak. Her husband picked up a Houck yard sign and Cipriano, who had previously supported Fitzpatrick, said Houck has changed her mind in the approaching primary.

“I’m looking for fresh ideas, and I’m willing to take a chance and vote for him on Tuesday,” Cipriano said “I’ve known his story since it happened, and I support him.”

Houck’s campaign echoes Trump’s own defense against the criminal cases against him. It centers on the slogan “Faith Family Freedom” while Houck talks about defunding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the federal departments of Agriculture, Education and Justice, calling them all unconstitutional.

Houck has raised more campaign cash than any previous Fitzpatrick primary challenger. But he is well behind Fitzpatrick’s fundraising and name recognition in a county where his brother previously held the congressional seat.

Fitzpatrick has the support of the county party and the backing of police and fire unions, whose large campaign signs endorsing him crop up every two years.

Bob Brooks, president of the Pennsylvania Professional Firefighters Association, said Fitzpatrick represents blue-collar workers like his union members.

“And, if there was more blue-collar legislators, I think they would find more support from firefighters,” Brooks said in an interview. “We support those who support us, and Brian has supported us on many levels.”

Republicans at the Solebury meeting encouraged Houck to stay involved in party politics.

Houck said he will back Fitzpatrick in the general election if Fitzpatrick wins the primary but won’t campaign for him, put off by what he said was Fitzpatrick failure to check on Houck’s family after his arrest. Fitzpatrick didn’t respond to interview requests.

Cipriano said she is disappointed in Fitzpatrick but said the stakes are too high for the party to be divided in November. She pledged to support Fitzpatrick should he win the primary.

“I am behind the Republican Party 100%,” she said. “So whoever’s running, from the top down, gets my support.”

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Follow Marc Levy at @timelywriter and Mike Catalini at @mikecatalini

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden can breathe a bit easier, at least for the moment, now that Israel and Iran appear to have stepped back from the brink of tipping the Middle East into all-out war.

Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Iran and Syria caused limited damage. The restrained action came after Biden urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to temper its response to Iran’s unprecedented direct attack on Israel last week and avoid an escalation of violence in the region. Iran’s barrage of drones and missiles inflicted little damage and followed a suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus this month that killed two generals.

Iran’s public response to the Israeli strikes Friday also was muted, raising hopes that Israel-Iran tensions — long carried out in the shadows with cyberattacks, assassinations and sabotage — will stay at a simmer.

The situation remains a delicate one for Biden as he gears up his reelection effort i n the face of headwinds in the Middle East, Russia and the Indo-Pacific. All are testing the proposition he made to voters during his 2020 campaign that a Biden White House would bring a measure of calm and renewed respect for the United States on the world stage.

Foreign policy matters are not typically the top issue for American voters. This November is expected to be no different, with the economy and border security carrying greater resonance.

But public polling suggests that overseas concerns could have more relevance with voters than in any U.S. election since 2006, when voter dissatisfaction over the Iraq War was a major factor in the Republican Party losing 30 House and six Senate seats.

“We see this issue rising in saliency, and at the same time we’re seeing voter appraisals of President Biden’s handling of foreign affairs being quite negative,” said Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. “That combination is not a great one for Biden.”

Biden has staked enormous political capital on his response to the Israel-Hamas war as well as his administration’s backing of Ukraine as it fends off a Russian invasion.

The apparent de-escalation of tensions between Israel and Iran also comes as Congress moves closer to approving $95 billion in wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, a measure that Biden has pushed for as Ukrainian forces run desperately short on arms.

After months of delay in the face of the threat of ouster by his party’s right flank, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pushed the package forward and final House passage was expected this weekend. That prospect — and a surge of weaponry to the front lines — is giving the White House renewed hope that Ukraine can right the ship after months of setbacks in the war.

Biden also has made bolstering relations in the Indo-Pacific a central focus of his foreign policy agenda, looking to win allies and build ties as China becomes a more formidable economic and military competitor.

But Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have an argument to make that Biden’s policies have contributed to U.S. dealing with myriad global quandaries, said Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Washington think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Republicans have criticized Biden’s unsuccessful efforts earlier in his term to revive a nuclear deal with Iran brokered by the Obama administration and abandoned by Trump, saying that would embolden Tehran. The agreement had provided Iran with billions in sanctions relief in exchange for the country agreeing to roll back its nuclear program.

GOP critics have sought to connect Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and they blame the Obama administration for not offering a strong enough response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2014 seizure of Crimea.

“You can make an intellectual case, a policy case of how we got from Point A to B to C to D and ended up in a world on fire,” said Goldberg, a national security official in the Trump administration. “People may not care about how we got here, but they do care that we are here.”

Polling suggests Americans’ concerns about foreign policy issues are growing, and there are mixed signs of whether Biden’s pitch as a steady foreign policy hand is resonating with voters.

About 4 in 10 U.S. adults named foreign policy topics in an open-ended question that asked people to share up to five issues for the government to work on in 2024, according to The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll published in January. That’s about twice as many as mentioned the topic in an AP- NORC poll conducted in the previous year.

Further, about 47% of Americans said they believe Biden has hurt relations with other countries, according to an AP-NORC poll published this month. Similarly, 47% said the same about Trump.

Biden was flying high in the first six months of his presidency, with the American electorate largely approving of his performance and giving him high marks for his handling of the economy and the coronavirus pandemic. But the president saw his approval ratings tank in the aftermath of the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 and they never fully recovered.

Now, Biden finds himself dealing with uncertainty of two wars. Both could shadow him right up to Election Day.

With the Israel-Hamas war, Republicans pillory him as being not being adequately supportive of Israel, and the left wing of his party harshly criticize the president, who has shown displeasure with Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war, for not doing more to force the Israelis to safeguard Palestinian lives.

After Israel’s carefully calibrated strikes on Iran, Middle East tensions have entered a “gray area” that all parties must navigate carefully, said Aaron David Miller, an adviser on Middle East issues in Republican and Democratic administrations.

“Does what has occurred over the last 10 days strengthen each sides’ risk-readiness or has it made them drop back from the brink and revert into risk aversion?” Miller said. “Israel and Iran got away with striking each other’s territory without a major escalation. What conclusions do they draw from that? Is the conclusion that we might be able to do this again? Or is it we really dodged a bullet here and we have to be exceedingly careful.”

Israel and Hamas appear far away from an agreement on a temporary cease-fire that would facilitate the release of remaining hostages in Hamas-controlled Gaza and help get aid into the territory. It’s an agreement that Biden sees as essential to finding an endgame to the war.

CIA Director William Burns expressed disappointment this past week that Hamas has not yet accepted a proposal that Egyptian and Qatari negotiators had presented this month. He blamed the group for “standing in the way of innocent civilians in Gaza getting humanitarian relief that they so desperately need.”

At the same time, the Biden administration has tried to demonstrate it is holding Israel accountable, imposing new penalties Friday on two entities accused of fundraising for extremist Israel settlers that were already under sanctions, as well as the founder of an organization whose members regularly assault Palestinians.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan and other administration officials met on Thursday with Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, and national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi. U.S. officials, according to the White House, reiterated Biden’s concerns about Israel’s plans to carry out an operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where some 1.5 million Palestinians have taken shelter.

Ross Baker, professor emeritus of political science at Rutgers University, said Biden may have temporarily benefited from Israeli-Iranian tensions driving attention away from the deprivation in Gaza.

“Sometimes salvation can come in unexpected ways,” Baker said. “But the way ahead has no shortage of complications.”

Pregnant employees have the right to a wide range of accommodations under new federal regulations for enforcing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act that supporters say could change workplace culture for millions of people.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency in charge of enforcing the law, adopted an expansive view of conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth in its proposed regulations, including a controversial decision to include abortion, fertility treatment and birth control as medical issues requiring job protections.

The rules, which were adopted on a 3-2 vote along partisan lines, were published Monday and offer extensive guidelines for addressing more routine difficulties of pregnancy, such as morning sickness, back pain and needing to avoid heavy lifting. Labor advocates say the law will be especially transformative for pregnant women in low-wage jobs, who are often denied simple requests like more bathroom breaks.

Here’s what to know about the law and the EEOC regulations.

Congress passed the law with bipartisan support in December 2022 following a decade-long campaign by women’s rights and labor advocates, who argued that the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act did little to guarantee women would receive the accommodations they might need at work.

The law stated only that pregnant workers should be treated the same as other employees, not that they deserved special consideration. To get their requests met, many pregnant workers therefore needed to demonstrate they had physical limitations covered under the Americans With Disabilities Act, often creating insurmountable hurdles.

The new law treats pregnancy and related conditions as themselves deserving of “reasonable accommodations” and places the burden on employers to prove “undue hardships” for denying any requests.

The law applies to employers of at least 15 workers. The EEOC estimates it will cover roughly 1.5 million pregnant workers in any given year. The EEOC regulations published April 15 are set to go into effect in June.

The EEOC’s 400-page document encompasses a wide array of conditions and relevant advice for employers.

It states that workers are entitled to unpaid time off for situations such as prenatal appointments, fertility treatments, abortion, miscarriage, postpartum depression and mastitis, an infection that arises from breastfeeding. This includes workers who are not covered by federal family leave laws and those who have not been on the job long enough to accrue time off.

Workers can ask for flexible working arrangements to deal with morning sickness, such as a later start time, clearance to work from home or permission to carry snacks in workplaces where eating is typically prohibited. If they can’t sit or stand for extended periods due to sciatica, which is common in late pregnancy, they can request a schedule adjustment so their commutes happen during less crowded hours.

The regulations also allow workers to be exempted from tasks such as climbing ladders or heavy lifting. If those duties are essential to their jobs, they can still request a temporary dispensation, according to the EEOC.

Employers don’t have to accommodate workers exactly as requested but they must offer reasonable alternatives. They cannot deny a request without clearing a high bar to prove doing so would cause “undue hardships” for the organization’s finances or operations. They cannot force workers to take unpaid leave if a reasonable accommodation is available.

The EEOC emphasizes that it “should not be complicated or difficult” for pregnant workers to request accommodations. Workers don’t have to make requests in writing, use specific words, cite any laws, or in most cases, provide documentation such as doctors’ notes. Employers must respond quickly and have a conversation about how to reasonably accommodate a worker’s needs.

Still, legal experts advise both workers and employers to document the process. A Better Balance, the non-profit that spearheaded the 10-year campaign for the law’s passage, advises workers to familiarize themselves with their legal rights and be as specific as possible about their limitations and the changes they they need.

Workers who believe a request was denied illegally can file a complaint with the EEOC. They have 180 days to do so, though the deadline can be extended in some states.

The EEOC included abortion among the conditions covered under the law. The rules state, however, that employers are not obligated to cover expenses related to the procedure or to offer health insurance that does.

The EEOC regulations argue that including abortion is consistent with the agency’s longstanding interpretation of other laws under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, including the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

But the decision drew condemnation from Republican lawmakers who had championed the law’s passage. The five-member EEOC’s two Republican members voted against the regulations.

In a statement explaining her dissent, Commissioner Andrea Lucas said the agency broadened the scope of the law “to reach virtually every condition, circumstance, or procedure that relates to any aspect of the female reproductive system” in ways that “cannot reasonably be reconciled with the text” of the law.

Melissa Losch, a labor and employment attorney at the New Orleans-based firm McGlinchey Stafford, said she expects the regulations to give rise to further litigation. Losch cited the example of a worker living in a state with a restrictive abortion law requesting time off to undergo the procedure in another state. The EEOC rules provide “no good answer” about whether granting such a request would conflict with restrictive state abortion laws, she added.

On February 27, a federal judge blocked enforcement of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act for Texas state employees, a ruling that came in response to a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton argued the law was unconstitutional because it was part of a spending bill that passed in the House without a majority of members present, and the judge ruled in his favor.

Gedmark, of A Better Balance, said she was optimistic the Biden administration would prevail in its expected appeal of the ruling. In the meantime, federal and private sectors workers in Texas are covered by the law.

But in her dissenting statement, Lucas warned that if the Texas case or any future lawsuits succeed in overturning the law, the EEOC’s divisive rules have “all but extinguished” the chances of a bipartisan effort to reenact it.

Employers have been obligated to abide by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act since it took effect on June 27, 2023, though the EEOC regulations provided guidance on how to do so.

The law swiftly made a difference to many low-wage workers, according to Gedmark.

A Better Balance, which operates a helpline, has “heard an overwhelmingly positive experience from workers,” she said. Last summer, the organization worked with some women whose employers stopped resisting requests for accommodations as soon as the law took effect, Gedmark said.

Some workers reported their employers were still operating under the old legal framework, handing them pages of disability paperwork to fill out in response to requests.

The EEOC said it received almost 200 complaints alleging violations of the law by the time the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, 2023.

Gedmark said the success of the law will depend on enforcement and raising awareness.

“If workers don’t know about the law and don’t know about their rights, then it really undermines the purpose of the law,” she said.

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The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. 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.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The most significant case in decades on homelessness has reached the Supreme Court as record numbers of people in America are without a permanent place to live.

The justices on Monday will consider a challenge to rulings from a California-based appeals court that found punishing people for sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

A political cross section of officials in the West and California, home to nearly one-third of the nation’s homeless population, argue those decisions have restricted them from “common sense” measures intended to keep homeless encampments from taking over public parks and sidewalks.

Advocacy groups say the decisions provide essential legal protections, especially with an increasing number of people forced to sleep outdoors as the cost of housing soars.

The case before the Supreme Court comes from Grants Pass, a small city nestled in the mountains of southern Oregon, where rents are rising and there is just one overnight shelter for adults. As a growing number of tents clustered its parks, the city banned camping and set $295 fines for people sleeping there.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely blocked the camping ban under its finding that it is unconstitutional to punish people for sleeping outside when there is not adequate shelter space. Grants Pass appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the ruling left it few good options.

“It really has made it impossible for cities to address growing encampments, and they’re unsafe, unhealthy and problematic for everyone, especially those who are experiencing homelessness,” said lawyer Theane Evangelis, who is representing Grants Pass.

The city is also challenging a 2018 decision, known as Martin v. Boise, that first barred camping bans when shelter space is lacking. It was issued by the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit and applies to the nine Western states in its jurisdiction. The Supreme Court declined to take up a different challenge to the ruling in 2019, before the solidification of its current conservative majority.

If the decision is overturned, advocates say it would make it easier for cities deal with homelessness by arresting and fining people rather than helping them get shelter and housing.

“In Grants Pass and across America, homelessness has grown because more and more hardworking people struggle to pay rent, not because we lack ways to punish people sleeping outside,” said Jesse Rabinowitz, campaign and communications director for the National Homeless Law Center. Local laws prohibiting sleeping in public spaces have increased at least 50% since 2006, he said.

The case comes after homelessness in the United States grew by 12%, to its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more people, according to federal data. Four in 10 people experiencing homelessness sleep outside, a federal report found.

More than 650,000 people are estimated to be homeless, the most since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007. People of color, LGBTQ+ people and seniors are disproportionately affected, advocates said.

Two of four states with the country’s largest homeless populations, Washington and California, are in the West. Officials in cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco say they do not want to punish people simply because they are forced to sleep outside, but that cities need the power to keep growing encampments in check.

“I never want to criminalize homelessness, but I want to be able to encourage people to accept services and shelter,” said Thien Ho, the district attorney in Sacramento, California, where homelessness has risen sharply in recent years.

San Francisco says it has been blocked from enforcing camping regulations because the city does not have enough shelter space for its full homeless population, something it estimates would cost $1.5 billion to provide.

“These encampments frequently block sidewalks, prevent employees from cleaning public thoroughfares, and create health and safety risks for both the unhoused and the public at large,” lawyers for the city wrote. City workers have also encountered knives, drug dealing and belligerent people at encampments, they said.

Several cities and Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom urged the high court to keep some legal protections in place while reining in “overreach” by lower courts. The Martin v. Boise ruling allows cities to regulate and “sweep” encampments, but not enforce total bans in communities without enough beds in shelters.

The Justice Department also backed the idea that people shouldn’t be punished for sleeping outside when they have no where else to go, but said the Grants Pass ruling should be tossed out because 9th Circuit went awry by not defining what it means to be “involuntarily homeless.”

Evangelis, the lawyer for Grants Pass, argues that the Biden administration’s position would not solve the problem for the Oregon city. “It would be impossible for cities to really address the homelessness crisis,” she said.

Public encampments are not good places for people to live, said Ed Johnson, who represents people living outside in Grants Pass as director of litigation at the Oregon Law Center. But enforcement of camping bans often makes homelessness worse by requiring people to spend money on fines rather than housing or creating an arrest record that makes it harder to get an apartment. Public officials should focus instead on addressing shortages of affordable housing so people have places to live, he said.

“It’s frustrating when people who have all the power throw up their hands and say, ‘there’s nothing we can do,’” he sad. “People have to go somewhere.”

The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of June.

By Deborah Bloom

GRANTS PASS, Oregon (Reuters) – On a sunny afternoon in a grassy park by the river, Amber Rockwell loaded a black, steel cart with a tent, suitcases, bags, camping stove and a plastic tin of licorice and tightened it all down with ratchet straps as she prepared to move to the next park over.

Every week, she and the hundreds of other people living outdoors in Grants Pass, Oregon, must pack up and change locations to avoid being fined, arrested or stripped of their belongings by police.

“There’s no place for us,” Rockwell says, sitting on the grass, taking a break from packing. “We’re made to feel like we shouldn’t even exist.”

This rural town of 39,000 on the Rogue River in southern Oregon’s wine country is at the center of a fight in the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether governments can legally ban people from sleeping in public. Oral arguments are Monday, and the court’s eventual ruling could have nationwide implications for how cities are allowed to regulate homeless encampments.

“If we go down this line, this road of criminalizing people and banishing them, we’re going to wake up two or three years down the road, and we’re gonna have twice as many homeless people as we have now,” said Ed Johnson, a legal aide attorney who helped file the 2018 lawsuit against Grants Pass that the Supreme Court is reviewing.

Johnson, of the Oregon Law Center, says giving people a criminal record for homelessness makes it harder to find jobs and housing to escape homelessness.

In briefings to the court, Johnson and his colleagues representing people living on the streets in Grants Pass said Grants Pass city councilors’ comments in 2013 as they drafted a camping ban made it clear they were trying to expel homeless people from town.

Grants Pass is fighting a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said town laws prohibiting camping on sidewalks, streets, parks or other public places when shelter is unavailable violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition against “cruel and unusual” punishment.” 

Johnson and his colleagues say this ruling does not stop Grants Pass from restricting such conduct as littering or public urination.

Federal injunctions issued in 2020 and 2022 banned Grants Pass from enforcing its anti-camping ordinances while the case goes through the courts. In the meantime, police are using a state law requiring a 72-hour notice before the city can remove a campsite from public space. 

Grants Pass has no public, low-barrier homeless shelters. An estimated 600 residents were unhoused in 2019, according to a point-in-time count.

In its arguments to the Supreme Court, Grants Pass wrote: “There is nothing cruel or unusual about a civil fine for violating commonplace restrictions on public camping.”

Grants Pass has been joined by Idaho’s attorney general, Montana’s Department of Justice, law enforcement groups in Washington state, California Governor Gavin Newsom and others in asking the conservative-majority Supreme Court to clarify or overturn the 9th Circuit ruling, which they say has confused jurisdictions about what they can do to address unsafe and unsanitary encampments.

Groups such as the National Homelessness Law Center have urged the court to confirm the 9th Circuit, saying cities should focus on building housing to address homelessness.

Aaron Hisel, an attorney for Grants Pass, said the premise of the 9th Circuit ruling is “that unless you’re providing them shelter, you can’t punish them or start the process by writing a ticket for them being in the parks.”

“But we’ve never really seriously suggested that unless and until the government provides you a reasonably convenient place to go to the bathroom, that you then have the right to go to the bathroom on public property,” Hisel said.

Under the state law in force now, those who do not move along in Grants Pass face $295 fines. Sometimes, their belongings are confiscated or thrown away. Rockwell, 42, says she is often not able to relocate quickly enough, and that she currently owes thousands in fines she cannot pay.

“I don’t have no money, I don’t have an income right now,” she said. “It’s like milking a turnip.”

She said police threw away her belongings in the summer of last year, after she had dropped them off at another park to go back for a second run. Among her possessions, she says, was an urn storing the ashes of her stillborn son, whom she lost in 2020.

Grants Pass Chief of Police Warren Hensman said that if officers take property from a park and do not know the owner, it will be stored for 90 days, “so a person has ample time to claim their belongings.”

Hensman said his officers would not have discarded an urn if they had noticed it.

“However, if it was mixed with soiled clothes, hazardous materials, drug paraphernalia etc., it could have been missed,” he said.

Some in Grants Pass say they are frustrated by the spread of homeless encampments. Joanie Jensen, a lifetime resident of Grants Pass, said she no longer feels comfortable enjoying the parks like she once did.

“My grandson is on the baseball team, and before each practice and game, they have to sweep the whole outfield and the field to make sure that there’s no needles out there or feces out there,” Jensen said.

Mark Lyon has been homeless in Grants Pass, off and on, for the past 20 years. He said he has witnessed the community becoming more hostile towards him and others on the streets.

“I can understand where they’re coming from,” Lyon, 65, said. “If I was a homeowner, I wouldn’t want me here, which is sad. But I deserve to be some place.”

(Reporting by Deborah Bloom in Grants Pass; Editing by Donna Bryson and Josie Kao)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is preparing in a rare Saturday session to approve $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies, Democrats and Republicans joining together behind the legislation after a grueling monthslong fight over renewed American support for repelling Russia’s invasion into Ukraine.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, putting his job on the line, relied on Democratic support this week to set up a series of votes on three aid bills, as well as a fourth that contains several other foreign policy proposals. If the votes are successful, the package will go to the Senate, where passage in the coming days is nearly assured. President Joe Biden has promised to sign it immediately.

Passage through the House would clear away the biggest hurdle to Biden’s funding request, first made in October as Ukraine’s military supplies began to run low. The GOP-controlled House, skeptical of U.S. support for Ukraine, struggled for months over what to do, first demanding that any assistance be tied to policy changes at the U.S.-Mexico order, only to immediately reject a bipartisan Senate offer along those very lines.

Reaching an endgame has been an excruciating lift for Johnson that has tested both his resolve and his support among Republicans, with a small but growing number now openly urging his removal from the speaker’s office. Yet congressional leaders cast the votes as a turning point in history — an urgent sacrifice as U.S. allies are beleaguered by wars and threats from continental Europe to the Middle East to Asia.

“The only thing that has kept terrorists and tyrants at bay is the perception of a strong America, that we would stand strong,” Johnson said this week. “And we will. I think that Congress is going to show that. This is a very important message that we are going to send the world.”

Still, Congress has seen a stream of world leaders visit in recent months, from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, all but pleading with lawmakers to approve the aid. Globally, the delay left many questioning America’s commitment to its allies.

At stake has also been one of Biden’s top foreign policy priorities — halting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advance in Europe. After engaging in quiet talks with Johnson, the president quickly endorsed Johnson’s plan this week, paving the way for Democrats to give their rare support to clear the procedural hurdles needed for a final vote.

“It’s long past time that we support our democratic allies in Israel, Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific and provide humanitarian assistance to civilians who are in harm’s way in theaters of conflict like Gaza, Haiti and the Sudan,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a news conference Friday.

Voting on the package is likely to create unusual alliances in the House. While aid for Ukraine will likely win a majority in both parties, a significant number of progressive Democrats are expected to vote against the bill aiding Israel as they demand an end to the bombardment of Gaza that has killed thousands of civilians.

At the same time, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has loomed large over the fight, weighing in from afar via social media statements and direct phone calls with lawmakers as he tilts the GOP to a more isolationist stance with his “America First” brand of politics. Ukraine’s defense once enjoyed robust, bipartisan support in Congress, but as the war enters its third year, a bulk of Republicans oppose further aid.

At one point in the months-long slog to get Ukraine assistance through Congress, Trump’s opposition essentially doomed the bipartisan Senate proposal on border security. This past week, Trump also issued a social media post that questioned why European nations were not giving more money to Ukraine, though he spared Johnson from criticism and said Ukraine’s survival was important.

Still, the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus has derided the legislation as the “America Last” foreign wars package and urged lawmakers to defy Republican leadership and oppose it because the bills do not include border security measures.

Johnson’s hold on the speaker’s gavel has also grown more tenuous in recent days as three Republicans, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, supported a “motion to vacate” that can lead to a vote on removing the speaker. A few more were expected to soon join, said Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who is urging Johnson to voluntarily step aside.

The speaker’s office has been working furiously to drum up support for the bill, as well as for Johnson, R-La. It arranged a series of press calls in the lead-up to the final votes on the package, first with Jewish leaders, then with Christian groups, to show support for the speaker and the legislation he is bringing to the floor.

Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, said it was about time the United States “did something to support Israel, fight Vladimir Putin and stand up to China.”

“Coming together like this is a refreshing reminder of the old days when foreign policy had bipartisan support,” he said.

The package includes several Republican priorities that Democrats endorse, or at least are willing to accept. Those include proposals that allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl; and legislation to require the China-based owner of the popular video app TikTok to sell its stake within a year or face a ban in the United States.

Still, the all-out push to get the bills through Congress is a reflection not only of politics, but realities on the ground in Ukraine. Top lawmakers on national security committees, who are privy to classified briefings, have grown gravely concerned about the situation in recent weeks. Russia has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — which allow planes to drop them from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.

“I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten,” Johnson said, adding, “I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed.”

A former ambassador to Ukraine under President George W. Bush, John Herbst, said the monthslong delay in approving more American assistance has undoubtedly hurt Ukrainian troops on the battlefield.

But it’s not yet too late, Herbst added. “The fact that it’s coming now means that disaster has been averted.”

Republicans in Wyoming will decide Saturday which presidential candidate will get their state’s votes at the GOP national convention this summer, but they will have only one choice.

Former President Donald Trump will be the lone name listed on a presidential preference poll at the state Republican convention in Cheyenne.

The poll will decide how all 29 of Wyoming’s delegates to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee pledge their first-round votes.

Trump clinched the Republican nomination in March. If any other candidates are vying for the party’s nomination at the July convention, the Wyoming delegates will be free to vote for anyone they wish in any subsequent rounds of convention voting.

Twenty-three of Wyoming’s national delegates — one from each county in the state — already have been selected at Republican county conventions that began in February. The remaining six will be chosen at the state convention.

Republicans are dominant in Wyoming politics and gave Trump the highest percentage of votes of any state in 2020.

Wyoming Democrats have a similar process for allocating delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. They held a preference poll at county caucuses on April 13 that will determine how the state’s 17 national delegates will be pledged in the first-round convention vote.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel demonstrated its military dominance over adversary Iran in its apparent precision strikes that hit near military and nuclear targets deep in the heart of the country, meeting little significant challenge from Iran’s defenses and providing the world with new insights into both militaries’ capabilities.

The international community, Israel and Iran all signaled hopes that Friday’s airstrikes would end what has been a dangerous 19-day run of strikes and counterstrikes, a highly public test between two deep rivals that had previously stopped short of most direct confrontation.

The move into open fighting began April 1 with the suspected Israeli killing of Iranian generals at an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria. That prompted Iran’s retaliatory barrage last weekend of more than 300 missiles and drones that the U.S., Israel and regional and international partners helped bat down without significant damage in Israel. And then came Friday’s apparent Israeli strike.

As all sides took stock, regional security experts predicted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and the country’s allies would emerge encouraged by the Israeli military’s superior performance. In response to international appeals, however, both Israel and Iran had appeared to be holding back their full military force throughout the more than two weeks of hostilities, aiming to send messages rather than escalate to a full-scale war.

Crucially, experts also cautioned that Iran had not brought into the main battle its greatest military advantage over Israel — Hezbollah and other Iran-allied armed groups in the region. Hezbollah in particular is capable of straining Israel’s ability to defend itself, especially in any multifront conflict.

Overall, “the big-picture lesson to take away is that unless Iran does absolutely everything at its disposal all at once, it is just the David, and not the Goliath, in this equation,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow and longtime regional researcher at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

Aside from those Iranian proxy forces, “the Israelis have every single advantage on every single military level,” Lister said.

In Friday’s attack, Iranian state television said the country’s air defense batteries fired in several provinces following reports of drones. Iranian army commander Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi said crews targeted several flying objects.

Lister said it appeared to have been a single mission by a small number of Israeli aircraft. After crossing Syrian airspace, it appears they fired only two or three Blue Sparrow air-to-surface missiles into Iran, most likely from a standoff position in the airspace of Iran’s neighbor Iraq, he said.

Iran said its air defenses fired at a major air base near Isfahan. Isfahan also is home to sites associated with Iran’s nuclear program, including its underground Natanz enrichment site, which has been repeatedly targeted by suspected Israeli sabotage attacks.

Israel has not taken responsibility for either the April 1 or Friday strikes.

The Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a Washington-based center that promotes Israeli-U.S. security ties, quickly pointed out that Friday’s small strike underscored that Israel could do much more damage “should it decide to launch a larger strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

Iran’s barrage last weekend, by contrast, appears to have used up most of its 150 long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel, more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away, said retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, former commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command.

Especially given the distance involved and how easy it is for the U.S. and others to track missile deployments by overhead space sensors and regional radar, “it is hard for Iran to generate a bolt from the blue against Israel,” McKenzie said.

Israelis, for their part, have “shown that Israel can now hit Iran from its soil with missiles, maybe even drones,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute.

Iran’s performance Friday, meanwhile, may have raised doubts about its ability to defend against such an attack, Vatanka said. Iran is about 80 times the size of Israel and thus has much more territory to defend, he noted.

Plus, Israel demonstrated that it can rally support from powerful regional and international countries, both Arab and Western, to defend against Iran.

The U.S. led in helping Israel knock down Iran’s missile and drone attack on April 13. Jordan and Gulf countries are believed to have lent varying degrees of assistance, including in sharing information about incoming strikes.

The two weeks of hostilities also provided the biggest showcase yet of the growing ability of Israel to work with Arab nations, its previous enemies, under the framework of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East.

The U.S. under the Trump administration moved responsibility for its military coordination with Israel into Central Command, which already hosted U.S. military coordination with Arab countries. The Biden administration has worked to deepen the relationship.

But while the exchange of Israeli-Iran strikes revealed more about Iran’s military abilities, Lebanon-based Hezbollah and other Iranian-allied armed groups in Iraq and Syria largely appeared to stay on the sidelines.

Hezbollah is one of the most powerful militaries in the region, with tens of thousands of experienced fighters and a massive weapons arsenal.

After an intense war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 that killed more than a thousand Lebanese civilians and dozens of Israeli civilians, both sides have held back from escalating to another full-scale conflict. But Israeli and Hezbollah militaries still routinely fire across each other’s borders during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Hezbollah “is Iran’s only remaining potential advantage in this whole broader equation,” Lister said.

Six months of fighting in Gaza have “completely stretched” Israel’s military, he said. “If Hezbollah went all out and launched the vast majority of its rocket and missile arsenal at Israel, all at once, the Israelis would seriously struggle to deal with that.”

And in terms of ground forces, if Hezbollah suddenly opened a second front, the Israel Defense Forces “would be incapable at this point” of fighting full-on with both Hezbollah and Hamas, he said.

CONCORD, Calif. (AP) — A year before I-Ting Quinn’s son was old enough for kindergarten, she and her husband had the option to enroll him in “transitional kindergarten,” a program offered for free by California elementary schools for some 4-year-olds.

Instead, they kept their son, Ethan, in a private day care center in Concord, California, at a cost of $400 a week.

Transitional kindergarten’s academic emphasis was appealing, but Ethan would have been in a half-day program, and options for afterschool child care were limited. And for two parents with hectic work schedules in the hospitality industry, there was the convenience of having Ethan and his younger brother at the same day care, with a single stop for morning drop-off and evening pickup.

“Ethan is navigating changes at home with a new younger brother and then possibly a new school where he is the youngest,” Quinn said. “That doesn’t even include the concerns around drop-off and pickups, including transportation to and from his class to afterschool care at a different location. It is just a lot to consider.”

Investments that California and other states have made in public preschool have helped many parents through a child care crisis, in which quality options for early learners are often scarce and unaffordable. But many parents say the programs don’t work for their families. Even when Pre-K lasts the whole school day, working parents struggle to find child care before 9 a.m. and after 3 p.m.

No state has a more ambitious plan for universal preschool than California, which plans to extend eligibility for transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds by fall 2025 as part of a $2.7 billion, four-year expansion. The idea is to provide a two-year kindergarten program to prepare children earlier for the rigors of elementary school.

Enrollment in the optional program has grown more slowly than projected. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, had estimated about 120,000 students would enroll last year; however, the average daily attendance was around 91,000 students.

Through December of this school year, the average daily attendance was about 125,000 students, said Sara Cortez, a policy analyst for the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, some families no longer see the same value in traditional kindergarten. Some are just as happy with programs that don’t have an academic component. School days requiring midday pickups also can sway families toward private day cares, Head Start programs and other alternatives offering full-day care.

Some schools hosting transitional kindergarten offer child care before or after instruction, but not all.

“If your school doesn’t offer those wraparound child care services at the beginning or end of school days, then staying in child care may be the only option parents have,” said Deborah Stipek, a former dean of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, who has advocated for equitable access to early childhood education in California.

States including Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey and Washington have provided early learning options similar to transitional kindergarten, and there is evidence of the program’s benefits.

In California, where the programs are taught by educators with the same credential requirements as kindergarten teachers, a five-year study found their students entered kindergarten with stronger mathematics and literacy skills. In Michigan, where the transitional kindergarten program is not offered statewide, the programs have been linked to increases in third-grade test scores in math and English. A California study, however, found no such test score increase by third or fourth grade.

“Kids are getting the opportunity to become familiar with the school environment before they start kindergarten,” said Anna Shapiro, a policy researcher at RAND who has studied early childhood program effectiveness for about a decade and analyzed the TK program in Michigan.

Another benefit to transitional kindergarten is that it’s free.

María Maldonado, who has seven children and works at a deli in Los Angeles, sends her 4-year-old daughter, Audrey, to transitional kindergarten at Para Los Niños Charter Elementary School. Her daughter likes it so much, Maldonado said she would happily pay even if it wasn’t free.

The program includes afterschool care, so Audrey remains at the school from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. Audrey is learning to read and can count to 35, and asks to stay at the school longer when her parents arrive well before pickup time, her mother said.

Maldonado only wishes she had heard about the program sooner for her other children. She said she was sold on the school after visiting and speaking to the teachers.

“Academically, they have to learn everything they’re taught. But if the atmosphere is good, that’s a combination that will keep kids happy. As a result, this girl loves going to school,” she said.

As of this school year, California’s transitional kindergarten was open only to 4-year-old children who turn 5 by early April. The cutoff will widen to include more kids this fall in a graduated expansion.

For Ethan’s parents, the emphasis on play-based learning at his day care center, run by KinderCare, was an important factor in their decision to keep him there, in addition to the all-day care.

“There are families who choose to stay with us because we have full-time, full-year care,” said Margot Gould, senior manager of government relations for KinderCare, which operates in 40 states.

Ethan’s father, Scott Quinn, recalls thinking, “How bad can it be?” when they opted out of transitional kindergarten. But he has been discouraged to see Ethan — one of the oldest kids in his day care class — pick up the behavior of kids who are several years younger than him.

“In retrospect, it would have been better to send him to school to be around kids his age and older,” he said.

I-Ting Quinn said she also has feelings of regret as she sees Ethan outgrow some of his previous needs, including a midday nap. The couple considered enrolling him in TK midway through the school year, but ultimately decided it would cause too much stress in managing the logistics of their work schedules.

Raising Ethan was her first exposure to the fragmented landscape of early education, and she said she wishes she started considering the options even before she was pregnant.

“That’s easier said than done,” she said. The Quinns are planning to move to Connecticut this year to be closer to family and are looking into kindergarten options for Ethan. “We are for sure enrolling him in a public kindergarten. Not only is he ready, but we are.”

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AP data reporter Sharon Lurye reported from New Orleans.

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WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — On a weekend reprieve from the courtroom, former President Donald Trump will campaign Saturday in North Carolina as he juggles legal troubles and his rematch against President Joe Biden.

Trump’s evening stop in the coastal city of Wilmington marks his first rally since his criminal hush money trial began this week with jury selection in Manhattan. The occasion offers the former president a fresh chance to amplify claims that his multiple pending indictments are an establishment conspiracy to take him down — and, by extension, squelch the voters who first elected him eight years ago.

“They want to keep me off the campaign trail,” Trump insisted earlier this week in Harlem, where he visited a neighborhood convenience store and addressed a throng of media outside. Rather than pursue violent criminals, he alleged, “They go after Trump.”

The event Saturday also underscores the importance of North Carolina, a presidential battleground that Trump won by 1.5 percentage points over Biden in 2020. That was the closest margin of any state that Trump won. Saturday will be the second time in as many months that Trump has come to the state.

“The presidential race is going to run through North Carolina,” said Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, in a recent interview.

North Carolina is one of seven states that both the Trump and Biden campaigns have said they will dedicate significant campaign resources to winning. Trump has insisted he wants to widen the map, even into his native New York, which is heavily Democratic. Most Republicans, though, agree that Trump will have a difficult path to an Electoral College majority if Biden were to win North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes. Trump tacitly acknowledged North Carolina’s status by tapping then-state Republican Chairman Michael Whatley to lead his campaign’s effective takeover of the Republican National Committee.

There is no precedent for the kind of campaign Trump now has to run — in North Carolina and nationally.

With opening arguments of his trial expected Monday, Trump will be confined to the courtroom for the foreseeable future, limiting his ability to see voters, fundraise and make calls. Biden, conversely, spent multiple days this week campaigning in Pennsylvania, another key battleground. Trump aides have promised weekend rallies and events on Wednesdays, the one weekday Trump’s trial is expected to be in recess. The former president’s campaign also has promised additional weeknight appearances around New York, as in Harlem.

That schedule adds pressure for Trump to maximize his limited opportunities to reach voters and command media attention beyond his indictments.

In North Carolina, Biden’s campaign already has hired statewide leadership and field organizers for offices across the state. That’s on top of state party staff that began an organizing program last year ahead of municipal races and looking to this year’s statewide races – including an open governor’s race since Cooper is barred from seeking a third term.

“We needed to build energy on the ground early,” said state Democratic Chairwoman Anderson Clayton, noting that the last Democratic presidential nominee to win North Carolina — Barack Obama in 2008 — had organized the state in a hotly contested primary campaign that ramped up the previous year.

Matt Mercer, spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party, countered that veteran GOP staffers have been working in the state since the 2020 election cycle. Mercer said the GOP, from Trump to volunteers, will stress a family-first message around the economy and public safety.

Voters, Mercer said, “understand the importance of what those messages mean to them in their daily lives” and are “fed up” with Biden, “whether it’s with sky high inflation, the open southern border or the migrant crime crisis.”

Trump will be joined Saturday by North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson, whom Trump has endorsed and called “Martin Luther King on steroids.” Robinson is the first Black lieutenant governor of the state.

Cooper won the governor’s office in 2016 and 2020, swaying just enough swing voters even as Trump carried the state in each of those presidential contests.

The governor argued that Biden’s record — low unemployment, rising wages, stabilized inflation, infrastructure and green energy investments — will resonate with a geographically and demographically diverse state.

“Joe Biden did more in his first two years than most presidents hope to do in two terms,” Cooper said, adding that juxtaposing Biden’s accomplishments with Trump’s baggage will persuade enough voters to reelect the president.

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This story has been corrected to reflect that North Carolina now has 16 electoral votes, not 15.