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WASHINGTON (AP) — After 34 years on the endangered species list, a tiny Midwestern bird is ready to fly free of federal protection.

The number of colonies has jumped from 48 to 480, said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which on Wednesday proposed taking the bird off the list.

The delisting started six years after the service first suggested that the species has recovered and after computer modeling showed the population will be stable.

Even conservationists and advocacy groups that often battle the Trump administration over what goes on and off the endangered list hailed the migrating bird’s recovery as an environmental success story.

“Delisting is reasonable,” Center for Biological Diversity endangered species director Noah Greenwald said. “It shows that when we actually pay attention and care, we can help species and reverse damage we’ve done in the past. We can undo part of the damage we’ve done to these rivers.”

American Bird Conservancy president Michael Parr said: “All around it’s a pretty good news situation.”

After nearly being hunted to extinction for feathers for women’s hats in the 1800s, the Midwestern population of least terns started doing better until after World War II, Fish and Wildlife Service recovery biologist Paul Hartfield said. But then dams, especially on the Missouri River, eliminated the riverside beaches that these tiny birds need.

Working with the Army Corps of Engineers, biologists concentrated on a smaller bird population in the lower Mississippi River. Changes in water management increased the size of islands and created new ones in the river, making more places for the birds to nest and live, Hartfield said.

“The least tern in the Mississippi River exploded” from a few hundred birds in the 1980s to at least 10,000 now, he said.

Greenwald credited the Army Corps of Engineers but added that “the tern has been recovered, but the ecosystem hasn’t.”

There are three populations of least terns in the United States. One in California is still on the endangered list, and the eastern one is doing fine.

Least terns are the smallest of terns, but they travel far. Hartfield said one bird was tagged in South Dakota and later was found in Japan.

“That’s how strong a flyer they are,” he said. “It’s really a tough little bird.”

They nest on the ground and feed on small fish and live quite long for their size, about 15 years, Hartfield said. These birds migrate every fall to the Caribbean and South America.

Greenwald, of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the least tern is a good example of how the endangered species law can work even as scientists warn of 1 million species going extinct in coming decades.

“We should be proud of ourselves for caring for it and protecting it,” he said. “That shows that if we put our mind to it, we can stop the extinction crisis.”

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears .

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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This story has been corrected to show that the number of colonies, not nests, has jumped from 48 to 480.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Russian and Turkish leaders divvy up security roles in northeast Syria following an abrupt U.S. troop withdrawal, President Donald Trump is focused on oil fields elsewhere in the war-torn country.

Trump spurred a fresh wave of criticism Thursday with a tweet noting that he had spoken with Syrian Kurdish military chief Mazloum Abdi and observing that perhaps “it is time for Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region,” an apparent reference to oil fields in Deir el-Zour province of Syria. That’s an area that U.S. military commanders see as critical to holding off an Islamic State resurgence in the region.

But even as Trump heralded his move to pull nearly all U.S. troops out of what he derided as the “blood-stained sands” of Syria, he’s repeatedly referred to the country’s oil fields as prized land that he’s intent on protecting.

“We’ve secured the oil, and, therefore, a small number of U.S. troops will remain in the area where they have the oil,” Trump said Wednesday while discussing the pullout of all but 200 to 300 U.S. troops in Syria. “And we’re going to be protecting it, and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.”

White House officials did not respond to requests for greater clarity about Trump’s tweet suggesting Kurds head to the oil region.

The Pentagon released a statement Thursday saying it is committed to sending additional military forces to eastern Syria to “reinforce” control of the oil fields and prevent them from “falling back to into the hands of ISIS or other destabilizing actors.”

No details were provided on how many or what kind of forces would be sent, or whether decisions on those details have been made.

Trump’s decision to withdraw the bulk of roughly 1,000 American troops from Syria drew bipartisan condemnation. The decision came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Trump earlier this month that he intended to carry out an operation to clear the Turkey-Syria border of Kurdish fighters who fought side-by-side with U.S. troops in beating back IS fighters in northeast Syria.

The Republican president’s comments this week raised fresh concerns that he has an incomplete understanding, or is indifferent to, the fragile dynamics of the region, his critics say.

“The President of the United States of America appears to be calling for a mass migration of Kurds to the desert where they can resettle atop a tiny oil field,” Brett McGurk, Trump’s former special envoy to the global coalition to defeat IS, wrote on Twitter.

But the idea of keeping troops in eastern Syria to guard the oil fields resonated with Trump and presented military commanders with a way to keep at least a residual force inside the country. Besides a presence near the oil fields in eastern Syria, some U.S. forces will remain in southern Syria.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that the main goal of the American troop presence is to make sure the Islamic State is contained and unable to gain control of the oil fields and the revenue they generate. The administration also sees some benefit to Kurds being in control of the oil, according to a senior administration official, who briefed reporters on the administration’s deliberations on the Syria withdrawal.

“The Oil Fields discussed in my speech on Turkey/Kurds yesterday were held by ISIS until the United States took them over with the help of the Kurds,” Trump said in another tweet Thursday. “We will NEVER let a reconstituted ISIS have those fields!”

Eastern Syria is the center for what remains of Syria’s oil industry, which although in shambles, remains one of the main sources of revenues for the Kurdish-led administration there.

The Kurdish forces seized control of small oil fields in northeastern Hassakeh province after the government pulled out of most of the Kurdish-majority regions in 2012 to fight rebels elsewhere.

After expelling Islamic State militants from southeastern Syria in 2018, the Kurds seized control of the more profitable oil fields in Deir el-Zour province.

A quiet arrangement has existed between the Kurds and the Syrian government, whereby Damascus buys the surplus through middlemen in a profitable smuggling operation that has continued despite political differences. The Kurdish-led administration sells crude oil to private refiners, who use primitive homemade refineries to process fuel and diesel and sell it back to the administration.

The oil was expected to be a bargaining chip for the Kurds to negotiate a deal with the Syrian government, which unsuccessfully tried to reach the oil fields to retake them from IS. With Trump saying he plans to keep forces to secure the oil, it seems the oil will continue to be used for leverage— with Moscow and Damascus.

Before the war, Syria produced around 350,000 barrels per day, exporting more than half of it. Most of that oil came from eastern Syria. Foreign companies, including Total, Shell, and Conoco, all left Syria after the war began more than eight years ago.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said after meeting with Trump on Thursday that he urged him to stay engaged in Syria.

“If you can find a way to secure the oil fields from Iran and ISIS, that’s in our national security interest,” Graham said.

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AP National Security Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.

DALLAS (AP) — In a story Oct. 21 about storms that spawned tornadoes in several states, The Associated Press reported erroneously that the Bush Institute event was in South Texas. It was in south Dallas.

A corrected version of the story is below:

The Latest: Bushes home spared by Dallas tornado

The tornado that caused widespread damage in north Dallas passed closed to the home of former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush but caused no damage

DALLAS (AP) — The Latest on severe weather that struck portions of the central and southern U.S. (all times local):

9:30 p.m.

The tornado that caused widespread damage in north Dallas passed closed to the home of former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush but caused no damage.

Bush spokesman Freddy Ford said in a statement that “the Bushes are safe and praying for their neighbors around DFW who weren’t as fortunate.”

The Bushes stuck to their obligations despite the storm.

Former first lady Laura Bush hosted young leaders from Myanmar on Monday at a Bush Institute event in south Dallas. The institute based at Southern Methodist University in Dallas has sponsored a leadership training program for four years with a focus on Myanmar, a Southeast Asian country struggling with extreme inequities and ethnic cleansing.

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6:15 p.m.

A Dallas-Fort Worth television station owned and operated by NBC is apologizing for not airing warnings promptly as a tornado raked Dallas.

While other network-affiliated stations went wall-to-wall with weather coverage about the tornadoes Sunday night, including one that devastated parts of northern Dallas, KXAS stayed with the football game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles.

KXAS apologized in a statement issued Monday, saying it “made a mistake by not immediately interrupting the football game with a tornado warning.” Instead, it waited six minutes before breaking into the broadcast.

The station noted that it streamed live weather coverage on its website and gave updates with on-screen texts. But on reflection realizing “that seconds matter,” station officials now believe it “should have broken into football programming sooner.” Station officials promised to do everything in their power “to make sure this does not happen again.”

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5:30 p.m.

Weather officials say a tornado with estimated top winds of about 105 mph damaged an apartment building when it touched down in Memphis, Tennessee.

Car dealerships, a gas station and other businesses also were damaged as a storm packing heavy rain and strong winds blasted its way through Memphis on Monday morning.

A National Weather Service report says the EF1 tornado was on the ground for about two minutes after it touched down at 6:38 a.m.

An apartment complex in southeast Memphis suffered roof damage. Power lines and large trees were torn down in residential neighborhoods, blocking some streets.

About 35,000 customers lost power. That number was down to about 16,000 customers on Monday afternoon.

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5:30 p.m.

Weather officials say a tornado with estimated top winds of about 105 mph damaged an apartment building when it touched down in Memphis, Tennessee.

Car dealerships, a gas station and other businesses also were damaged as a storm packing heavy rain and strong winds blasted its way through Memphis on Monday morning.

A National Weather Service report says the EF1 tornado was on the ground for about two minutes after it touched down at 6:38 a.m.

An apartment complex in southeast Memphis suffered roof damage. Power lines and large trees were torn down in residential neighborhoods, blocking some streets.

About 35,000 customers lost power. That number was down to about 16,000 customers on Monday afternoon.

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5 p.m.

The National Weather Service says at least two tornadoes hit Arkansas during a stormy night that caused chaos across several states.

The agency says preliminary information shows an EF1 hit Sunday night in Tyronza, located in the northeast corner of the state. Jonesboro TV station KAIT reported that five people were injured there. The weather service did not have an estimate yet of the wind speed.

The agency also says that their survey team found tornado damage in the area of Siloam Springs, located in the northwest corner of the state. The weather service says tornado damage was also found across the state line in nearby Adair County in Oklahoma, but it was unclear if a single tornado caused damage in both areas or not.

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3:20 p.m.

The National Weather Service says the tornado that ripped through North Dallas had a maximum wind speed of 140 mph (225 kph).

The agency rated the Sunday night tornado as EF3. It says another tornado in the suburb of Rowlett was EF1, with maximum wind speeds of 100 mph (160 kph).

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses are without power Monday after the swathe of heavy storms hit Dallas before tracking northeast into Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a disaster declaration for 16 Texas counties.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson says the city was very fortunate to have suffered no fatalities or serious injuries.

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2:30 p.m.

Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a disaster declaration for 16 Texas counties following severe overnight storms including a tornado that battered parts of Dallas.

Abbott’s declaration Monday makes state resources available to local officials, plus waives certain regulations to allow utilities to bring in out-of-state resources.

The counties covered are: Cass; Cameron; Collin; Dallas; Ellis; Erath; Hunt; Kaufman; Lamar; Panola; Rains; Rockwall; Rusk; Tarrant; Van Zandt; and Wood.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses are without power after the swathe of heavy storms hit Dallas before tracking northeast into Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Several homes were seriously damaged by the tornado that struck near Dallas Love Field Airport, which was not damaged.

Mayor Eric Johnson says Dallas was very fortunate to have suffered no fatalities or serious injuries.

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1:30 p.m.

Authorities say severe thunderstorms are responsible for the deaths of three people in eastern Oklahoma.

Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Brooke Arbeitman says two teenage boys died of carbon monoxide poisoning late Sunday in Weleetka, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) east of Oklahoma City.

She says the 14- and 15-year-old boys were using a portable gas generator in a travel trailer after the storms knocked out power in the area.

Arbeitman says the father of the younger boy went to check on them early Monday and discovered their bodies.

Emergency management officials say another person died late Sunday night when a tree was blown onto a mobile home near Valliant, about 170 miles (275 kilometers) southeast of Oklahoma City.

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1:10 p.m.

One Dallas family says they sheltered in the bathtub and sang as a tornado tore their neighborhood apart but left their home largely intact.

Dustin and Lauren Collins said Monday that they consider themselves lucky that all they need to do is clear debris from their yard after the twister ripped through the area Sunday night.

Store fronts and roofs were ripped off at a nearby shopping center. Trees fell onto some homes.

Dustin Collins says the couple took shelter in the bathroom with their 8-month-old son after he saw the tornado warning on his phone.

Lauren Collins says they “just sat in the bathtub and sang songs, trying to keep everyone calm.”

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11:15 a.m.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson says citizens of Dallas should consider themselves lucky that no one was killed when a tornado touched down at night in a densely populated part of the city.

Johnson said at a news conference Monday morning that officials are still assessing damage. He says the city’s top priority has been making sure everyone is safe.

The National Weather Service says radar confirmed the tornado struck near Love Field Airport around 9 p.m. Sunday.

Homes have been heavily damaged, stop lights are out and large trees are down in the area.

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10:55 a.m.

Hundreds of flights have been canceled or delayed at airports in North Texas and Arkansas after a storm carrying at least one tornado hit.

Dallas Love Field spokesman Chris Perry says the airport wasn’t damaged by the twister that slammed a densely populated area near the travel hub Sunday night.

Flightaware.com reports that 63 flights are delayed and 18 have been canceled at Dallas Love Field on Monday. About 25 were canceled Sunday night.

The flight-tracking website says 78 flights are canceled at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Monday and more than 200 are delayed.

The Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, in Bentonville, is reporting it has canceled 17 flights Monday and about a dozen flight are delayed.

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9:10 a.m.

Strong storms that moved through Tennessee knocked down trees and power lines and caused minor damage at Memphis International Airport.

News outlets report Memphis Light, Gas and Water was reporting up to 35,000 customers without power Monday morning as the storms led to tornado warnings in the region.

Broken windows were reported at the airport, where spokesman Glenn Thomas said passengers in the concourses were directed to shelter in restrooms for a time.

Weather alerts for the area have expired and airport officials say operations are back to normal.

No injuries have been reported.

The weather system was the same one that spawned a tornado in Dallas.

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8:45 a.m.

A Home Depot store in north Dallas sustained major damage in severe storms that hit Dallas, but no one was injured.

The store’s manager tells Dallas TV station KDFW that he sent employees home early and shut down the store after seeing the forecast Sunday night. Images from the scene shows parts of the building collapsed with the roof missing.

The Home Depot damaged Sunday night was the site of a shooting in April 2018, when a suspected shoplifter opened fire, killing one police officer and wounding two others.

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7:40 a.m.

One person has been killed in severe storms that swept through Arkansas after a tree fell on a home early Monday.

The Benton County Department of Public Safety says the death happened at about 12:30 a.m. in Rogers, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson confirmed the fatality and said “significant storm damage” occurred in northwest Arkansas.

The storms, which struck the Dallas area late Sunday, moved through Arkansas in the early morning hours Monday. Several tornado warnings were issued, and damage was also reported in the northeast corner of the state.

Jonesboro TV station KAIT reports that a gas station was destroyed in the town of Tyronza, about 120 miles (190 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock. Poinsett County Sheriff Kevin Molder tells the TV station that at least two people were injured.

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7:10 a.m.

Dallas Stars player Tyler Seguin says his home was heavily damaged by severe storms that swept through Dallas, but no one was hurt.

The hockey player said on Twitter that he had moved to another home and that the property damaged late Sunday was listed for sale. He wrote: “I just left the area and it is an extremely sad sight to see.”

The National Weather Service says at least one tornado struck the north Dallas area on Sunday night, and other possible tornadoes were reported as well.

Heavy damage is reported throughout much of the Dallas area, and tens of thousands of people are without power.

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6:10 a.m.

Damage has been reported in parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas from severe storms that earlier spawned a tornado in the Dallas area.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses were without power, including the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Highfill, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock. The airport says flights were still departing, though security screenings were being done manually.

Tornado warnings were in effect Monday morning in far eastern Arkansas near the Mississippi River as the storm system moved to the east.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, says that areas of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee could see severe thunderstorms later Monday.

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5:05 a.m.

Dallas Fire-Rescue says there have been no reports of fatalities or serious injuries in the aftermath of a Sunday night tornado, but three people were hospitalized for evaluation of non-life-threatening injuries.

Spokesman Jason Evans says search teams conducted primary assessments on accessible structures for six hours overnight, but their efforts were “hampered by limited access and lack of proper lighting.” A second set of teams will resume search efforts in daylight.

Evans says the damage within Dallas is limited to an area bordered by Royal Lane to the north and Northwest Highway to the south, as well as Harry Hines Boulevard to the west and Interstate 75 to the east — essentially, northwest Dallas.

He says personnel initially responded to calls including “everything from power lines down, to fallen trees to people being injured inside of their homes by broken glass.” Fire-Rescue’s own Station 41 was left “uninhabitable” when high winds stripped the roof and other parts, but no firefighters were injured.

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3:15 a.m.

An electric utility says storms across Texas have caused significant damage to power lines, leaving more than 150,000 customers without power in East Texas.

Oncor said early Monday that there’s no estimated time of restoration. The utility says the damage to power lines took place east of Interstate 35, an area that includes Dallas.

The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touched down in Dallas late Sunday night near Love Field Airport. The NWS says a line of strong storms was moving through the Dallas-Fort Worth area early Monday.

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12:45 a.m.

The city of Dallas says it hasn’t received reports of fatalities or serious injuries after a tornado touched down Sunday, but it’s assessing the damage.

According to Oncor, nearly 112,000 customers are affected by power outages. Six Dallas Independent School District campuses have canceled class on Monday, as has The Episcopal School of Dallas.

The city says in a release that there are reports of gas leaks north of Walnut Hill. Approximately 35 traffic signals aren’t communicating.

The city of Dallas is preparing to open a shelter by 2 a.m.

Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans says in a release that the department is responding to a structural collapse, from which seven people made it out safely. He says the department has responded to multiple calls from people injured in their homes by broken glass.

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11:05 p.m.

The National Weather Service has confirmed that a tornado touched down in Dallas.

Meteorologist Jason Godwin says radar confirmed that the twister touched down Sunday night near Love Field Airport before moving northeast through the city.

Godwin says the size and severity of the tornado won’t be known until crews arrive to survey the damage. More stormy weather is expected in the area overnight.

WFAA reports a convenience store collapsed in the storm, but the clerk tells the station everyone who was inside made it out safely.

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10:40 p.m.

The National Weather Service says a possible tornado has moved through the Dallas area, causing some structural damage and downed power lines.

The weather service says the suspected twister moved through the city’s north side on Sunday night. Local media outlets report several structures have been damaged, trailers flipped and tree limbs scattered across roadways. Oncor’s website indicates more than 75,000 customers are without power.

Dallas police say officers in one part of the city were going door-to-door to check on residents.

The storm happened as multiple severe thunderstorm watches and warnings covered portions of four counties, including Dallas County.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — An effort by the U.S. Census Bureau to collect state driver’s license records as part of President Donald Trump’s order to gather citizenship information has been a bust so far.

As of Wednesday, the vast majority of state motor vehicle agencies had not agreed to share their records with the bureau, according to an Associated Press survey of the 50 states. The effort over the past couple of months has alarmed civil rights groups, which see it as part of a backdoor move by the Trump administration to reduce the political power of minorities.

In August, the bureau began requesting five years’ worth of driver’s license records, promising the information would be kept confidential. The effort began after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Trump’s administration plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, and the president instead ordered citizenship data compiled through federal and state administrative records.

At least 13 states have refused to share the driver’s license data, 17 are still deciding what to do, and 17 haven’t yet received a request, according to the AP survey. Three states didn’t respond to multiple AP queries.

Republican and Democratic states alike have said no, citing privacy concerns and prohibitions in state law.

“Philosophically, we believe the information in the database doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to the people who it pertains to,” Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said. “It’s not ours to give away.”

Two of the biggest states, California and New York, haven’t received requests yet. Three more of the top five most populous states — Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania — are deciding how to respond.

Census Bureau officials had no immediate comment.

Many states got calls or emails similar to one from a Census Bureau official asking an Arkansas Driver Services official if she had time to discuss the bureau’s “new and exciting project.”

Scott Hardin, a spokesman for the Arkansas agency, said: “We are currently working to determine whether the requested information is eligible for release.”

Utah officials turned down the request because state law says personal data can be shared only for public safety reasons, said Marissa Cote, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety in the Republican-leaning state.

Democratic-leaning Nevada also declined.

“We value our residents’ privacy and hesitate to release records in bulk,” said Kevin Malone, a spokesman for the motor vehicle agency.

States that haven’t decided how to respond said they were researching the legal and privacy implications. In issuing driver’s licenses, most states require documents such as a birth certificate that would reflect citizenship or require that recipients be either citizens or in the U.S. legally.

The American Civil Liberties Union has urged states to turn the Census Bureau down.

The ACLU and other civil rights groups say the requests are part of an overall strategy by the Trump administration to encourage states to use counts of citizens only, as opposed to total population, when redrawing state and local electoral districts. Such a move could make districts older, whiter and more Republican.

“This endeavor appears to be part of a scheme motivated by an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose to dilute the political power of communities of color,” said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.

The Census Bureau said in its requests that the driver’s license records would be used, in part, to help build a statistical model for calculating the number of citizens and noncitizens in the U.S.

Even though the president’s order requires collecting the citizenship information, Census Bureau officials are concerned that it could hinder efforts to get people to participate in the 2020 census. The bureau’s own research showed adding a citizenship question to the 2020 questionnaire would have reduced participation, making for a less accurate count.

Civil rights groups say driver’s license records do a poor job of showing if a person is a citizen.

They point to what happened earlier this year when Texas’ election chief gave prosecutors a list of 95,000 potential noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls. The list was drawn up with the help of motor vehicle records. But it turned out that many of those people had become citizens before casting their ballots.

The battle over whether citizen-only counts can be used for congressional reapportionment or redistricting at the state and local levels is being waged in federal courtrooms in Alabama and Maryland.

It has been longstanding practice in the U.S. to include immigrants living in the country illegally in census counts, which are also used to allocate billions of dollars in federal spending.

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Associated Press writers Grant Schulte in Lincoln, Nebraska; Andrew Demillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City; Michelle Price in Las Vegas; and David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

RUSSELS (AP) — The U.S. will send armored reinforcements into eastern Syria to bolster defenses against a potential move by Islamic State militants on oil fields controlled by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday.

Esper described the added force as “mechanized,” which would likely means it will include tanks and other combat vehicles such as Bradley armored infantry carriers. This would introduce a new dimension to the U.S. military presence , which largely has been comprised of special operations forces not equipped with tanks or other armored vehicles.

It also would partially reverse the ongoing shrinkage of the U.S. troop presence in Syria. President Donald Trump has ordered the withdrawal of nearly all 1,000 U.S. troops who had been partnering with a Syrian Kurdish-led militia against the Islamic State group. That withdrawal is proceeding even as Esper announced the plan to put reinforcements in the oil-producing area.

Although Esper did not mention the size of the U.S. reinforcements, it could total several hundred troops because fuel-guzzling tanks and other armored vehicles depend on a large supply and logistical support group.

Esper’s announcement came even as Trump again indicated in tweets that the U.S. military mission in Syria is completed. He previously has acknowledged a willingness to help protect the oil fields in eastern Syria, suggesting they could benefit the Kurds as well as the U.S., although those resources belong to the Syrian government.

“Oil is secured,” Trump tweeted Friday. “Our soldiers have left and are leaving Syria for other places, then…. COMING HOME! … When these pundit fools who have called the Middle East wrong for 20 years ask what we are getting out of the deal, I simply say, THE OIL, AND WE ARE BRINGING OUR SOLDIERS BACK HOME, ISIS SECURED!”

Asked about America’s shifting Syria strategy, Esper said the U.S. mission has always been to prevent the resurgence of IS. “That mission remains unchanged,” he said.

But Esper said at NATO that the U.S. is “considering how we might reposition forces in the area in order to ensure we secure the oil field.” He added: “We are reinforcing that position. It will include some mechanized forces.”

The defense secretary did not provide details on the makeup of the reinforcements. He made clear their main purpose is to prevent IS from regaining access to Syrian oil, which prior to 2017 was a major source of its revenue.

Starting in late 2015 and continuing for many months, the U.S. conducted airstrikes against a range of oil resources in the Deir el-Zour province that had been taken over by IS. The attacks damaged or knocked out oil tanker convoys, oil processing plants, storage facilities, pumping stations, pipelines and refineries. It was called Operation Tidal Wave II, after a World War II air campaign to hit Romania’s oil industry.

Esper said IS must not be allowed to again threaten the oil.

“If ISIS has access to the resources, and therefore the means to procure arms or to buy fighters or whatever else they do, then it means it makes it more difficult to defeat ISIS,” he said.

Esper’s comments at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels reflected one more change in what has been a rapidly shifting U.S. stance on American forces in Syria.

Just last week, Trump insisted that all American forces in Syria would come home. Then he said the 1,000 in the north would return home and that American troops in the south, numbering about 200 the Al-Tanf garrison in the south, would stay there.

Trump in the past days has turned a greater focus on the Syrian oil facilities in the eastern part of the country, saying U.S. will stay in Syria to protect them.

According to officials, top military leaders have pushed for the U.S. to leave forces in Syria to guard against an IS resurgence. While the group’s physical zone of control was largely destroyed by U.S. and Syrian Kurdish forces, insurgents remain in small pockets throughout the country and in Iraq.

Russian and Turkish leaders have now divided up security roles in northeast Syria following America’s abrupt troop withdrawal from the Turkey-Syrian border region. The American move triggered widespread criticism that the Trump administration had abandoned the Syrian Kurdish fighters who fought alongside the U.S. against IS for several years.

Trump spurred a fresh wave of condemnation when he tweeted Thursday that he had spoken with Syrian Kurdish military chief Mazloum Abdi and said that perhaps “it is time for Kurds to start heading to the Oil Region.” That was an apparent reference to the oil fields in Deir el-Zour. U.S. military commanders see that region as critical to holding off an IS resurgence there.

“We’ve secured the oil, and, therefore, a small number of U.S. troops will remain in the area where they have the oil,” Trump said. “And we’re going to be protecting it, and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.”

White House officials did not respond to requests for greater clarity about Trump’s tweet suggesting Kurds head to the oil region.

The Pentagon released a statement Thursday saying it was committed to sending additional military forces to eastern Syria to “reinforce” control of the oil fields and prevent them from “falling back to into the hands of ISIS or other destabilizing actors.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is confronting the limits of his main impeachment defense.

As the probe hits the one-month mark, Trump and his aides have largely ignored the details of the Ukraine allegations against him. Instead, they’re loudly objecting to the House Democrats’ investigation process, using that as justification for ordering administration officials not to cooperate and complaining about what they deem prejudicial, even unconstitutional, secrecy.

But as a near-daily drip of derogatory evidence emerges from closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill, the White House assertion that the proceedings are unfair is proving to be a less-than-compelling counter to the mounting threat to Trump’s presidency. Some senior officials have complied with congressional subpoenas to assist House Democratic investigators, defying White House orders.

Asked about criticism that the White House lacks a coordinated pushback effort and could do a better job delivering its message, spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said, “It’s hard to message anything that’s going on behind closed doors and in secret.”

“It’s like you’re fighting a ghost, you’re fighting against the air. So we’re doing the best we can,” she said on Fox News Channel.

It was a rare public admission from the White House that despite the Republican president’s bravado, real risks remain.

White House officials, who have been treating unified Republican support for Trump as a given, have grown increasingly fearful of GOP defections in a House impeachment vote and a potential Senate trial. While they do not believe there will be enough votes to remove the president, as Democrats hope, the West Wing believes more must be done to shore up Republican support to avoid embarrassment and genuine political peril.

Trump has been upset with his own top aides — including Grisham and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney — for not sufficiently changing the story line. Instead he relies on his Twitter account and Q&A sessions with reporters to launch daily attacks on the probe. And while Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has added to the smoke screen, much as he did during the Russia probe, the former New York City mayor has dramatically scaled back his media appearances since several of his associates were arrested in connection with Ukraine.

Complaining privately and publicly that Democrats “stick together” better than the GOP, Trump has leaned on Republican congressional allies to do more, according to White House officials and Republicans close to the West Wing. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.

At first, Trump was angry that his surrogates failed to defend him effectively. Those included House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who stumbled through a “60 Minutes” interview. Trump urged the GOP earlier this week to fight back, a lesson that was taken to heart by a group of conservative Republicans, including members of the Freedom Caucus, who stormed a Capitol Hill hearing room on Wednesday to disrupt testimony in the probe.

Trump allies cheered that maneuver, believing it showed that Republicans throughout Washington were coming to grips with the severity of the situation.

But the GOP complaints still are largely about process and may have limited potency: Trump’s defenders are complaining that the interviews are being conducted in secret, which may soon change, and that Republicans are not involved, though GOP members can ask questions right alongside the Democrats.

The contradictions are telling.

On Thursday, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a top ally of Trump, introduced a resolution condemning the Democratic-controlled House for pursuing a “closed door, illegitimate impeachment inquiry.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is a co-sponsor of that measure.

But Graham also said he’s talked to Mulvaney about what seems to be a lackluster White House pushback.

During President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, Graham said, “he had a team that was organized, had legal minds that could understand what was being said versus the legal proceedings in question. And they were on message every day.” Republicans have been complaining for weeks that the Trump White House has no such defense system in place — partly a result of the inability to identify qualified talent but also Trump’s own qualms about projecting concern in the face of the investigation.

“I think they’re working on getting a messaging team together,” Graham said.

Democrats reject Trump arguments that the House interview process is unfair, and White House officials privately acknowledge their legal objections may not win the day. But they believe it’s a political argument that will hold sway with the American people.

However, the White House strategy comes with an expiration date: In coming weeks, the closed-door testimony will give way to public hearings. Democrats are expected to call a narrow group of witnesses to testify that Trump encouraged Ukraine to conduct investigations that could benefit him politically in 2020 and to address whether those requests were tied to conditions for giving Ukraine military aid and a White House meeting.

Some Trump allies believe the White House can’t afford not to directly address what’s already been revealed. They note that as more Trump appointees offer disparaging information to Congress, and as it is corroborated by official sources, the president will have increasing difficulty simply complaining he is the target of a new “witch hunt.”

The president continues to insist he has done nothing wrong, a contention that can be difficult to square with the testimony coming on a nearly daily basis from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Tuesday’s testimony by the top U.S. envoy to Ukraine, William Taylor, only raised the stakes as he gave House impeachment investigators a detailed roadmap of Trump’s efforts to squeeze that country’s leaders for damaging information about his Democratic political rivals. Taylor, who read a lengthy opening statement, is expected to be a star witness at the Democrats’ planned public hearings.

Though the White House derided Taylor’s testimony as third-hand information, he vividly described, with the help of contemporaneous notes, his concerns about a parallel foreign policy apparatus run by Giuliani that involved American military aid being withheld unless Ukraine’s newly elected president announced an investigation into the Democrat Joe Biden and his son.

Wary of any erosion of GOP support, White House aides are stepping up their outreach to Republican lawmakers, through meetings, conference calls and informal retreats like the one hosted by Mulvaney last weekend at Camp David.

While the White House operation plays catch-up, Trump’s outside allies have also been bolstering their own anti-impeachment messaging.

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon launched a new daily radio show and podcast this week titled “War Room: Impeachment.”

And things are getting better in the White House and on Capitol Hill, said Trump 2016 campaign adviser Jason Miller, who is a co-host of the Bannon effort. “The uptick in energy and focus that we’ve seen from all parties this week, I think has been a welcome sign for Trump allies.”

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AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Lisa Mascaro and Alan Fram contributed to this report.